Taylor Swift is a superstar on another level. She shattered the all-time first-week sales record with last year’s The Life of a Showgirl and redefined what it means to be a touring juggernaut with her Eras Tour. She has 14 Billboard Hot 100 No. 1s, and 14 Grammy Awards. But the ascension of our biggest pop star didn’t start with the sales, and it didn’t start with the stage: it started with her songs. And on Thursday (June 11) night, Swift was celebrated for her first and foremost talent, songwriting, with a wildly deserved induction into the Songwriters Hall of Fame.
Despite being one of the most famous people on the planet, Swift attended the induction ceremony as anyone else might. She hobnobbed before the dinner started, and when the ceremony got underway, she sang and danced at her table during the various inductee tributes and performances. (She seemed particularly jazzed during John Fogerty’s ferocious set and Alanis Morissette’s haunting performance.) Joining Swift at her table was fiance Travis Kelce, future mother-in-law Donna Kelce, her own mother and father, as well as Steven Spielberg and his wife Kate Capshaw.
When it came time for Swift’s induction (the final one of the Class of 2026) it was a quarter to midnight. Sombr offered a glammed-up rock take on “Cardigan,” her 2020 Hot 100 topper, backed by the SHOF’s versatile house band. “It’s an honor to be here, thank you Taylor for trusting me,” he said. “This next song Taylor wrote when she was 19 years old and it really inspired me…I’m so nervous,” he stopped, laughing after fumbling a few words. “She’s looking at me right now and I’m talking about her music. I’ve never done anything like this.” (Swift, supportive as ever, applauded encouragingly.) Sombr then sang a, well, somber version of “Dear John,” a song hailing from Speak Now, an LP Swift wrote entirely on her own. Swift and her parents sang along, softly.
Swift’s Oscar-winning dinner guest had the honor of inducting her into the esteemed organization. “As a director I am acutely aware of the power music can have on audiences,” Spielberg said, noting that songs have the power to unite us anywhere and everywhere: “Whether it’s sung at the top of our lungs in our cars, in houses of worship, at football games or on the streets of Minnesota.”
So, why was one of the greatest living filmmakers on hand to salute one of our greatest living singer-songwriters? The short answer: she asked him. After receiving a phone call from her several months ago, Spielberg admitted that his elation quickly deflated after he hung up. “What could I possibly say about Taylor Swift that hasn’t already been said?” Spielberg pondered. “Out of curiosity, I asked AI how many words have been written about Taylor Swift.” The effort yielded him nothing. So he continued the experiment, asking AI how many words Taylor Swift herself has written. Once again, AI flopped the assignment. “She is such a force that the depths of her achievement defies AI,” Spielberg quipped.
When it was time for Swift’s big moment, she hugged Liz Rose (a songwriting collaborator from her early days who was inducted into the SHOF in 2023) and walked up to the stage.
The moment she opened her mouth, it was clear that Knicks Mania — which is currently gripping New York — had gotten the best of her. A hoarse-voiced Swift, who was courtside at Madison Square Garden Wednesday night with Kelce, admitted she spent the previous night “screaming for 100%” of the Knicks’ victorious game. “I got home and was like, ‘You gotta stop screaming, you’re screaming too much, you’re screaming instead of talking, you’re too excited.’ Then I got to witness the amazing performances I saw tonight, and I just kept screaming and I never stopped screaming and this is what you get. I make no apologies for that — I’ve had a blast.”
Swift shed some light as to why Spielberg was one of her personal heroes and her pick for the person to induct her into the SHOF. “Through his decades of spellbinding storytelling Steven Spielberg has unknowingly inducted me and countless others into his sacred club of expansive world building,” she explained, thanking him for joining her the same night his latest film, Disclosure Day, hits theaters. “I watched him ace every genre… because of examples like Steven’s I trusted my imagination.”
