10 Amazing Bands Who Lost Members At The Height Of Their Potential

4. Sublime (Brad Nowell)

There€™s never a good time to overdose on heroin, but Brad Nowell could not have picked a worse one. After nearly a decade of writing, performing and recording with his band Sublime, Nowell OD'd a mere month before the release of the band€™s major-label debut. Sublime was also set to begin a major tour in support of that record the day after Nowell€™s death. And as if that wasn€™t enough, he was married just a week beforehand. It€™s a tragedy that Nowell could not live to see the fruits of his labor delivered. The self-titled album was an enormous success, spawning singles and MTV videos that are still emblematic of the era. It ended up being one of the biggest records of 1997 and eventually sold over six million copies with Sublime€™s easy, reggae-inspired sound proving as friendly to stoners and college kids as it did to radio and the general public. It€™s hard to think of any other band whose enormous success and untimely demise came so close together. A new singer, Rome Ramirez, joined some of the remaining Sublime members in 2010, touring and recording as Sublime with Rome. Nonetheless, nobody questions that Sublime€™s legacy and Brad Nowell€™s are one and the same.