Bittersweet Buzz

By JERRY CROWE

Aug. 29, 1997 12 AM PT

TIMES STAFF WRITER

With the group’s songs and videos receiving almost ‘round-the-clock airplay on radio and MTV these days, there has never been a better time to be associated with the Long Beach ska-punk band Sublime.

Nor a worse time.

While the runaway success of its third album, “Sublime,” has brought national recognition to a group that had been virtually unknown outside Southern California, it has also served as a painful and constant reminder that the band effectively died on May 25, 1996.

The trio’s mastermind, singer-songwriter-guitarist Bradley Nowell, injected a fatal dose of heroin that day in a San Francisco hotel room.

When Sublime’s major-label debut was released two months later on Gasoline Alley/MCA Records, few in the record industry expected it to make much of an impact without a working band mobilized to promote it.

But, in one of the most surprising developments of the year in pop music, “Sublime” continues to pick up steam some 13 months after its release, spawning four hit singles--”What I Got,” “Santeria,” “Wrong Way” and “Doin’ Time”--and building a financial nest egg for Nowell’s widow, Troy, and the couple’s 2-year-old son, Jakob.

The album, No. 16 on this week’s Billboard Top 200, has sold more than 2 million copies.

And while the estates of rappers Tupac Shakur and the Notorious B.I.G. have discovered during the last year that there is no greater boon to record sales than the untimely death of a pop star, “Sublime” seems to have climbed the charts despite Nowell’s death--not because of it.

Though Sublime, formed in the mid-’80s, had scored a KROQ novelty hit with “Date Rape” in 1995, neither of its first two albums sold well enough to reach the Billboard Top 200.

So, when “Sublime” hit big, not much was known about the band outside its home base.

“I really believe that at least half the people who have purchased the album are not aware that the group is no longer [active],” says Abbey Konowitch, executive vice president and general manager of MCA Records. “The band is alive and well on MTV.”

Indeed, Nowell has appeared, via concert footage, in the videos from the album’s first three hits. And he’ll be in a fourth, for “Doin’ Time,” which will be finished next month.

Nowell’s former bandmates Eric Wilson, 27, and Floyd “Bud” Gaugh, 29, know the reality, however--and so do his other closest survivors. They’re all left with conflicting emotions as the album approaches the Top 10.

“It’s great that the music’s out there because Bradley and the band deserve the success,” says the group’s manager, Jon Phillips. “But Bradley’s death--and the fact that he’s not around to experience this--is something that I dwell on every day. It’s the biggest buzz kill you could ever live. . . .

“I know I haven’t enjoyed the success. I haven’t had any fun over the last year and a half.”

It has been equally difficult for Nowell’s family, which had already endured the pain of trying to help him battle his addictions.

“For me personally, the success of the album hasn’t helped at all,” says Nowell’s father, Jim, a retired Long Beach contractor. “It has probably made it worse because it keeps his death right in my face.

“I’m happy it has given some financial security to his wife and son, but I wish it hadn’t been so popular and it was all over now. Emotionally, that would have been much easier.”

But the music won out.

Jeff Pollack, owner of the nation’s largest radio programming consulting firm, says the timing was right for Sublime’s swirling mix of musical styles--from folk-blues to hip-hop, surf to reggae.

“There has never been a better time for this kind of ska-flavored music in terms of radio acceptance,” he says. “Sublime is an example of a group whose time came with a perfect record.

“The tragedy of a band member dying just before it came out does not explain why it’s so popular. It’s just a really good record.”

MCA’s Konowitch, in fact, says the circumstances surrounding Nowell’s death at age 28--”There’s nothing sexy or attractive about dying from a heroin overdose”--made some programmers uneasy.

“Early on, radio stations resisted playing the record because they didn’t want to leave the impression they were condoning drug use,” the executive says. “But the consumers spoke loud and passionately and radio stations throughout America decided they wanted to climb aboard the Sublime bandwagon.”

Once the album started to take off commercially, MCA asked surviving members Wilson and Gaugh to mine the vaults for more Sublime material.

They’ve come up with several potential albums--about 16-18 unreleased songs, alternate takes, live recordings and acoustic material featuring a solo Nowell--and Konowitch says MCA plans to release at least two Sublime collections during the next 18 months. The first, an album of outtakes from the “Sublime” sessions, titled “Secondhand Smoke,” is due Nov. 4.

In addition, a special EP that includes “What I Got” and “Doin’ Time,” among other tracks, will go on sale next month at Wal-Mart and Kmart stores, which are not carrying “Sublime” because the album carries a lyric-advisory sticker.

And Sublime’s 1994 album, “40 Oz. to Freedom,” has benefited from the rise of “Sublime,” selling more than 540,000 copies during the last year and a half after selling only about 110,000 copies during its first year in stores, according to SoundScan. It is No. 6 this week on the catalog album sales chart.

Meanwhile, Wilson and Gaugh and several other members of the “Sublime posse” have formed the Long Beach Dub All-Stars, a collection of musicians whose mostly local shows during the last few months have offered kind of a tribute to Sublime, with various friends filling in as vocalists.

“Since a lot of [the new fans] didn’t get to see the band live, we thought we’d get something together to kind of re-create a similar sound and to try to play the songs like we did on the album,” Gaugh says.

“We’re going to try to tour the whole country so the kids can see sort-of a Sublime show.”

Out of respect for Nowell, however, Gaugh says the band will never record as Sublime.

Still, the music lives on.

Any time he turns on the radio, Jim Nowell can’t escape it.

What does he do?

“I don’t tune in much.”