Later on, she thanked Sombr for his “perfect performance” of two songs that spanned a decade of her life. “His writing is so exceptional that it makes me envious and I love that feeling.” According to Swift, she’s always telling her friends, “Sombr is the future – he does it all on his own and he doesn’t need that AI. The kids will be fine!”
Throughout a thoughtful, well-paced and expertly written speech, Swift placed her songwriting within the context of her wider career and life.
“If I look back at my entire 23-year career in music, the ups and downs and industry battles, the trials and tribulations, the cheers and tears and dogpiling of doubt, the criticisms — both fair and unfair — the complete loss of privacy, the world tours and ego wars, and the twists of fate, the absolute magical chaos of this path that I chose when I was too young to remember it even being a choice at all, songwriting was the easiest thing I ever did,” she said. “Not because it didn’t take effort. It definitely did. Not that it wasn’t frustrating at times, because it could be. And not that my songwriting didn’t haunt me relentlessly until I cracked the perfect internal rhyme scheme for the third line of the second verse before my teachers called me out in class for not paying attention, because that definitely happened.
“But when I say that songwriting was the easiest part for me, I think what I mean is that it was instinctual. No one taught me how to do it. I had to be taught how to entertain a crowd. And learn choreography, and be less annoying and navigate the industry and fiercely protect my own sanity through difficult lessons and massive amounts of trial and error and chaos and calamity. But songwriting for me was pretty much the only thing I naturally did.”
Calm and collected throughout most of the speech, Swift faltered a bit when speaking about her family. “It was easy to choose songwriting. But for everyone else in my life, it couldn’t have been easy for my parents and my brother to pick up our entire family and move from Pennsylvania to Nashville,” she said, pausing after choking up a bit. “Even though words are kinda supposed to be my thing I will never be able to express my gratitude,” she told her family. “You are the reason I’m here tonight.”
Before leaving the stage, she offered up a quote from one of her favorite TV shows, Yellowstone, by way of advising the next generation of songwriters. “’It’s the one constant in life, son: you build something worth having, somebody’s gonna try to take it,’” Swift said in her best paternal Southern accent (which was aided somewhat by her strained vocal cords). “I’m using this quote to refer to self-worth, peace of mind and singular vision as a creator,” she explained. “Positive feedback and people loving what you wrote feels incredible… but you need to be ready to receive negative feedback,” she added. “If you make anything awesome, someone out there is bound to say horrible things about it. Or twist what you meant into something completely unrecognizable to you.”
Her advice? “You can be sensitive but also durable…. Take what’s useful and constructive and leave out what’s damaging to your creativity.”
Though she graciously kept a low profile before taking the stage, Swift’s star power was undeniable throughout the entire evening, something many of her fellow inductees couldn’t help but comment on. Walter Afanasieff mentioned it was the “joy of his life” to watch Swift sing along to a medley of his songs performed by Sheléa prior to his induction. Johnny Mercer Award honoree John Fogerty, when addressing the “dark” years he spent not playing his best-known songs in concert, joked, “Taylor Swift, I don’t recommend you do that.”
Swift’s induction as part of the Class of 2026 makes her the youngest woman ever inducted into the SHOF. Furthermore, she’s the first recipient of the Hal David Starlight Award (which the SHOF gives out to promising young talents; she nabbed it in 2010, and RAYE got it this year) to gain full membership. And as Linda Moran, Songwriters Hall of Fame CEO and president, said earlier in the evening, Swift seems to be on track for the organization’s highest honor, the aforementioned Johnny Mercer Award, if she keeps pace.
Olivia Rodrigo‘s young pop career has been nothing short of astonishing. Hits everywhere, no foot has been put wrong. Consider, her breakthrough single, “Drivers License,” logged eight weeks at No. 1 on the Billboard Hot 100. It’s one of her five leaders on the national singles chart, those hits spread across three album eras.
On the other side of the Atlantic, the California phenom has smashed records. Her 2021 release SOUR set a new mark for the most first-week streams for a debut album. In the same month, she became, at age 18 years and three month, the youngest solo artist in history to snag the chart double as “Good 4 U” both dominated.
