new song

There was a time in the beginning of Sublime’s recent revival when Jakob Nowell, the son of the band’s late singer Bradley Nowell, saw himself simply as a good son trying to help his adoptive uncles — drummer Bud Gaugh and bassist Eric Wilson — restart his dad’s iconic Long Beach trio. The goal wasn’t to take the place of his frontman father who died of an overdose in 1996. “I’ll never look at it as my band. Sublime is my dad’s band, and I’m helping out, that’s all,” he told The Times in 2024. Luckily, he was wrong.

The journey of finding his own voice through his father’s sly, shambolic poetry and reggae rock anthems, along with his determination on the road with Gaugh and Wilson through a barrage of festivals and tour dates helped him eventually step into his own as a songwriter and Gen Z rock star. It’s all been done with the mission to preserving his dad’s legacy and having fun while doing it. Now it feels as natural as the trio sitting together on the waterfront in LBC’s shoreline marina within earshot of the bellowing horn of the Queen Mary earlier this year as they were finishing the recording of “Until the Sun Explodes,” the first album under the Sublime moniker in 30 years.

Just like the band’s original recipe of shoving punk, dub reggae, hip-hop and ska into a blender, the new songs dutifully stick to the formula along with Jakob’s soulful caterwauls that sound scarily similar to his dad. But what emerges from the 21-song tracklist is the evolution of a trademark sound that gives a nod to the past while standing strong on its own, just like Jakob, despite coming to the interview on crutches while healing from a performance-related knee injury. The band members chatted with The Times about recapturing the effortless essence of their immortal beach-ready sound and looking forward to a second chance to chase an endless summer.

This interview was edited for length and clarity

It’s kind of a rare thing for all three of you guys to be in one place at the same time. What was it like working in the studio together to finish the new album?

Bud Gaugh: Magical. Things are just coming together. We showed up, Jake had an idea for another song, and he sent us a little demo and said “Hey, this is what I’ve been thinking about.” And then we get down to the studio [in San Pedro], and he’s like, “Oh yeah, so I had another idea,” and kind of changed it. We jumped in there [and by the end of our sessions, we had written] brand new songs to the list of songs that we already had.

The band’s revival has been a long time in the making. I remember when you guys had your first show together, a surprise gig a couple years ago as part of a benefit show for the Bad Brains frontman H.R. Do you feel you’ve come a long way since then?

Eric Wilson: I never thought the chemistry would be like it was with Bradley.

Jakob Nowell: Especially now that we’ve been playing together this long, the chemistry is very much there. We’re just comfortable and having fun. Jamming together is the best. We get in there to do a take for a song, and I’m always like “Let’s just do like three more!” It’s just that much fun, and that’s how it feels playing live too.

When did the idea for creating a new album come about?

Gaugh: It was pretty much just while we were playing shows, At first, the idea was that we were getting together to do this benefit for H.R. [at Teragram Ballroom in December 2023]. We went from “How’s this going to work?” and then [after the show] it was like, “Wow, this is something special. We should definitely go out and play some more shows, and get this music out there and get the opportunity to bring the music to the people in the purest form that we possibly could.” As we’re doing that, it’s like we’re seeing the reaction in the fans, and we were feeling it emotionally. We realized this is going to be bigger than we ever thought. That’s when we really decided where it was going to go.

Jakob Nowell, right, once thought Sublime was only his late father’s band; now, fronting the Long Beach trio, he’s leading a new chapter that still honors Bradley Nowell’s legacy.

(Allen J. Schaben / Los Angeles Times)

Were any of the songs on the new album mined from previously unreleased material or did you start fresh?

Nowell: There was that song we did with Stick Figure [“Feel Like That”], so I think that kind of inspired us. [We realized] “Oh s—, there really is some meat on the bone.” And then I had found some old recordings of stuff that were just like jams without even like vocals or whatever. Then it became just this thing during sound check or maybe in the middle of sets, we’d just start jamming these random progressions and stuff, and it kind of just evolved from there naturally.

