Sugar Ray

Sugar Ray is an American rock formation to have grabbed popularity in the second half of the nineties. The band was assembled in the suburb of LA in 1992. The core musicians of the new group were guitarist Rodney Sheppard, bassist Murphy Karges and drummer Stan Fraizer, who had been playing together as the heavy metal act Shrinky Dinx. After the right owners to the self-titled toy threatened to ignite a legal procedure against the musicians, they renamed their ensemble to Sugar Ray. The singer was found in quite a peculiar way. During one of the group’s performances, one of the spectators jumped onto the stage to sing along with the musicians. It was Mark McGarth who was later recruited as the front man after such an unordinary audition. Touring the home state of California, Sugar Ray were quite quick to gather a considerable following with one of the fans spending his own money on the shooting of their first video.

After the lineup and the name were finally stable, Sugar Ray began playing live together with the synthesizer man aka DJ Homicide (Craig Bullock) who then became the group’s regular member. The Californian formation’s debut album, Lemonade and Brownies, saw light of day on the spring of 1995. Critics praised the skillful mixing of funk, punk and alternative rock, use of striking humor in lyrics and splendidly recorded rough guitars. Sugar Ray became instantly the main promising stars of the Californian rock-stage, although their first studio work crashed financially. The band’s label, Atlantic Record, was about to cancel the partnership, yet the musicians persuaded the management to give them one more try. Right after the end of the promo tour for their debut, the outfit was again in the studio to make a really proficient record, Floored (1997). Mainly thank to the hit Fly, the long-play earned the double-platinum certificate. In fact, Fly sounded much differently from the rest of the band’s music, but the pop-orientation of this composition granted it with huge popularity.

In 1999, Sugar Ray presented their third studio effort under the title 14:59. By that time, many tend to consider the group one of the numerous one-day acts to catch attention after making up one or two hits. To the surprise of skeptics, 14:59 sold even better than its glorious predecessor. The record eventually received the triple-platinum status. The first single from the new album was the Fly-like composition called Every Morning, to reach the third position in the pop-charts. The follow-up singles, Someday, and Falls Apart also gathered high acclaims and brought Sugar Ray the reputation of the college and alternative radio stations favorites. One of the most vivid signs of their fame was the participation in Woodstock’99. Two years later, Sugar Ray tried to continue the streak of successful releases with the fourth self-titled album. This record was the group’s first studio work to enter Top Ten. As time went by it became clear that it was not because of the new material, but due to the past achievements of the musicians. While the single When It's Over was able to get enough airplay, the subsequent singles, Answer the Phone, and Ours, flopped. The album was far from a good seller. The situation was even worse after the 2003 release of In the Pursuit of Leisure. The collection The Best of Sugar Ray (2005) failed to make things better. This made the musicians take a break and think over what to do next. Sugar Ray resurfaced in 2009 with the new album entitled Music For Cougars.