Then, in June 2021, Rdrigo became the first female solo artist to claim three simultaneous U.K. top 5 singles (“Good 4 U,” “Deja Vu” and “Traitor.” Her sophomore album Guts got all the glory, too. No. 1 on charts, hit singles.
On Friday, June 12, Rodrigo enters a new phase with the release of you seem pretty sad for a girl so in love (via Geffen/Interscope).
Following her surprise set at Primavera Sound 2026 in Barcelona, Rodrigo stopped by Jimmy Kimmel Live on Wednesday (June 10) for the national TV debut performance of “The Cure,” lifted from that new collection. “The Cure” is already a Billboard No. 1; the track reigns over Billboard’s Hot Rock & Alternative Songs and Hot Alternative Songs charts, debuting atop the June 6-dated surveys. Also, “The Cure” opened at No. 5 on the all-genre Billboard Hot 100, becoming Rodrigo’s sixth top five and eighth top 10, totals that include four No. 1s.
For her spot on ABC’s Kimmel, Rodrigo looked glamorous in all-white, performing on a set tangled with red ribbons. Soon, we’ll find out if she’s gone a perfect three-from-three with you seem pretty sad for a girl so in love. Don’t bet against it.
The 1980s was no throwaway era in cinema. The horror genre was at its more terrifying high point, as audiences got their frights from werewolves, zombies, aliens and any creep or creature that could ruin your day. At the action end of town, muscles were king. The Brat Pack was in its full swing. And all the big Hollywood hits, it seemed, were soundtracked by Kenny Loggins.
The American singer and songwriter was ’80s cinema’s go-to guy, nailing the theme songs to Footloose, Top Gun, Caddy Shack, and more.
On Wednesday night, June 10, Loggins stopped by The Tonight Show Starring Jimmy Fallon to re-live some of those golden numbers from the Silver Screen, with a difference. Loggins, Fallon and the late-night show’s house band the Roots performed a medley on classroom instruments, with a little help from from Kevin Bacon and John Lithgow, who got their Footloose on.
At one point, Lithgow interrupted the fun and stayed in his party-pooper character Rev. Shaw Moore from Footloose. “Everybody listen to me. I object to this kind of music. It’s illegal in this building,” he barks in the clip. Enter Bacon. “Jump back,” he roars, channeling his Footloose lead, Ren. “Hey, I thought this was supposed to be a party. Let’s dance!”
Across his career, Loggins has landed 21 titles on the Billboard Hot 100, including a No. 1 for “Footloose,” one of his five top 10s. He also nabbed a No. 2 for “Danger Zone.” Both songs got the late-night treatment with classroom instruments.
In 2022, he recorded an updated version of his classic Top Gun adrenalin-pumping anthem “Danger Zone” for the second film in the Top Gun franchise, Maverick. The following year, in 2023, Loggins released his memoir Still Alright.
Expect Loggins to dispense with the classroom instruments and go with something more conventional when he performs at the Celebrate 250 festival, set for Jul. 3 – 4, 2026 in St Louis, MO.
BIGBANG will make, well, a big bang when the K-pop act embarks on a 31-date stadium tour later this year, a worldwide celebration of the group’s 20th anniversary.
The trek will get underway Friday, Aug. 21 for the first of three shows at Goyang Stadium. Next up, a handful of dates in the United States, the United Kingdom and Europe, followed by a deep run through Asia and Australia, wrapping up Sunday, Feb. 28 with the second of two nights at Kaohsiung National Stadium.
Announced Thursday, June 11, G-DRAGON, TAEYANG and DAESUNG will reunite for the tour, BIGBANG’s first since 2017, and it comes on the heels of the pop veterans’ return to the stage at the 2026 Coachella Valley Music and Arts Festival.
