The band will play Nov. 16 at The Blue Note.
Published Nov. 12, 2010
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For most people, the name Badfish kind of puts the thought of smelly salmon in your mind. Not for Sublime’s loyal fans. Instead, Badfish brings to mind the awesome talent and original sound of Sublime.
Badfish, a Sublime cover band, came together in 2001 when a group of students from the University of Rhode Island expressed their love for music to one another.
“We were just students together at the University of Rhode Island,” Badfish’s drummer, Scott Begin, said. “We’d get together and just jam. We were in classes together, and we knew each other’s interest in music so we got together and we jammed and the idea just sort of came about, ‘Let’s try to do a Sublime tribute show and just see how it goes.’ It went really well when we did that show, so we decided to keep at it.”
The name of the band originated from a not-so-popular song on the Sublime album 40 Oz. to Freedom.
“It was just one of those things,” Begin said. “The song had a catchy sort of name. It was kind of a cool name for a band, I guess. It was just one of those Sublime songs, it might not have been one of their biggest hits or anything like that, but it was just a song that we sort of felt like it embodied the whole spirit of Sublime and their music.”
For fans that were never able to see the original ska-punk band perform live before the death of lead singer Bradley Nowell, Badfish provides a good alternative with its tribute to Sublime. For Badfish, being able to give fans that opportunity is tremendous.
“Oh, it’s great,” Begin said. “You know, any time you get to play music on stage in front of people is great in itself. But to play music that people really love and really respond to makes it that much better. Clearly, anyone coming to see our show knows what they’re in store for. They obviously know at least a few of the songs, if not all of the songs.”
The members of Badfish present their talents in more than one band. Scotty Don’t is an opening band for most of the Badfish shows, and it allows the members to show off their own originality.
“That’s really a fun part of it, too — that we have the same guys, just an alter ego,” Begin said. “It’s been an interesting sort of experience to do this for the past few years that we’ve had Scotty Don’t. It’s been our own band and our own entity.”
It seem as though anyone can pick up an instrument and play a show as a tribute to anything. But it takes time, dedication, passion and talent to make a show of it, all of which Badfish possesses.
The Wandering Sunflower 