Song Premiere: Roots of Creation and Mighty Mystic Collaborate on Sublime Cover for 'The House That Bradley Built'
by GotChosen
Roots of Creation. Photo: Josh Coffman
On January 15, LAW Records and the Nowell Family Foundation will release an expanded edition of The House That Bradley Built. Over 30 new acoustic covers of Sublime songs have been added to the compilation, which will be available on all streaming platforms and as a three-disc CD set. Profits will be directed to help build Bradley's House, an opioid abuse treatment facility in Southern California named in honor of late Sublime frontman and principal songwriter, Bradley Nowell.
Today we are premiering "Roots of Creation," which is quite fittingly performed by Roots of Creation, as the group named itself after the tune.
Roots of Creation's Brett Wilson tell Relix, "Our band got our name from the song around the year 2000. The first time I heard the song Roots of Creation was on the B-side to the Badfish CD maxi-single that I purchased when I was a teenager at Newbury Comics in Nashua NH. I knew though it was the perfect name for the band I wanted to create... a project that included the northeast jamband vibe with the west coast ska/reggae/punk/rock blend. As a guitar jammin', festival attending skateboarder I fell in love with Cali based genre-bending bands like Fishbone, Sublime and Operation Ivy alongside The Grateful Dead, Phish & the underground NE jam scene.
"Covering "Roots of Creation" by Sublime was actually one of the most challenging studio experiences I've ever had. To attempt to recreate what seems like an intense freestyle demo over minimalistic instrumentation with no real breaks really pushed the boundaries of my vocal abilities to point that after two decades of celebrating and covering Bradley's music I even incredibly had a higher newfound respect for his craft. Which is a lot to say for my main vocal inspiration. To take things to the next level due to the amount of patois phrasing and Yellowman influence in the track I invited our good friend Mighty Mystic to lace the song with some authentic Jamaican toasting on some of the verses that made the most sense."
Mighty Mystic and Brett Wilson: Photo by Blake Hansen | @BoardzHouseProductions
Mighty Mystic recalls, "From the moment I got in the studio with Roots of Creation it was clear that we were about to have tons of fun collaborating on the Sublime cover song. Brett from RoC and I had a blast dissecting Bradley's lyrics and flow. Honestly I felt honored to be able to bring my interpretation and modern spin to the song."
Wilson adds, "Mystic crushed it. He always ups my game. Coincidently we recorded the cover right before I went to Jamaica on holiday and to lay down some songs at Tuff Gong studios right about a month before COVID hit. So this is the last studio recording that RoC did before the quarantine. We even added a Lil' Yellowman tease in the intro out of respect to the legend. To take it to the orgasmic pinnacle our man Andrew crushed the sax solo at the end. This is also the first RoC song in a long time that contains a full band with no electric guitars and an acoustic guitar focus. I'm really stoked how the band came together for a great cause to help fight the opioid epidemic which affects all races, classes, ages and political affiliations. I have lost too many heroes and close friends to big pharma's greed-fueled deadly sales. Mental health, legalization, criminal justice reform, and treatment is the way of the future."