The new songs that I’ve heard fit right in the vein of what people love about Sublime. What was it like putting some of those new songs in the setlist as you were building them?

Nowell: It was like magic. We were joking yesterday that sometimes we’ll play a new song for the first time just randomly and I’d see people try mouthing the lyrics and stuff and I’ll say “you’ve never even heard this before! I know you haven’t. We don’t even really know what the hell we’re saying.”

Gaugh: You frontin’! [Laughs]

Nowell: But [the new material] sounded like it was supposed to be there, so it was kind of a rad little test in a lot of ways. We almost don’t even have to think about it. That’s always going to be the guiding goal of any band trying to make fun music that’s relatable.

Wilson: What if you’re Slayer? That’s not true if you’re Slayer.

Jakob, it seems like you’ve gotten a lot more comfortable in the frontman role since joining the band. What’s it like just taking the lead, not just for the sake of your dad, but for the fans?

Nowell: Oh, dude, it’s the best. I don’t even have to think about it. We really feel like this is — we’re a band, you know?

Gaugh: It’s [Jakob’s] band too. Now it’s our band. It’s us.

Nowell: It feels like that whenever we’re hanging out, just doing stuff, or at the studio or at these shows. So, this upcoming year feels like a really rad adventure. We got all these different eras [of fans] — people who were in their 50s when [Sublime’s] first stuff dropped, who are still alive, and then their kids and their grandkids and great grandkids. Everybody finds a piece of the discography they can relate to. That’s what is most exciting. It’s not just one or two songs, people sing along to everything.

I was at Warped Tour in Long Beach last year when you guys played and —

Nowell: That was my favorite set!

To me that felt like it encapsulated what you were talking about with the multigenerational groups of fans that have enjoyed you guys and associate you with Long Beach.

Gaugh: It was like a homecoming for me. I remembered playing the Chili Cook off, you know, right over there in the same area [as Warped Tour], and it was just bringing me back 30 years. It’s so meaningful to be in our backyard playing our music again, right there. This is where it all started. It’s come full circle.

Nowell: It was like playing at a local bar in a cool way. I had this huge group of people up front, they were just talking and shouting and saying stuff, like f–ing with us and joking around. I was like “Damn this is great!”

How about you, Eric? How’d you feel playing Warped?

Wilson: [Mumbles] It was f–ing awesome.

Now that you’ve played all these festival shows, from Coachella to No Values, you’ve got your own festival going on. Can you talk a little bit about Sublime Fest and your Sublime Reef Madness Cruise and how you came up with it?

Nowell: We could put on a bunch of the bands we love, and some of our boys, like Vandals, and make it our own vibe.

Gaugh: You walk around Coachella and there’s so many different elements there. Wouldn’t it be neat if we could make like all this like a Long Beach element, a Sublime element. Looking at this thing, it’s like “Oh wow. So we can actually get some of our friends and set up like a tattoo booth, and have our idea of art and everything out there, and mix it all together — food, art, music — bringing all these different elements, and friends of ours that play music. We get to decide who’s going to share the stage with us, so it’s really neat. It’s like planning a high school party or something like that.

Nowell: The biggest backyard party ever seen.

You guys always had your own sound going on, what’s it like to see that the fans still want it?

Wilson: It took a lotta years to catch on, but it did.

Nowell: Yeah, the kids really want that, like ‘90s, Y2K kind of vibe. That was the last era of like cool authenticity and stuff. You can see it when young people make stuff to look retro … when things get so high fidelity, we’re almost losing a little element, so I think these festivals kind of seek to bring some of that back in a way that everybody can get into.

With “Until the Sun Explodes,” Sublime’s first album in three decades, Jakob Nowell, Bud Gaugh and Eric Wilson rediscover their studio chemistry, jamming new songs that feel instantly familiar onstage.

(Allen J. Schaben / Los Angeles Times)

You guys also have the timeless iconography of the Sublime sun logo. The title of the album is “Until the Sun Explodes.” Does that title have any particular meaning to you?

