“Is this Jerry Seinfeld’s Bizarro World?” the singer asks asks. “Sugar Ray got a major label deal in 2018?”
, McGrath has spent the past few years trying to ride the growing Nineties nostalgia wave. In 2012, Sugar Ray toured with Everclear, Lit, Gin Blossoms, and Marcy Playground on the inaugural Summerland tour. The next summer, the singer led his own 1990s nostalgia tour with Smash Mouth and Gin Blossoms that he called Under the Sun. “We hit our little mark, but it was a ton of work,” says McGrath. “I was hoping as we went along it was going to get bigger, but it kind of plateaued.
Two years ago, he signed on to the I Love the 90’s tour where he played arenas with TLC, Naughty by Nature, Biz Markie, Montell Jordan, and several others. He refused to be billed as Sugar Ray since he was playing along to a track joined only by a drummer, but he still delivered the hits and had a lot of fun. “We were never cool and so I was never worried about credibility or anything like that,” he says. “As time passes, other people start feeling that same way.
The I Love the 90’s tour grew so popular in 2017 that there were two separate camps touring at once, and last year, a Las Vegas residency opened, led by Salt-N-Pepa. But ticket sales dried up after an initial burst and the Las Vegas show closed after just a few months. “There was just a glut,” says McGrath. “There was over-saturation. What you have to do is streamline it and give the people what they want.
He says he has an idea how to do it. “You aren’t re-inventing the wheel,” he says. “Every decade before us has had package tours that have worked and are still working. But the 1990s had a lot of different aspects to it.
In the meantime, he’s just happy he’s still able to make a living in music two decades after Sugar Ray’s last hit. “I know some people still think they are Kurt Cobain in my generation and that’s fine,” he says. “That keeps them motivated. But when I think you realize where you are, you really get happy with the space you’re in. You stop fighting against everything. And when you come see Sugar Ray, I’m going to sing our hits with all the vigor and joy and happiness that I can.
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