The rise and fall of Sugar Ray, the band behind hit songs like 'Fly'

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I cite my sources and they may differ than other people's accounts, so I don't guarantee the actual accuracy of my videos.

The LA Times would describe Sugar Ray as Orange County’s quintessential unthinking man’s rock band or as spin magazine referred to them as the least likely to succeed party band. Sugar Ray could have easily dissolved before anybody heard of them and despite being labeled as a one hit wonder, they were more than that, having three successful albums and half a dozen or so hit songs. Today, let’s explore the history of Sugar Ray.
The story of Sugar Ray begins with frontman Mark McGrath, actually it first begins with boxer Sugar Ray Lenoard who would serve as the inspiration for the band’s name. Now we can talk about vocalist Mark McGrath. He would be born in 1968 to an irish catholic family in hartford, connecticut. At the age of 5 he began singing in front of his mother’s mirror while playing miming guitar playing to The Knack’s My Sharona. He would tell Spin “i always wanted to be in a band and i always wanted to f*** around.and i always wanted all the fringe benefits. But by his own admission in the same interview, he had no musical talent. But he did have one thing, a ton of charisma. It was at the age of 8 in 1976 his parents moved the family across the country to california, but macgrath was less than enthusiastic about it revealing to spin “i knew when we came out to california, that my parents would get divorced.All i ever heard about los angeles was that everyone gets divorced. It tortured me everyday. Then of course, five years after we moved, they got divorced. I remember hiding it from everybody.”It resulted in mcgrath becoming more guarded and insular and school didn’t get any easier as he wasn’t a popular kid having zits, and did tried to find his identity. At one point, he pretended to be a goth who was into groups like the cult, but at the same time secretly listening to more poppy acts like Duran Duran. Despite dealing with the shock of his parents divorce he was mostly a good kid in high school not really drinking or engaging in drug use instead flirting with break dancing and eventually became a pretty accomplished basketball player. But soon enough, it would be music that changed his life. An avid reader of music magazines like Creem, Rolling Stone and Melody Maker, Mcgrath’s head soon became full of rock trivia, so it was no surprisein 1998, he was a celebrity guest contestant on the TV game show Rock & Roll Jeopardy and squared off against member of the whack pack hank on the howard stent show in rock n’ roll trivia.. It would be the sex pistols and black flag who would prove to be mcgrath’sbiggest influences.
Meanwhile, elsewhere in newport beach, guitarist Rodney Shepphard met drummer Stan Frazier at an amusement park. They were also students at Corona Del Mark High School. Both guys were mod revivalists with Shepphard telling Spin” I saw these guys wearing jam buttons and i’m like oh my god you’re mods too! Both came from musical families and Shepphard’s family hailed from Trinidad. The pair soon enough started a covers band that played British music including groups like the Jam, Small Faces and the Who under the monicker The Tories, named after the English conservative party who was in power at the time. While the band’s popularity didn’t extend far outside of the garage’s and house parties of newport beach, they did find a fan in a young mark macgrath. In Newport beach it was common for parents to go away for the weekends leaving their kids at home, who had parties and it was at one of these parties McGrath met the members of The Tories revealing in the book Sugar Ray. “I’d follow them around like heroes. Like, hey Rod can i carry your guitar. One night they were playing a party. i had my ratt cutoff shirt on, flexing my muscles and they called me up on stage. I screamed and did flip into the pool. That night Mcgrath performed a cover of AC/DC’s track back in black and soon enough, McGrath joined the group and by 1987-1988, they formed a new group called Shrinky Dinx. There would be a special emphasis on the X with an umlaut sine motley crue was big a the time and the members were fans of other popular groups at the time LA Guns, Faster Pussycat and Bang Tango.