Nowell: It’s almost just another way of saying “forever,” like “Oh baby I’m gonna love you till the sun blows up.” That’s gonna happen in billions of years, if at all. The fact that [Sublime’s] lasted this long and has this many fans is evidence to me that we wanna be here forever. I think that’s what everybody wants for themselves.

Jake, you’ve taken steps to advance your own aspirations and music with your label, Sunburnt Records, how does that fit into where Sublime is right now?

I was inspired by the whole Skunk Records thing [Sublime’s first label], Evan Zinger with [his lifestyle brand] SRH, and just all the local brands I grew up with when I was a kid. So just trying to do a cool, chill local thing that has that vibe of putting on small shows and kind of getting to use this new notoriety to be like, man, I have so many friends in these small bands like Strange Case and Eight Ball, and other bands up and down Southern California. Let’s put on shows and sneak them on a Sunburnt Stage at [Sublime Fest] and if people really like that Sublime sound here’s a bunch of kids who are carrying the torch like Slightly Stoopid did when they started out. Mike Watt always said “start your own band!” So the more we can inspire people to do that and be some small part of that, it’s a dream come true.

Do you feel like this version of Sublime is something Brad would be proud of?

Gaugh: We all kind of brought our own element to the music orignally. So we just kind of followed that recipe. Jake’s his own person, he’s got his own influences, and we just kind of stick with that idea. Jake brings in his feelings, and Eric brings in his and we sat there and recorded this song, and then as we were recording it, we’re coming up with ideas. It’s like, “Oh wait, we should do this here, slow that down there, stop here,” it’s all a conglomeration of ideas, everyone does their part, brings in their own spices and we mix it in a pot like gumbo.

Will Ferrell has done the Will Ferrell thing for so long — playing embarrassingly self-absorbed doofuses, both fictional and based on real people — that it’s easy to forget that when it counts, he can still serve as the glue on “Saturday Night Live.”

For his sixth time hosting the show since leaving the cast in 2002, Ferrell had plenty of those doofuses to portray, including a “Nudeman” dad whose underwear are exposed in the rear when he meets his daughter’s boyfriend. But in sketch after sketch on the show, he showed his usual 100% commitment to every character, even when he was playing himself in the monologue doing a bit about an identity mix-up with Red Hot Chili Peppers drummer Chad Smith. (Smith stuck around for the whole show, sitting in with the “SNL” band and playing drums for Paul McCartney.)

The ability to stay in character no matter how absurd the premise served Ferrell well yet again whether he was playing a doctor who accidentally chopped off a man’s penis (Mikey Day, trying hard not to laugh), a halfling in a “Lord of the Rings”-style fantasy clip who betrays his fellowship, a gibberish-speaking mechanic, and a cruel high school drama teacher (along with another former cast member, Molly Shannon) withholding a cast list for “Grease.” He also made a surprising appearance in the cold open as the ghost of Jeffrey Epstein.

Ferrell was an ideal closer for Season 51, which has largely been about developing relatively new talent in the cast, including rising stars Ashley Padilla, Jeremy Culhane and Marcello Hernández. Ferrell gelled with each of them and everybody else, doing the Will Ferrell thing, which still works tremendously well after all these years.

Musical guest Paul McCartney appeared in Ferrell’s monologue and in the mechanic sketch, and performed a new song, “Days We Left Behind,” as well as “Band on the Run” and “Coming Up” at the end of the show while the credits were shown.

After an absence of a few weeks, President Trump (James Austin Johnson) returned, sleepy from his trip to China. After a non-apology for not bringing Vice President J.D. Vance (Culhane) with him, Trump fell asleep on a gold bar from Switzerland before being visited by Epstein (Ferrell), who makes a series of jokes and insinuations about his association with Trump. When Trump bemoans his low approval rating in the 30s, Epstein responds, “The 30s? Gross, call me when it hits 17.” But Epstein, who claims Hell is “really, really hot” and includes Joseph Stalin and John Wayne Gacy, is there to show Trump the future, one in which former Secretary of Homeland Security Kristi Noem (Padilla) is selling vacuum cleaners on the Home Shopping Network and Secretary of Defense Pete Hegseth (Colin Jost) and FBI Director Kash Patel (a returning Aziz Ansari) are co-hosting a bro podcast while sharing a giant beer bong. Trump believes the podcast is a signal that by then, the war in Iran will be over. “We came in second,” Epstein assures him. The two then launched into a version of “Just the Two of Us” before almost kissing ahead of launching into “Live from New York… It’s ‘Saturday Night!’”