Fans will have to wait for the official tour title and ticketing information, which reps say will be announced at a later date. “The landmark tour represents one of the most significant live music events of 2026 for global fans and a historic new chapter for one of the most influential groups in modern music,” reads a statement issued by promoter AEG Presents.
Launched by YG Entertainment, BIGBANG erupted in August 2006 and broke new ground for the Korean-pop scene by winning the inaugural best worldwide act trophy onstage at the 2011 MTV Europe Music Awards. The following year, they became the first K-pop group to send an album to the Billboard 200 chart, when 2012’s ALIVE reached No. 150, and flexed their live muscles with two world tours (hitting multiple U.S. arenas in 2012 and 2015).
To date, BIGBANG have five No. 1s on Billboard‘s U.S.-based World Digital Song Sales chart, and even scored their first Top 10 hit on the Billboard Global 200 with the special 2022 reunion single “Still Life” that marked T.O.P’s final release with the group.
V.I.P.s — BIGBANG’s fandom — can sign up for the forthcoming tour via BIGBANG’s official b.stage platform for updates.
BIGBANG 2026-27 Tour Dates:
Aug. 21, 2026 – Goyang – Goyang Stadium
Aug. 22, 2026 – Goyang – Goyang Stadium
Aug. 23, 2026 – Goyang – Goyang Stadium
Sept. 5, 2026 – Oakland, CA – Oakland-Alameda County Coliseum
Sept. 11, 2026 – East Rutherford, NJ – MetLife Stadium
Sept. 19, 2026 – Paris – Stade de France
Sept. 26, 2026 – London – Tottenham Hotspur Stadium
Oct. 10, 2026 – Taipei – Taipei Dome
Oct. 11, 2026 – Taipei – Taipei Dome
Oct. 17, 2026 – Singapore – National Stadium
Oct. 24, 2026 – Hanoi – Mỹ Đình National Stadium
Oct. 25, 2026 – Hanoi – Mỹ Đình National Stadium
Oct. 31, 2026 – Sydney – Accor Stadium
Nov. 7, 2026 – Bangkok – Rajamangala National Stadium
Nov. 13, 2026 – Hong Kong – Kai Tak Stadium
Nov. 14, 2026 – Hong Kong – Kai Tak Stadium
Nov. 15, 2026 – Hong Kong – Kai Tak Stadium
Nov. 27, 2026 – Osaka – Kyocera Dome Osaka
Nov. 28, 2026 – Osaka – Kyocera Dome Osaka
Nov. 29, 2026 – Osaka – Kyocera Dome Osaka
Dec. 5, 2026 – Nagoya – Vantelin Dome Nagoya
Dec. 6, 2026 – Nagoya – Vantelin Dome Nagoya
Dec. 13, 2026 – Tokyo – Tokyo Dome
Dec. 14, 2026 – Tokyo – Tokyo Dome
Dec. 15, 2026 – Tokyo – Tokyo Dome
Dec. 26, 2026 – Fukuoka – Mizuho PayPay Dome FUKUOKA
Dec. 27, 2026 – Fukuoka – Mizuho PayPay Dome FUKUOKA
Jan. 9, 2027 – Kuala Lumpur – TM Stadium Nasional
Jan. 16, 2027 – Jakarta – Jakarta International Stadium
Feb. 27, 2027 – Kaohsiung – Kaohsiung National Stadium
Feb. 28, 2027 – Kaohsiung – Kaohsiung National Stadium
UPDATE: Wu-Tang Clan sparked the Knicks for a second-half comeback that is etched in the history books, as the home team overturned the biggest deficit in NBA playoffs history. Down at one stage by 29 points, the Knicks recorded a 107-106 win against the traveling Spursare now one win away from the championship.
The hip-hop heroes stepped onto the hardwood of Madison Square Garden on Wednesday night (June 11) for a much-needed special delivery during game 4 of the NBA Finals.
RZA and Co. unleashed a medley of “Bring da Ruckus,” “Method Man” and “C.R.E.A.M.,” a rare moment to savor for the New York faithful who were watching on, crushed, and processing the New York Knicks’ first-half capitulation to the visiting San Antonio Spurs.
