On Thursday, Sugar Ray announced that they have signed to a new contract with BMG and will be releasing their seventh studio album this summer. This will be the first new music the band has released in 10 years, following their 2009 albumMusic for Cougars.
We are honored and so grateful to be signing with our second major label 25 years after we signed with our first! said founding member Mark McGrath in an email to Rolling Stone.
The Newport, California group, co-founded by McGrath and Rodney Sheppard, are best known for their 1997 pop-rock hit Fly. In the intervening years sinceMusic for Cougars, the band has continued to be active in the music world, with McGrath appearing at the Smashing Pumpkins 30th anniversary concert in 2018 and performing in the I Love the Nineties Tour the year prior. In a 2013 interview withRolling Stone,McGrath spoke candidly about the bands legacy, and how he still enjoys performing Fly even after over a decade of heavy radio rotation.
I get called Sugar Ray all day long, he said. We worked hard on that name. Im Sugar Ray no matter what happens. Its something Im proud of, so Im fighting hard to keep the name Fly came on the radio the other day and it felt like the first time. All I ever wanted and all I ever dreamed was having a song on the radio and having people respond to it.