Even eagle-eyed viewers might have needed a full minute or so to realize that the person on stage delivering the monologue was not actually Will Ferrell but Red Hot Chili Peppers drummer Chad Smith, who has been doing an extended gag for more than a decade about their uncanny resemblance. Ferrell followed, wearing the same gray suit, claiming, “He pushed me down backstage. And I fell hard. Lorne (Michaels) had to give me mouth to mouth.” Ferrell tried to do a hard reset of the monologue but couldn’t get the vibe back. He turned to the audience for questions, but only found McCartney there, who still couldn’t tell the difference between the host and the drummer. Ferrell listed many of the songs that McCartney has written (which weren’t performed on the show this time out), but pointed out that there are a few great songs he didn’t write, including “Timber” featuring Pitbull.

Best sketch of the night: Did you at least check the sprog box on your Rav4?

In a piece that calls itself, “What It Feels Like Talking to a Mechanic,” Ferrell plays an auto expert telling a clueless couple (Day and Padilla) that their vehicle needs a lot of work. But he uses completely foreign terms including “dong rod gasket” and a “camber” that’s out of whack and rotting to describe what’s wrong. Another specialist (Hernández) arrives, who describes the car’s ailments in funny noises and partly in Spanish. “You need a new trans person,” he declares. He also expects them to return every six days and come to his private party. A third mechanic (McCartney) found the steering wheel is on the wrong side and that their “tipsy wispy” is all “dangly goodly.” The absurdity level keeps rising, but it will feel familiar to anyone who’s ever felt like their mechanic is speaking in an entirely different language. The only false step in the sketch is the ending, which goes on on a cheap joke.

Also good: That white flag he was carrying around should have been a tip-off

It’s been a bit shocking how good some of the pre-filmed pieces this season have looked, including this one, a “Lord of the Rings” Midnight Matinee sketch called “Bobbin’s Sacrifice.” It features, with quite good special effects and costumes, a full cast of orcs, elves and dwarves during a castle siege, as well as Ferrell as a little Hobbit-looking halfling named Bobbin who bravely volunteers to destroy a bridge that separates the heroes from the monsters. However, once outside the castle gates, Bobbin proudly declares in song that he’s switching sides. And not just switching, but offering the orcs blueprints of the castle and giving them magic items he stole from his friends. Things don’t end so well for Bobbin, but at least he goes out memorably and with a song in his heart.

‘Weekend Update’ winner: How does one apply to be a Blast Boy?

“Update” traditionally does a joke-off between co-hosts Jost and Michael Che in which each writes jokes the other has to read. This edition wasn’t too surprising: Jost was made to spew racist jokes about black vampires (in reference to “Sinners”) and using his Staten Island Ferry to ship Black people “back to the motherland.” Che was made to make light of molestation claims against Michael Jackson. The segment ended up being one of the weaker joke-offs, ending with the threat of Jost getting his hair cut off by a barber on live television (it didn’t happen). Surprisingly, the joke-off was not as funny as Culhane’s return as Mr. On Blast, a guy with takes that are far from hot. Example: “AI? More like P.U.” “Metaverse? Why don’t you go read a Bible verse?” Mr. On Blast punctuates his weak jokes with very entertaining dance moves punctuated with sound effects. This time out, the character deployed a new catch phrase, “Devout!” in reference to being both Christian and Jewish, and he brought out bearded backup dancers called Blast Boys. Culhane was on point and is a lock to return next season for more fun like this.

