Rodney Sheppard played in a number of reggae bands, including working with future Good Charlotte drummer Dean Butterworth.

[2] After signing with Atlantic Records, the name was changed to Sugar Ray upon threat of a lawsuit from the Milton Bradley Company, maker of the Shrinky Dinks toy.

[3] The band's debut album, Lemonade and Brownies, was released in 1995 and though it failed to produce a major hit single it did earn them recognition in alternative circles.

[4] Sugar Ray's first mainstream hit came in the summer of 1997 with their song "Fly", which was released from the album Floored and featured reggae musician Super Cat.

"Fly" did not sound anything at all like the rest of the tracks on the album and received frequent radio play, resulting in a number one rank on the Billboard's Airplay List.

[3] The same year, Sugar Ray was featured in the movie Fathers' Day, starring Billy Crystal and Robin Williams.

In 2000, Sugar Ray did a cover version of John Cale and Brian Eno's song "Spinning Away" for the soundtrack to the film The Beach.

[8] Sugar Ray's 2003 effort In the Pursuit of Leisure, and the first single from the album, "Mr. Bartender (It's So Easy)", received a lukewarm reception.

After releasing their greatest hits album – The Best of Sugar Ray, in 2005, the band went into a period of relative inactivity for a number of years, with Mark McGrath starting a new job as an anchor on the television show Extra.

In mid-2007, their previously unreleased song "Into Yesterday" was used on the Surf's Up movie soundtrack, and the band made brief tour in Asia in August 2007 where they headlined SingFest, Singapore's first international music festival.

On August 22, 2010, Sugar Ray's Twitter page announced that Craig "DJ Homicide" Bullock had left the band.

Murphy Karges and Stan Frazier also left, one not wanting to tour anymore, and the other taking a job with Aaron Rodgers.

[13][clarification needed] In 2012, McGrath worked with Art Alexakis, frontman and vocalist of the band Everclear, on starting up a 1990s nostalgia tour, something they had discussed in the past but had always felt was too soon to be successful.

On November 9, 2013, Sugar Ray was to play a benefit for the Greater Los Angeles Fisher House at West LA's Wadsworth Theater.

However, in June 2014, McGrath revealed that the band had been struggling with legal wranglings with Karges and Frazier since their departure in 2012, and that because of it, he felt there would never be another Sugar Ray album.

The album title is a reference to both the rapper Lil Yachty[27] and the fact that McGrath views Sugar Ray as a "yacht rock" band.

[3] This new sound fused glam metal and hardcore punk with funk, sample-based hip-hop, new wave, disco, dub, reggae, R&B and soul music.

[30][38] Music critic Stephen Thomas Erlewine says that after the success of their crossover hit "Fly" they "no longer tried to ape the Red Hot Chili Peppers.