Opie Ortiz : Frontman for the Long Beach Dub Allstars

Opie Ortiz is the lead singer of the band the Long Beach Dub Allstars a dub/ska/rock band formed in 1997, after the death of Bradley Nowell of Sublime. The band was originally a 10-piece including the remaining members of Sublime and they recorded their debut recording called Right Back, which shortly after completion in 1999 saw the departure of three members. Their second album, Wonders of the World was recorded and released in 2001. It featured "Sunny Hours" featuring will.i.am from The Black Eyed Peas. "Sunny Hours" was also used as the theme song for the Friends spin-off Joey.

Here's an excerpt from an interview with Opie that explains how the Long Beach Dub Allstars got started:

I want to talk about Long Beach Dub All Stars – I know it started with the Enough Already Benefit Show and with ‘Dub All Stars came your visual presence, as well as being a vocalist. How did all of that transpire – How were you approached to be a part of ‘Dub All Stars?

It was weird; after Brad had passed we were all devastated. Our arms were open for all the homies and we were all just hanging out and jamming to help with the remorse. That was the only way Bud & Eric could deal, was to keep playing. I really don’t remember how it all came about, but it was the Enough Already Benefit show; that’s what we were practicing for. I think we just started getting calls to play, so we just did a mini tour for Cali. I don’t know if it was just therapy for them or all of us, but we all came together and we kind of figured it out. The first shows were really rough, you know, especially the Enough Already. If you listen, it just sounds so rough, you know what I mean? But we worked out a lot of the kinks and we started sounding really good live. When we started really nailing it live, getting a really good response from the crowd and feeling good about it, I think that’s what music’s about.

You hung out with Sublime, early on, then you lose a brother in Brad and you guys do this Enough Already concert & all the sudden you start to get a lot of attention, catching that wave of success with ‘Dub All stars, that Sublime missed. How is it for you to go from being behind the canvas, hanging out, to being on stage with a microphone, singing in front of hundreds to thousands of fans?

It was cool and then the whole realization would always rear its head, of “You’re doing this because your friend died” – I mean that’s the only real reason I was doing it, other than my love of music. Brad, he knew that I loved Reggae music and he would come over to my house and record my mom’s albums, you know what I mean? I’d be like “Oh I got this album” and he’d come over and record. And then I’d hear direct snippets of him listening to that music and it would play into his writing.

I felt it sucked in the beginning, because it was real hard for me to just take on that whole thing. After awhile, you kind of just let it go and try not to get too wasted in that environment. Eventually, it was working out, but I think I had other issues in me; I was ailing. We pulled through, we did 2 albums, we did some tours and luckily, no one else died. Obviously, drug problems are relevant in music and stuff like that, which I’m glad we pretty much all learned from that and we can say we went to Europe, we went to Japan, playing music!

Is that something you hope to continue doing now with LBDA after reforming back in 2012? You guys were recording some music and you have some new songs – is that something you hope to do again with taking the band on the road and producing new music?

Yea it’s straight out of doing it for the love of music! When Miguel talked about it, I told him “I don’t want to make music to try and make money! If I make money, so be it,” but good music is just good music! It doesn’t fuckin’ matter what label it’s on; it doesn’t matter about any of that bullshit! I can’t stand the way music is going. I’m not like, Justin Timberlake or Bob Dylan or anybody like that; you know what I’m saying? I just like good music; I was raised on real good music with Stevie Wonder, Bob Marley, soul, and funk – all of that stuff! You can’t play this new stuff and tell me this is good music, you know what I mean?