If you were to go by “Saturday Night Live” hosting performance alone, you might think that the best way to ensure a memorable, well rounded and surprisingly funny show is to book a female pop star — preferably one with some child-acting experience.

With apologies to Harry Styles, it’s been pop stars including Ariana Grande, Sabrina Carpenter, Dua Lipa and now Olivia Rodrigo who’ve shown themselves to be naturals at adapting their on-stage talents to the Studio 8H stage for “SNL.”

And while she might not have crushed it to the degree of Grande (something about the Bowen Yang era of the show and Grande seemed in perfect lockstep with each other), Rodrigo was a very good host. Whatever she lacked in sketch comedy chops, she more than made up for as musical guest, world-premiering a new song called “begged,” and singing in several sketches, including a memorable one about a girl in a zoo on a planet of bug people (we’ll get to that).

After a charming monologue in which she also sang, Rodrigo played a scheming woman in a “Dynasty”-like nighttime soap opera from the 1980s, “Edge of Destiny,” where people kept falling down the stairs. The mix of physical comedy, distant cue cards and having to keep from breaking character as cast members flopped down a set of fake stairs seemed almost too much for the guest host. But she recovered nicely in another solid (and hilariously gross) “Shop TV” sketch about a baker (Rodrigo) who makes lava cakes that look a lot like anuses.

She also played a woman competing with her ex-boyfriend (Ben Marshall) at a birthday party by pretending to have a date (he does the same with a wacky Ashley Padilla). She also played a cheating romantic partner in a musical sketch about getting busted, a rideshare passenger whose driver (Andrew Dismukes) discovers he has a talent for Jamaican dancehall rapping, and a TikToker employed by a home security company to take viral videos of burglars.

Rodrigo’s songs were tremendous, especially “begged,” but it was hard for any of the sketches to top Aziz Ansari’s appearance as FBI Director Kash Patel, which drew the biggest non-musical audience reaction of the show when he appeared in the cold open.

As musical guest, Rodrigo performed her latest single “drop dead,” introduced by Debbie Harry, and a new song, “begged,” introduced by recent host and “Heated Rivalry” star Connor Storrie.

It was the rare cold open without a rambling James Austin Johnson performance as President Trump. Instead, after a clever opening title card (“You’re watching A-Span. Of your life disappear. Watching C-SPAN.”), White House press secretary Karoline Leavitt (Padilla) talked about her upcoming maternity leave before introducing “The man, the myth, the liability,” Secretary of Defense Pete Hegseth (Colin Jost). Hegseth talked about the war in Iran with its “sick air raids. This war has been a movie … specifically ‘The Neverending Story.’ ” Hegseth fielded a few questions, belittling reporters as he’s done before, answering the question of when the war will end: “That’s like asking when is sex gonna be over,” he replied, “Answer: when the man is done.” Hegseth introduced Patel (Ansari), who fast-talked his way through a defense of his alleged drinking and spending. From low hanging fruit (“We dotted every T and bulged every I”) to a much sharper takedown of Patel (“I’m the first Indian person to suck at their job”), Ansari brought his Tom Haverford from “Parks and Recreation” energy, particularly when describing jumping on the couch at a night club screaming, “Who wants the nuclear codes? J/K, I ain’t got ‘em!”

Rodrigo’s monologue began by acknowledging how young the 23-year-old pop star really is: they say your favorite “SNL” cast is the one you saw when you were a teenager and hers, she said, was the current cast. After teasing her new album out next month, she showed a clip of a commercial she did for Old Navy and mentioned working with Jake Paul on the Disney Channel show “Bizaardvark.” Paul, she said, once told her, “I really want to beat up old guys on Netflix!” and they both achieved their dreams. Rodrigo then played at a piano a take of her first hit single “drivers license,” focused on getting a Real ID at the DMV and all that it requires. “Passport, W2, first-born son / Gas bill, body count, bra size, how long will this be? I’ll just use my old fake ID,” she sang.

Best sketch of the night: They even have Olivia-shaped popsicles!