New York desperately needed a hip-hop miracle, a Wu-Tang lucky charm. The Knicks franchise, hunting its first NBA title in 53 years, fell behind 76-49 at the break. That scoreline, isn’t just bruising. It’s historic. No visiting team in NBA history has led by so many points at the half of a Finals game. And no other Finals team has hit as many first-half 3s as the Spurs (14).
The rap heavyweights are so invested in the Knicks’ run to the title, they’ve swapped out their social media profile with a “Wu York Knicks” logo. If they were feeling deflated at the break, they weren’t showing it. See below.
— Edilson J. Silva 🇨🇦🏀🇦🇴 (@edilsonbuzz) June 11, 2026
Earlier, Wu-Tang Clan’s official Instagram appeared to confirm that the group would be performing at the Garden. “Bring Da Hive Knicks in 5,” the Wu captioned a post on its Instagram Story.
And separately, on the new episode of “Wu Wednesdays,” RZA’s SiriusXM show on LL COOL J’s Rock The Bells Radio (Ch. 43), the rapper gave a hint of hip-hop action to come. “Those making it out to (MSG) tonight might be in for something special,” RZA teases at the top of the show. “Let’s see what goes on in the building tonight.”
Page Sixfirst reported that the Wu would be heading to MSG as halftime’s entertainment with the NBA Finals returning to the Big Apple for the first time since 1999, which also saw the New York Knicks battling the San Antonio Spurs back then.
Regardless of the result, Wu-Tang Clan has a lot to look forward to. The act will be inducted into the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame this December, alongside Phil Collins, Billy Idol, Iron Maiden, Joy Division/New Order, Oasis, Sade and Luther Vandross. The group has been eligible for induction since 2018. RZA has called the honor “one of those pillars in life,” noting that his first house he ever bought was in Cleveland and he’s driven by and visited the Rock Hall “hundreds of times” in the years since.
For those keeping score, the Knicks went into game 4 with a 2-1 series lead. The Wu is currently on a break from the crew’s Wu-Tang: The Final Chamber tour. The farewell trek will resume with a North American leg kicking off in August. The crew will be making stops in Atlantic City, Kansas City, Cincinnati, Toronto, Atlanta, Orlando, Tampa, Albuquerque, Salt Lake City and Las Vegas before hosting a final show on Oct. 4 in Phoenix. The legendary rap group was also inducted intoBillboard‘s Hip-Hop Hall of Fame in 2025.
As the son of Sublime‘s late Bradley Nowell, and frontman for the genre-blending band himself since 2023, Jakob Nowell is something of a scholar when it comes to the group’s history and legacy. So he views this incarnation — which releases a new album, Until the Sun Explodes, on Friday (June 12) — as “the fourth era of Sublime.”
There is, Nowell tells Billboard via Zoom from his home in Long Beach, Calif., “Sublime classic,” the group his father, drummer Bud Gaugh and bassist Eric Wilson formed during 1988 and ran through the elder Nowell’s death in 1996 from a heroin overdose at the age of 28. The trio released three albums — including a five-times platinum self-titled effort in 1996, released two months after Nowell’s death — and scored enduring hits such as “What I Got,” “Santeria” and “Wrong Way.”
Gaugh and Wilson’s Long Beach Dub Allstars, launched in 1997, was Sublime’s second era according to Nowell, followed by Sublime With Rome from 2009-2024, fronted by Rome Ramirez and including Wilson for most of its run (with Gaugh on board for the first two years).
“So I consider us, like V4 of Sublime,” explains Nowell, 30, who was 11 months old when his father died. “I hope people consider it a renaissance. That’s definitely the goal with this record and all the sounds we’re trying to do and how we’re trying to perform up there. It’s just a fun, messy, chaotic punk band that your parents used to love and showed you, or that you just discovered two years ago and you love it for your own reasons now.”
