Tag Archives: Sublime featuring Rome
From doc star to rock star with Sublime
Posted on 11. Nov, 2010 by JD.
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?
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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.”
Uploaded with ImageShack.usFrom doc star to rock star | forman, says, sublime – Life – The Orange County Register.
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Sublime with Rome Performs “Panic” on Jimmy Kimmel
Posted on 26. Jun, 2010 by JD.
YouTube – Sublime with Rome Performs “Panic”.
Here is a link to Sublime With ROME performing WRONGWAY on FaceBook video from Jimmy Kimmel Live.
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Lay Me Down | The Dirty Heads | Music Video | MTV
Posted on 24. Jun, 2010 by JD.
Watch the full length music video “Lay Me Down” from The Dirty Heads for free on MTV.com Featuring ROME Be sure to check out SUBLIME featuring ROME performing LIVE on JIMMY KIMMEL this Friday night!
Lay Me Down | The Dirty Heads | Music Video | MTV.
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KROQ’s Loveline Gets Sublime With Bud, Eric And Rome
Posted on 22. Apr, 2010 by JD.
What can you say about Sublime that hasn’t already been said?
These guys are back and better than ever with a phenomenal new front man named Rome. They stopped by Loveline the other night to talk about boners and drugs.
They kicked off their tour at the Hollywood Palladium on 4/20/10. Ring in 420 all year long with Sublime and the Dirty Heads if you’re a real So Cal OG…
Follow Rome…
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SUBLIME TO OFFICIALLY HIT THE STAGE AGAIN WITH NEW FRONTMAN ROME
Posted on 25. Feb, 2010 by JD.
SUBLIME WITH ROME
EXCLUSIVE SIX-DATE THEATER TOUR
BEGINS 4/20 AT HOLLYWOOD PALLADIUM IN LOS ANGELES
TICKET PRE-SALES START MARCH 2nd!
Los Angeles, CA – February 25, 2010 – Founding members of Sublime, drummer Bud Gaugh and bass player Eric Wilson have announced after 14-years they will officially take to the stage once again; with new frontman, singer/guitarist Rome. Dubbed Sublime with Rome, the group will reintroduce themselves and Sublime’s music to fans across the country with an exclusive six-date intimate theater tour beginning 4/20/10 in Los Angeles at the Hollywood Palladium. Ticket presales for all shows begin March 2nd, please visit www.SublimeWithRome.com for details.
“To go back out on the road and play this music again is a gift. We want to celebrate the music and share the experience for not only our fans, but also for ourselves. It’s been 14-years and is long overdue,” said Gaugh.
Stated Wilson, “Many of our songs have never been performed live, most notably our self-titled release. Songs such as ‘April 26, 1992,’ ‘Under My Voodoo,’ ‘Burritos’ and even ‘What I Got’ will all get their proper stage debuts.”
“This tour will be full of surprises,” said Gaugh. “Sublime has never used a set list. We will be performing songs off every album and will mix it up from show to show, never delivering the same set twice. We’ve also been working on some new material and have put together a couple of songs with Rome. We’re excited to introduce them, and Rome, to all our fans.”
Rome, a 21-year-old northern California native, was introduced to Gaugh and Wilson in 2008. Last year, a handful of jam sessions led to an impromptu show at a small club in Nevada flooring a packed-house crowd. The trio later performed a one-off at the Smokeout Festival last fall and was a surprise special guest at the infamous KROQ Acoustic Christmas show, before officially announcing themselves as Sublime with Rome. Currently, the new hit single “Lay Me Down” by the Dirty Heads (co-written by and featuring Rome) is racing up the radio charts across the U.S.
Portions of the proceeds from the shows will go to benefit an addiction recovery program currently being developed to financially assist underprivileged teens and adolescents, in honor of Sublime’s fallen singer/songwriter Bradley Nowell, who succumbed to his own addiction when he passed away in May 1996.
“Sublime has so many fans and attracts new fans every year who were never able to see Sublime perform live after Bradley passed away,” said Troy Nowell-Holmes. “One of the inspirations for forming ‘Sublime with Rome’ was to bring Brad’s spirit in his music back to the fans and to give the new fans a glimpse of what it was like to see Sublime live.”
One of the most notable and successful ska-punk bands of all time, Sublime has sold over 17 million albums worldwide with the group’s music remaining in constant radio rotation across the country. Influential Los Angeles rock radio station KROQ has listed Sublime as the #3 act in their annual “biggest bands” list for the last six years in a row with the single “Date Rape” ranking as the all-time most requested song at the station. To this day, the group’s multi-platinum landmark debut album “40oz. to Freedom,” lo-fi follow up “Robbin’ the Hood,” and multi-platinum self-titled major label debut (a virtual greatest hits set in itself) are all widely regarded as music collection staples. Formed in Long Beach in 1988, Sublime’s final performance was in the spring of 1996.
SUBLIME TO OFFICIALLY HIT THE STAGE AGAIN WITH NEW FRONTMAN ROME.
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