Unsurprisingly, the best of the night was one of Rodrigo’s musical performances, this time a pre-taped music video about a girl who loves her perfect bedroom. It’s got a purple corded phone, a lava lamp, a beanbag chair … and it happens to be a habitat at a zoo on a planet of bug people. The wistful, lovely song is accompanied by weird visuals of the aliens, who look like praying mantises, admiring the human specimen through the room’s windows, applauding when she goes to the bathroom and taking pictures. There are enough bizarre touches, such as a VHS version of “A League of Their Own” with aliens in human skin suits, a bug protester and an unsuccessful male mate (Johnson), that quite a bit of world building happens in the short span of the very catchy tune. Can we get this song on Apple Music and Spotify, please?

Also good: Cute — cake frosting on the nose. Sexy — mashed potatoes all over the face.

Former “SNL” cast member Kristen Wiig had a talent for introducing characters whose one bizarre trait, expertly performed, could drive a whole sketch. These days, it’s Ashley Padilla (maddeningly, she’s still billed as a “Featured Player”) who is able to elevate a potentially annoying character with a collection of hilarious tics and a lot of boundary overstepping. In a sketch about a broken-up couple (Rodrigo and Marshall) who try to make each other jealous by glomming on to fake new dates, Padilla laughs too loudly, smears mashed potatoes all over Marshall’s face, gives an unhinged speech that includes, “We are to be married at midnight! Now let us pray.” It seems like every episode of late has had one sketch reserved for Padilla to show her way with these types of self-unaware characters, and this was another great showcase for her.

‘Weekend Update’ winner: Podcasters are at war and it’s hard to understand why

If you don’t know why “Call Her Daddy” podcaster Alex Cooper (Chloe Fineman) and TikToker and “Hot Mess” podcaster Alix Earle (Veronika Slowikowska) are feuding, trust us, you are not alone. Their apparent beef, which has been speculated about by very online people and, weirdly, business reporters, is now “Weekend Update” fodder, with the women comparing their fight to a “literal Chernobyl for white women.” Perhaps the best part was Michael Che’s complete bafflement as to who these women are and why they’re mad at each other. Elsewhere, Kam Patterson continued his streak of clunky “Update” segments, this time vying for a date with Megan Thee Stallion after her breakup with NBA player Klay Thompson. In describing himself, Patterson said, “Some say he’s finding his voice more every week.” Unfortunately for Patterson, there’s only two episodes left in the season.

Anyone who thinks Coachella’s biggest surprises are reserved for Weekend 1 was proven wrong Friday night as Sabrina Carpenter welcomed Madonna on stage during her Weekend 2 headlining set. The crowd exploded with waves of cheers as the iconic pop star came on stage.

Madge joined Carpenter as a surprise guest during “Juno,” in which Carpenter reemerged in a gown that was a nod to Botticelli’s “The Birth of Venus” for a torch-passing duet of Madonna’s 1990 pop-house gauntlet “Vogue.”

The classic was followed by the debut of the gloriously upbeat “I Feel Free,” the first track from the pop icon’s forthcoming new album “Confessions II,” due out July 3.

The singer announced the record, a sequel to 2005’s “Confessions On A Dancefloor,” on April 15, alongside a 60-second teaser video for “I Feel Free.”

The Coachella performance, however, marks the first time the song has been heard in full — a fitting full circle moment 20 after Madonna played the Sahara Tent in 2006, complete with the same boots and costuming from that gig. “Confessions II” will be Madonna’s first full-length album since 2019’s “Madame X.”

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“Let’s try to be together. Let’s try to avoid disagreements,” Madonna said as she spoke about the moon and planets aligning.

Before the pair ended with “Like a Prayer,” accompanied by a choir, Madonna had another reason to be grateful.

“This is probably the first time I’ve ever performed with someone shorter than me,” Madonna said to Carpenter as the crowd laughed. “Thank you for giving me that experience.”

Senior Audience Editor Vanessa Franko contributed to this report.