Gaugh, 58, adds that, “It just seems like a natural progression — wouldn’t it be cool if we could bring something new to the fans who haven’t seen Sublime before and give them their Sublime, because everybody’s listening to what their parents were hearing 30 years ago. So we’re giving something to the new fans and the old fans alike, and giving (new fans) something for their very own — ‘This is my Sublime. This isn’t just my parents’, grandparents’, aunts’ and uncles’. This is my band, too.”
Doin’ Time
A new Sublime, and a new Sublime album, were not necessarily fixed on the Long Beach scene’s bingo card, however. Or on any of the band members’.
With Gaugh, Wilson and others from his father’s posse as designated godfathers, Jakob Nowell developed a natural interest in music early, teaching himself how to play guitar. Nevertheless, he says, “there were times I was running full-force to it and times I felt a total imposter syndrome — ‘What am I doing? This is not me!,’ just trying to figure out who I am. You definitely wrestle with it.” He struggled with drug use and alcoholism as a teen, becoming sober when he was 17 with the help drug interventionist Todd Zalkins, a childhood friend of his father’s. Nowell and other family members established the non-profit Nowell Family Foundation to provide addiction recovery support for musicians.
He went on to receive a degree in creative writing from Long Beach State College but gave himself over to music in bands such as LAW and Jakobs Castle, the latter of which released its debut album, Enter: The Castle in 2024 and is planning another for next year.
“I was super-stoked,” Gaugh says, “because (Nowell) was staying true to himself and he was doing his own thing. It was important for him to set himself aside from (Sublime). I truly respected that he wasn’t going the ‘nepo route’ and glom off our success. He really was a musician in his own right, so it was like, ‘OK, he’s into this kind of music and that’s just how it’s gonna be. No pressure from Uncle Bud or Uncle Eric.”
Nowell confirms that being part of the Sublime universe in any way, shape or form “didn’t seem like the right thing. It seemed inappropriate…and even if I did, would I even be good enough, or would I be capable? So I spent a good 10 years in my own projects, just trying to cut my teeth and play around the country, at first to empty rooms and then a modest following.”
Nowell did, however, agree to play with Gaugh and Wilson during a December 2023 benefit concert for Bad Brains’ Paul “H.R.” Hudson in Los Angeles. “I was 28, the age my father died,” Nowell recalls. “I’d taken this trip to the Phoenix Theater in Petaluma (Calif.), the last venue he played. And then I got the call to do (the benefit). There were just so many coinciding factors.” Gaugh, meanwhile, remembers that “when we were rehearsing for that first show, hearing his voice sounding identical to Brad’s, it gave me chills. I haven’t experienced that since Brad left, and feeling it once again was confirmation that we were doing the right thing.”
In the wake of that show, Nowell was open to Gaugh and Wilson’s overture “to play together again and use the name Sublime. I felt like I was capable of doing this now. I’ve built up my chops enough to do this part justice. It definitely came with a certain sense of paranoia and dread and uncertainty. But now, with two years under my best as the frontman for the project, I’m feeling pretty confident — obviously.”
How The Sun Exploded
Sublime moved forward with playing select shows and festivals, including Coachella during 2024, and teamed with the roots reggae group Stick Figure on a single, “Feel Like That,” shortly afterwards; it was the first new release under the Sublime name in 27 years and reached No. 7 on the Alternative Airplay chart. There was talk of making a full album with Travis Barker of Blink-182 and John Feldmann of Goldfinger, but Sublime ultimately decided to keep things closer to home, recording Until the Sun Explodes with Jakobs Castle producer Jon Joseph at Harbor Martyr Studios in San Pedro.
