scratchtag.com | Tag Archive

Listen: Sublime With Rome f/ Wiz Khalifa “Can You Feel It”

Posted on 22. Jun, 2011 by JD.

0

With the death of frontman Bradley Nowell in 1996, the Long Beach trio Sublime suffered a huge loss, both in their personal lives and their careers. Over a decade later, the remaining members are finally starting to gain some traction. The group has a charismatic new frontman named Rome Ramirez and for the first time ever, Sublime With Rome will be releasing an album of all new material.

Yours Truly comes out July 12. Until then, check out “Can You Feel It” featuring Wiz Khalifa and head over toiTunes to hear samples of the whole album.

Tags: Sublime, MTV Shows

Continue Reading

New Music – Sublime With Rome: Panic

Posted on 09. May, 2011 by JD.

0

Sublime With Rome’s song ‘Panic’ from the upcoming album due out this summer on Fueled By Ramen. Visit sublimewithrome.com for more!

YouTube – Sublime With Rome: Panic Audio.

Continue Reading

Rome’s New Ride | etnies

Posted on 26. Apr, 2011 by JD.

0

Rome’s New Ride

POSTED BY ALEX IN THE INFLUENCE | THURSDAY, APRIL 21, 2011 SKIP TO THE COMMENTS (0)

Rome of SUBLIME came by the office today to hang before heading out on tour in Latin America, Europe and then back home to tour with 311.

Check out the new whip… freshly painted matte black. You better believe that sucker’s fully loaded, including a train horn… ears… still ringing.

Rome’s New Ride / Blog / etnies – Action Sports Footwear and Apparel.

Continue Reading

From doc star to rock star with Sublime

Posted on 11. Nov, 2010 by JD.

1

Dr. Todd Forman is taking time off from his family practice in Newport Beach to tour with the rock band “Sublime with Rome.” Forman, who has played sax since age 9, started playing with the original band “Sublime” when he was attending Harvard. The band’s original lineup earned two platinum albums.

NEWPORT BEACH – He hung his stethoscope and white coat behind the door.

“Cancel my afternoon appointments,” family physician Todd Forman told his staff one day last year.

In the parking garage, Forman yanked off his gray scrubs and pulled on jeans and a T-shirt. It was hard to calm the butterflies from the previous night’s call that had left him jumping up and down.

This was it. His second chance.

“It’s the kind of dream most people don’t think they can ever reach,” Forman says.

This from a man who graduated Harvard, UCLA med school; taught at USC; and now, as a husband and father of two, ran a successful medical practice.

He’d just spent the morning treating patients with high-blood pressure, ear infections and diabetes. Took a skin biopsy, stitched up a wound, and now …

He parked outside a Fountain Valley warehouse. Lifted two cases from his trunk. Carried them down a long hall.

Who are you?

“I’m the horn player.”

Horn player? Nobody told us about a horn player.

Inside, what was once one of the biggest bands in the world was staging a comeback. It would start in four days before 16,000 fans. Then it would circle the globe – Germany, Netherlands, England, Brazil. Crowds of up to 80,000. Once known as Sublime, they were now “Sublime with Rome.”

Dr. Todd Forman, 40, had a shot at joining the tour.

“Keep your cool and don’t say anything stupid,” he reminded himself. “Let the music flow.”

The door opened.

THE VAN

Friend of a friend.

That’s how Forman, a water-polo-playing, straight-A freshman at Harvard, first met the wild party boys of Sublime.

Forman not only swam and played baseball at Harvard, he blew sax in the jazz band. While home during the summer of 1989, a friend invited him to jam with some musicians at a Long Beach party.

They hit if off.

Soon, he was playing alleyways, garages, even street corners with Brad Nowell, Eric Wilson and Bud Gaugh, who played a unique fusion of reggae, rock, punk and ska.

“I remember playing in front of a bank on Second Street and Brad put his guitar case out for change,” Forman says, noting that, at times, that was the money his band mates lived on.

“They were hard-core.”

Each fall, Forman returned to Harvard. Each summer, he returned to Sublime.

“They kept getting bigger,” he says. “More refined. More of a following.”

After his junior year, he helped record their first album, “40 Oz. to Freedom.” After graduating, he was forced to make a choice.

Med school? Or music?

He’d now heard himself on the radio. Played clubs with 1,000 people singing to every song. Opened shows for No Doubt.

After one show at “The Whiskey” in Hollywood, the band piled into a van to cross America and strike it big. The party boys of Sublime came up to the Harvard graduate and asked:

You wanna hop in?

Uploaded with ImageShack.us

THE GIFT

In every life, there are turning points. Forks in the road.

And as much as Forman loved Sublime, he hated Nowell’s heroin use.

“If you want to find evil in society, look to these drugs,” Forman says. “They change people. They take over. There’s nothing you can do for a heroin user.”

Forman chose medical school over music as the band’s fame grew.

And grew.

In 1996, they called him to record tracks for their third album, “Sublime.”

A few months later, they called again. Nowell – the band’s singer, guitarist and creative genius – was dead of a heroin overdose.

“Absolutely crushed,” Forman says. “You feel a huge sense of loss.”

The band was left rudderless, just as their self-titled third album propelled them into superstars. Producing five hits. And selling an estimated 5 million copies.

“It wasn’t just the death of your friend,” Forman says. “It was the death of a dream.”

The other band members and friends formed the Long Beach Dub Allstars. But by this time, Forman not only had a future medical career, he’d met his future wife, Kristen.

“I chose my wife over music,” he says. “And medicine over music.”

For seven years, his saxophones remained in the closet. He opened a family practice with his mom. And started raising a family with Kristen.

Then, in 2006, for his 36th birthday, he got an interesting little gift.

Talk about turning points.

THE BEST PART

Forman still has the card.

I want you to get back into music, Kristen wrote.

“I saw how much joy he had when he was playing,” she says. “I gave him my blessing to get back into it.”

So he did. Local gigs. With friends. Nothing like before. Not on his end.

But elsewhere, wheels were turning. A decade after Nowell’s death, Sublime’s music was thriving. A Sublime tribute band earned $1 million a year. Album sales were booming. Reunion hung in the air.

Finally, last year, Sublime’s drummer and bassist teamed up with upcoming singer and guitarist Rome Ramirez. Four days before their first big show, they called Forman.

“I didn’t know if I’d be playing on one song, three songs or what,” he says of his audition with the new band. “But from the first note, I could tell everyone felt, ‘OK, this guy’s legit.’”

This time, when they asked him, You wanna hop in, it was different. It was a chance to tour the world, then return home to his family and career.

“To stand on that stage before a sea of people as wide and far as you can see,” he says, of a gig in Sao Paulo, Brazil, before 80,000 fans. “With everyone clapping. To actually experience it, it’s magical. It’s a mythological place.”

Back at the office, he gets ribbed for being a rocker.

“We got him a coffee mug that says, ‘Dr. Rock Star,’” says office scheduler Amy Aaron. “That’s what we call him.”

On the current leg of their tour through the American South, he gets ribbed for being a doctor.

“His playing is killer,” says singer Ramirez, by phone, somewhere in Florida by now. “People go, ‘What? He graduated Harvard? No way!’ ”

Even his wife, a Newport Beach dermatologist, gets ribbed for letting him go on the road: Better put a ball and chain on him, she hears.

“We had one agreement,” Kristen adds. “If it’s affecting the kids negatively, he’d hop a plane and come home. But it hasn’t happened.”

What has happened is something entirely different. A turning point no one expected.

“She gave me the freedom to pursue this dream,” Forman says. “Her love allowed this. And our relationship has never been better – that’s the best part.”