"Badfish" | ||||
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Single by Sublime | ||||
from the album 40oz. to Freedom | ||||
Released | January 8, 1993 | |||
Recorded | 1991 at CSUDH, Carson, California | |||
Genre | Ska, reggae fusion | |||
Length | 3:05 | |||
Label | Skunk, Gasoline Alley/MCA | |||
Songwriter(s) | Bradley Nowell | |||
Producer(s) | Sublime | |||
Sublime singles chronology | ||||
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"Badfish" is a song by American ska-punk band Sublime, released as part of their 1992 debut album, 40oz. to Freedom . The single was released in 1993, and again in 1997. The song was written by Bradley Nowell and originally recorded in 1989, reportedly influenced by The Ziggens song "All the fun that we missed" and Nowell's love of reggae. First released on the band's 1991 demo tape, Jah Won't Pay the Bills, "Badfish" appeared again on most of the band's compilation albums. An extended play (EP) was released in 1995 named after the track.
The song resonated with the band's hometown of Long Beach, California (LBC), with familiar lyrics about the struggle of being in the working class, and utilizing local landmarks in the audio and video recordings. The track serves as an after-the-fact reminder of Nowell's struggle with heroin, and was reportedly informed by the slang term "Badfish" and his struggle to resist trying the drug.
MTV and radio stations refused to play the song prior to Nowell's tragic overdose in 1996, but "Badfish" later became one of the band's most popular songs, and is one of the few beloved by Sublime's critics.
A tribute band, Badfish, is named after the song.
"Badfish" is in the key of A mixolydian, which is a mode of D Ionian of major scale. [1] Mixolydian modes are common in ska and reggae music. [2]
The first version of "Badfish" was recorded as a student project for Michael "Miguel" Happoldt who was a recording student at the time and in a band called The Ziggens, at California State University, Dominguez Hills (CSUDH) in Carson, California in 1989. [3] [4] Happoldt, who went on to become a producer, guitarist, and vocalist for Sublime, [4] [5] asked Nowell if he wanted to record tracks in a professional studio, and the band recorded the track, which earned Happoldt a C-. Sublime recorded the remainder of their 1991 demo, Jah Won't Pay the Bills, [6] with Happoldt at CSUDH and released it on Skunk Records, Happoldt's record label. [3] [4]
For LBC locals in the historically blue-collar industrial port city, where Nowell grew up, the metaphors of the experience resonated as a hard-times poetry, contrary to Sublime's typical straight-forward lyrics, allowing them to tout future lyrics like they were "Well Qualified to Represent the LBC" on their 1996 self-titled album. [3] [7] [8] [9] The introduction, "a field recording of a bar", was reportedly inspired by The Specials' 1979 song "Nite Klub", [7] and was recorded at Shannon’s Bayshore Saloon in LBC, [10] and "Todd", who is told he can "turn the radio back on", was the bartender. [9] The song's sound was heavily influenced by Nowell's love of reggae music. [9]
Until 1992, Nowell feared heroin, and refused to try it. [4] [9] [11] It is suggested that the term "Badfish" is slang for a heroin user who gets someone else hooked on the drug, or a heroin addict, [12] [13] and the song is described as being an anti-drug song to the scene that Sublime frequented early on, [7] or as being written about Nowell's drug addiction. [14] [15] [16] [17]
