Sublime‘s multi-platinum, self-titled album was released on this day, July 30, in 1996. The record, which spawned hit singles in “Santeria,” “What I Got” and “Wrong Way,” would turn out to be the ska punk band’s final offering, as frontman Bradley Nowell died two months prior to its arrival.

The album Sublime would turn out to be hugely influential on future artists, very much including Rome Ramirez, who fronts the Sublime offshoot band Sublime with Rome.

Speaking to ABC Audio, Ramirez calls Sublime the “album that started it all for me, literally.”

“Prior to that album I was a listener,” Ramirez explains. “Then I heard that album, and I told my parents I wanted to get a guitar.”

“It’s everything to me, it’s the Bible,” he adds. “I can hear it all in my head right now, all the song transitions.”

Simply put, Sublime is “the most important album to ever exist” for Ramirez.

“That’s exactly what it is,” he says. 

Sublime with Rome, which also features original Sublime bassist Eric Wilson, began in 2009. The group’s released three albums, the most recent of which being 2019’s Blessings.

By Josh Johnson
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