The 21-track set — including spoken-word skits — features an expanded version of Sublime, too, with guitarists Trey Pangborn and Zane “Zayno” Vandevort and DJ Product (nee Doug Boyce) in the mix. Joseph contributes some instrumentation as well, while Nowell’s grandfather Jim Nowell, who passed away earlier this year, pops up on “Maybe Partying Will Help…Pt. 2” There are also guest appearances by H.R. (“Trey’s Song”), Garrett “G. Love” Dutton (“Come Correct),” Fletcher Dragge from Pennywise (247-369) and the bands Fidlar (“Backwards”) and Skeggs (“Favorite Song”).
Nowell acknowledges that while a new Sublime album “was another big never-will” for him, performing with the band made the prospect more agreeable. “Truth be told, we just kept playing together at rehearsals and soundchecks,” he explains. “We’re all very jam-oriented musicians, so we’d have these little parts we’d return to that started to sound like they could be (new songs), and it seemed natural to move forward with that.”
And his almost scholarly knowledge of all things Sublime also gave Nowell a sharp perspective on exactly what Until the Sun Explodes should encompass, sonically and stylistically.
“I think Sublime, at its core, is a California punk rock band that experimented with many different genres,” Nowell explains. “They revered thee classic reggae and dub records from Jamaica — Johnny Osbourne, King Tubby, Jacob Miller. They were also listening to a lot of rad hip-hop and stuff that was happening concurrently in the ’90s, in Long Beach and L.A. They just had to try their hand at it all, how a punk band would do it. It’s just messy and frenetic…and that’s how you get that classic sound.
“That’s what we went for on (Until the Sun Explodes), too, the same sensibility. it’s a paradox; we entirely revere the music, but the very nature of the music is (to be) super irreverent, right? It’s almost pure chaos and fun…and hopefully people get the same feeling here as they did on (1992’s) 40oz. to Freedom and the stuff they did back then.”
One And Done?
Until the Sun Explodes has received a warm welcome so far; both the title track and the album-opening “Ensenada” hit No. 1 on Alternative Airplay. The group has a number of shows lined up as well, starting June 13 at San Diego’s Petco Park and also including its own Sublime Festival on June 27 in Portland, Ore. Sublime will also be part of Vans Warped Tour stops in Montreal and Orlando, Fla., is on the bill of the Louder Than Life festival during September in Louisville, Ky. and the Aftershock Festival during October in Sacramento, and will host the Sublime Reef Madness Cruise during November.
“We’re looking into next year already, too,” Gaugh says. “I know that we are already looking to schedule some Australia/New Zealand dates next year. I can see a Pacific Rim tour happening. I can see another European vacation. We’re looking forward to doing some more laps around the good ol’ U.S. of A….The shows have been amazing. We’re selling out. And I think this album is going to blow the doors off people when they hear everything.”
It may well be the only time they hear this incarnation of Sublime on record, too.
Until the Sun Explodes has been positioned as the “last” Sublime album, and Nowell says that’s certainly how he’s viewing it. “Unless a child of mine wants to make another one one day, this is the last one I’m gonna make,” he confirms. “I think you have to know your goals, set out to achieve them, and if you do you must then create new goals. I love doing this and it’s truly healed me in many ways, and allowed me to grow as an entertainer and performer. But I wish to carry the flag forward in different ways now.”
Nowell says he’ll continue to “play a few Sublime shows every year and keep the faces smiling,” but his primary focus will be on Jakobs Castle as well as SVNBVRNT Records, the label he operates with Vandevort, working with other southern California artists he says “are making local kids really excited, just like when Sublime started. This is the real renaissance that I hope my time with Sublime can clue people into. These are the true people who have inherited the mantle.”
If Until the Sun Explodes does well, however, Nowell knows there will be requests for more, and he does allow that “my feeling could change in the future. But it would be enough into the future where it would be a moot point. I’ve done what I thought was impossible and I’m very proud with the results. I would want Until the Sun Explodes to feel like epilogue, the victory lap, a celebration of Sublime’s history and a love letter to my father and all of his friends and the scene that raised me and touched so many people’s lives. After this I’d really like to pass that along and help the kids who want to do something similar.”