Bud Gaugh developed a heroin addiction around the time the song was first recorded in 1989, eventually falling into homelessness. Nowell did not want the drug around the band, and Gaugh was ousted from the band while he was in and out of rehab until Sublime released 40oz. to Freedom and before they wrote and recorded Robbin' the Hood , [3] [9] [11] [18] when heroin quickly became a central part of Sublime's image. [4] [11] [19] Reportedly devoted to maintaining an image representative of the local culture and their music, [4] Nowell started a four-year battle with heroin in 1992. [9] [20] His widow, Troy Nowell, said he tried heroin because "it would be a cool rock-star thing to do," his father said that he wanted to be more creative and said that he needed to maintain a persona, [4] Gaugh said he argued "the needle" was safer than smoking, [9] and others have reported it was because other rock stars were doing it. [8] [20] [21]
While "Badfish" came before Nowell's heroin addiction, [4] [12] [20] on Robbin' the Hood, the song "Pool Shark" was written at the peak of his addiction with Gaugh, when he started to try to get sober. [3] Lyrics like "Tying up the dinosaur, tonight/It used to be so cool/Now I’ve got the needle/I can shake but I can’t breathe/Take it away and I want more, more/One day I’m gonna lose the war," [19] speak directly to Nowell's use of clonidine, an opioid withdrawal medication, [8] heroin usage and withdrawals, [14] [19] and his inability to give up the idea that heroin gave him a cool mystique. [8] Nowell had gone to a treatment facility, and been clean for some time before he died after a relapse he said would be his last, on May 25, 1996. [4] [9] [19] [21] Gaugh kicked the habit after finding the body of his band mate. [3] [9] [18]
According to Bert Susanka, the guitarist and vocalist for The Ziggens, Nowell's favorite Ziggens songs was "All the fun that we missed", which was reportedly the inspiration for the melody of "Badfish". [22] [7] The Ziggens played a cover of "Badfish" after Nowell's memorial at a gig at Knott's Berry Farm on June 1, 1996, [22] [23] just a month after Sublime played their cover of The Ziggens' "All the fun that we missed". [24]
"Badfish" first appeared on the band's 1991 demo tape Jah Won't Pay the Bills. [25] It later was released as the 8th track on the band's official debut album, 40oz. to Freedom on June 1, 1992, [26] and the single was debuted shortly after, on January 8, 1993. [27] The song is dubbed in Robbin' the Hood's second track, "Steady B Loop Dub", [28] and appeared as the unnamed hidden 5th track on the 1995 re-release of the single "Date Rape". [29] While "Badfish" was released prior to the band's Billboard popularity, [30] and radio stations refused to play it until many years later, [9] a Loudwire reader poll from 2012, that remained open as of January 2022 to voting, shows that it is one of the band's most popular songs. [31]
In Pitchfork's 2018 review of 40oz. to Freedom, the reviewer did not care for the album, rating it a 5.6/10 and referring to it as a "flawed artifact of [the] '90s" with "burly, beer-gut ideal masculinity", but countered it with an affection for the combination of "Badfish" and its writer and vocalist, Nowell, as a "honey-voiced" "gentle soul". [32]
"Badfish" has appeared on most of Sublime's live and studio-recorded compilation albums including:
The song also appeared on a number of promotional compilations including:
In 2001, a tribute band formed, and named itself after the track. [48] The band was nominated for Best Tribute Act in the Boston Music Awards in 2008. [49]
In September 2020, Pepper, a band influenced by Sublime, and their record label, LAW Records, partnered with The Nowell Family foundation to release the compilation album The House That Bradley Built, made entirely up of Sublime covers performed by more than 20 bands, including O.A.R.'s cover of "Badfish". [50] [51] All of the profits from the sale of the album go to the foundation, which provides addiction recovery services, and will be used to open a rehabilitation center named Bradley's House. [52]
A number of other bands have also covered the song:
After "Date Rape" blew up, we went to Catalina and made a video for "Badfish". We sent it to MTV, they canned it, and radio stations wouldn't play it.
It's funny because by the time they finally started playing "Badfish" it was too late.
After the success of the single "Date Rape" from 1992-1994, a song the band says they all hated, Sublime tried to get "Badfish" to catch on in its place. [9] [11] Instead of sending the cassette to local radio stations, which were playing "Date Rape" non-stop, the band decided to try soliciting MTV and set out to make a music video instead. [9]
The music video for "Badfish" was recorded in July 1995 at Sharks Cove (Shark Harbor) on the North Shore of Santa Catalina Island, California. [9] [58] [59] The video starts out with a wave crashing into a fisheye lens viewed from the water. The setting matches the narrative and allegory of the song, referring to "big blue whale", "the reef", and swimming in the water. The colors become distorted for the remainder of the video. The band is playing live on the beach while the crew and several people are dancing and drinking, which matches the other narrative of the lyrics, drinking and partying. Nowell and his dog, Lou Dog, are seen on a reef, which is matched with some of the lyrics, "Won't somebody get me off of this reef?" [1] [60]
The video was produced by Skunk Records, Dreamtime Pictures, and Cheryl Teetzel. It was directed by Ian Fletcher. [60] MTV refused to play the video until 1998. [9] [61]
As of February 2022, the music video had 41 million views on YouTube Vevo. [60]
Badfish EP | ||||
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EP by | ||||
Released | 8 August 1995 | |||
Studio |
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Genre | ||||
Label | MCA | |||
Producer | ||||
Sublime chronology | ||||
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In 1995, Sublime released Badfish EP with Skunk Records. [62] The single "Badfish" was re-released in 1997 by MCA Records. [63]
The jacket was designed and illustrated by tattoo artist Opie Ortiz, who was the artist for most of the band's art, and Nowell's Sublime tattoo. [9] [64]
On April 22, 2017 (Record Store Day), [6] in honor of the 25th anniversary of 40oz. to Freedom, Sublime released Badfish EP on vinyl. [65] It was released by Skunk Records, [66] and was a master vinyl pressing of 3,000 copies. [64]
Review scores | |
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Source | Rating |
AllMusic | [67] |
No. | Title | Length |
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1. | "Badfish" (CSUDH, Carson, California, 1991) | 3:05 |
2. | "Don't Push" (Original, Mambo Sound & Recording, Long Beach, California, 1988) | 3:45 |
3. | "Untitled Dub" (Live at Kommotion in San Francisco, California, September 9, 1994) | 2:50 |
4. | "We're Only Gonna Die for Our Own Arrogance" (Live at Kommotion in San Francisco, California, September 9, 1994) | 3:18 |
5. | "Roots of Creation" (Mambo Sound & Recording, Long Beach, California, 1988) | 4:22 |
40oz. to Freedom is the debut studio album by American ska punk band Sublime, originally released on June 1, 1992, on Skunk Records. It was later reissued by MCA. 40oz. to Freedom's sound blended various forms of Jamaican music, including ska, rocksteady, roots reggae, and dub along with hardcore punk and hip hop.
Floyd I. "Bud" Gaugh IV is an American drummer who played in the bands Sublime (1988–1996), Long Beach Dub Allstars (1997–2002), Eyes Adrift (2002–2003), Volcano (2004), and Sublime with Rome (2009–2011), as well as Phil & the Blanx, Del Mar, and Jelly of the Month Club.
Bradley James Nowell was an American musician and the lead singer and guitarist of the ska punk band Sublime.
The Long Beach Dub Allstars are an American dub/ska/reggae rock band formed in 1997 and disbanded in 2002, but reformed 10 years later.
Second-hand Smoke is a compilation album by the band Sublime. It was released in 1997 following the death of lead singer Bradley Nowell the year before. Although this is technically a compilation album, it features some unreleased material as well as recycled and remixed versions of previous tracks. It is also regarded as their final album. Even though the surviving members of Sublime stated that the band would not make any more albums after Nowell's death, which would result in the band's breakup, MCA bound them by their contract and made the remaining members follow out their contract with the next 3 albums. Instead of recording more albums with Sublime, Wilson and Gaugh would record together in their later projects Long Beach Dub Allstars and Sublime with Rome.
Sublime is the self-titled third and final studio album by American ska punk band Sublime. Produced by Paul Leary and David Kahne, the album was released on July 30, 1996, in the United States by MCA Records. Sublime formed in 1988 in Long Beach, California by vocalist/guitarist Bradley Nowell, bassist Eric Wilson, and drummer Bud Gaugh. The trio toured heavily from their inception while developing their sound. Their first studio release—40 Oz. to Freedom (1992)—featured the single "Date Rape", which attracted heavy airplay in Southern California. MCA signed the band and distributed their second independent album, Robbin' the Hood, in 1994.
Robbin' the Hood is the second studio album by American ska punk band Sublime, released on March 1, 1994, on Skunk Records. It is noted for its experimental nature, low production values, and numerous samples and interpolations of other artists.
"What I Got" is a song from American band Sublime's self-titled third album (1996). It was released after singer Bradley Nowell's death in 1996 from a heroin overdose and became the band's biggest radio hit. It was the second single to be released by the band, following "Date Rape" in 1991. The song's chorus is a lift from "Loving" by reggae artist Half Pint, who is credited as a co-writer. The song's melody is similar to the Beatles' "Lady Madonna".
"Smoke Two Joints" is a song originally written by The Toyes, who performed it in traditional Reggae style and released it in 1983. According to The Toyes, "one fine fall day on a small island" of Oahu in Hawaii, two of the band members, Mawg and Sky, were sitting under a large banyan tree on Kuhio Beach, "tokin' on some sweet bud & jammin' on a rootsy reggae funky town" when they conceived the song "Smoke Two Joints."
"Doin' Time" is a song by American band Sublime for their self-titled third album. The lyrics tell of a cheating girlfriend, whose infidelities and poor treatment of her lover makes him feel like he is in prison. It was released as a single on November 25, 1997; the disc contained alternate versions of the song by Wyclef Jean and the Pharcyde. Additional versions appeared on the post-Bradley Nowell compilation album Second-hand Smoke and several bootlegs, including one with Snoop Dogg.
The Ziggens are an American band based out of Huntington Beach, California, United States, whose self-described style of "cowpunksurfabilly" combines elements of cowpunk, surf, rockabilly, punk, ska, and country. The Ziggens are led by Bert Susanka who sings and plays rhythm guitar. Other members include Dickie Little on lead guitar, Jon Poutney on bass, and Brad Conyers who plays the drums and provides background vocals. The Ziggens have been playing since the early 1990s and have developed a strong following in Southern California.
Volcano was a supergroup formed by Meat Puppets frontman Curt Kirkwood, Sublime drummer Bud Gaugh, Sublime soundman Michael 'Miguel' Happoldt, and bass player of The Ziggens Jon Poutney after the breakup of Eyes Adrift. They released one self-titled studio album in 2004.
Skunk Records is a Long Beach, California based record label that was founded by Michael "Miguel" Happoldt and Bradley Nowell in 1990. The label also operates a subsidiary, Cornerstone R.A.S.
Eric John Wilson is an American musician who is best known as the former bassist for Sublime (1988–1996). He was also bassist for Long Beach Dub Allstars (1997–2002), and Long Beach Shortbus, which was composed of several members of Long Beach Dub Allstars and Sublime. Since 2009, Wilson has been the bassist for Sublime with Rome, a musical collaboration between Wilson and singer and guitarist Rome Ramirez.
Michael "Miguel" Happoldt is an American musician, producer, songwriter, mixing engineer, and label executive. Happoldt was born July 5, 1969, in Atlanta, Georgia, and raised between Virginia Beach, Virginia, and Lakeland, Florida. Upon graduating high school in 1987, he moved to Carson, California, to attend California State University, Dominguez Hills, where he studied audio recording and music production.
Badfish: A Tribute to Sublime is a Rhode Island-based tribute band dedicated to playing the music of Sublime. The band should not be confused with the southern California-based band of the same name. The group is named after a song appearing on the album 40oz. to Freedom. Formed in 2001 at the University of Rhode Island, the group's members, who were computer science majors, began playing local Rhode Island clubs and quickly began selling out shows. They continued touring the East Coast and Midwest of the U.S., becoming popular on college campuses and among Sublime fans who never were able to see the band due to frontman Bradley Nowell's death in 1996. Since then the group has done multiple national tours per year. In 2008, the band was nominated for Best Tribute Act in the Boston Music Awards.
Sublime was an American rock band from Long Beach, California, formed in 1988. The band's line-up, consistent throughout its duration, consisted of Bradley Nowell, Eric Wilson (bass), and Bud Gaugh (drums). Lou Dog, Nowell's dalmatian, was the mascot of the band. Nowell died of a heroin overdose in 1996, resulting in the band's breakup. In 1997, songs such as "What I Got", "Santeria", "Wrong Way", "Doin' Time", and "April 29, 1992 (Miami)" were released to U.S. radio.
Sublime with Rome is a musical collaboration between Eric Wilson, formerly of the American ska punk band Sublime, drummer Joe Tomino, and singer and guitarist Rome Ramirez. The group's name is not only a reference to the singer's first name, but to the fact that they chiefly perform songs by the original Sublime, which was fronted by Bradley Nowell until his death in 1996.
Marshall Goodman, known professionally as Ras MG is an American drummer, songwriter and producer.
3 Ring Circus – Live at the Palace is a live album by American band Sublime. The tracks were recorded live at The Palace, Hollywood, California, on October 21, 1995. Lead singer and guitarist Bradley Nowell died less than seven months later on tour. According to the liner notes written by Jon Phillips, this is the band's "first-ever, official full-length concert release".
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