Bandsplain - Rancid with Michael Bingham

Episode Date: October 26, 2023

From the ashes of Operation Ivy rose Rancid, a hard-working generational punk band from the fertile grounds of the East Bay. This week Michael Bingham from the band Spiritual Cramp joins us to chart the course and enduring music of a band that exists at the intersection of The Specials and Agnostic Front.  Follow Michael’s band on Twitter @Spiritual_Cramp Listen to songs we detail in the episode HERE Host: Yasi Salek Guest: Michael Bingham Producer: Jesse Miller-Gordon Audio Editor: Adrian Bridges Additional Production Supervision: Justin Sayles Theme Song: Bethany Cosentino Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

What would you do if you got scammed? Would you suffer in silence, or would you do something about it? Well, I got scammed once, and this is the story of what I did. I'm Justin Sales, the host of the Wedding Scammer, a true crime podcast from The Ringer. And for seven episodes, we're hunting a comment. A guy with a lot of aliases, a guy who's ruined a lot of weddings. And with the help of some friends, I just might be able to catch him. Listen to the Wedding Scammer on Spotify or wherever you get your podcasts.

What's with this band anyway? I don't get it. Can you please explain? Wait, like, Bansplain? Hello and welcome to Bandsplane. I am your host, Yossi Sallick. This is a show where I invite an expert guest on to help me explain a cult band or iconic artist. Today's episode is about the band Rancid. If you've never heard Rancid, if you want to make a move, then you better come in, babe.

Make a moment, then you better come in. My guest today is Michael Bingham. I call him Mikey. We're working that out together because I don't know if he likes it. He's the front man of the wonderful band, Spiritual Cramp. Welcome to the program, Mikey. Thank you for having me, Yazvi. This is an audio-only podcast, but I want you guys to know that Mikey is wearing his own band's hoodie.

And I actually would like what it's working. So if you're trying to sell merch to me directly, it's working. I was. I was hoping you would say something about it in the first 10 seconds. seconds of the podcast. Yeah, and I did. And now I want one. Perfect. My plan is working. Gorgeous. Well, Michael, Mikey, tell me why you wanted to come on this here program and talk about Ransan. Well, Rance is a pretty instrumental band in the way that I formed a relationship with music. Are you from the Bay Area? I'm from a town called Santa Rosa. Santa Rosa. Is that South Bay?

That's North Bay. North Bay. Yeah, it's about an hour north of San Francisco. Okay, Gorge. So these are hometown heroes for you in a way. Oh, yeah. Are you above the age of 40? I am not above the age of 40. Rough for me, personally. Are you? Yes, I'm 41 years old.

No, you don't look like, you don't look at it. I have an excellent skincare routine. We can talk about it off bank later. Yes. I've been working on mine. Thank you, yeah. I can give you some tips. Okay, so tell me why I ran said was so instrumental.

Like, when did you come across them being such a young whippersnapper? Yeah, that's a really great question. I think I was like 12 or 13 when I first discovered Rancid. It was right around the time that I first got into music. And I think I was like trying to remember when the first time that they came across my kind of line of sight was, and I think it was, I was listening to a Napster down, which kind of shows my age. I was fully in college when I was downloaded music from Napster.

Good Lord. Okay, please continue. No, I ruined a lot of family computers with Nazar. But I remember I downloaded a live AFI set. And as we do. As one did in 2000, maybe 2000 or 99. Yeah, it would have been 2000, 2001. Napster only really existed for like one year of magic.

And it was like right around that in 2000 to 2000. It was a good year. It was a great year. Not for some people, but not for the music and not for artists. Also, 9-11 happened then, so that was pretty, some bad stuff did happen during that time. It was not related to Napster. Things are unrelated. I just want to make sure that people understand that there was no correlation.

Between 9-11 and- Napster, yeah. And Napster. That makes total sense. I was actually going to bring that up later on, but I'm happy you addressed it now. I downloaded a live AFI set. And they said something to the effect of Rancid is up next. And so I remember I downloaded Rancid.

I don't remember what song it was. And then I got, I figured out what they looked like. And yeah, I just kind of, kind of became obsessed. They introduced me to a lot of really cool bands. Like,

like Lars was playing in the UK subs at the time. No, yeah, like, I mean, I just like learned about like a lot of street punk and like OI music from them. I didn't know about street punk or oi music before Rancid.

Like Blank 77 and like they were playing with bands. like the unseen. But then they played with like bands like sick of it all. I had never heard of sick of it all either. Yeah. And like H2O and like hardcore music as well. Sure. So it was like my jumping on. Rancid was like, because you know, they were a pretty entry level band for me. They're for sure like a gateway band. I mean, I'm again, considerably older than you. But even for me, like I probably got into punk just like a scotch earlier than Green Day Rancid time, but only like six seconds earlier. And that was because of Nervon. which also sort of like all roads tended to lead back to punk and you know if you you map the things but all this stuff becoming mainstream enough for you to know about it was the opening the door to all these other things that you were like what there's this like whole other world of things that I can go listen to it was it was so instrumental and cool to have that yeah I remember like it was like I remember I saw they they would wear like you know Brancid was always

wearing cool shirts. Yeah. That's what they were wearing cool punk band shirts. Totally. A band, like the exploited and like GBA's like, I had no idea what that was, but I knew that I wanted to be a part of it. Right. You're like, that sounds cool as hell.

I don't know what the actual music sounds like, but I like the logo on the t-shirt. Yeah. And you're like, I want that to be my identity. And I was so young that at the time, like, you could have played me any sort of. sort of band and I would have been like, I love it. Like, I knew more, you know, and it just happened to be like punk and happened to be kind of, kind of rebellious, which also resonated with me as the young lad. Were you a bad kid? I was. Yeah, I got into a lot of trouble as a kid. Yeah, got into a lot of trouble for a lot of years. I'm really glad you found your way. Yeah, I mean,

I'm still alive for sure. You just reminded me of the, like, the idea of these, like, sort of very mainstream visuals coming into play. And like obviously most famously, Kurt Cobain wore that flipper t-shirt. But like these things did sort of open doors because you'd be like, what's that? Like, let me go look that up. It's funny because like now like when I see bands wearing shirts, like you know, you'll see like a band like scowl like wearing a, like I saw that they were wearing a nerve-age and shirt the other day. And, um, and I was like, that's, that's weird. And I realized there's someone like, you know, I just, it didn't relate to me because I like know who these bands are now. I know who are a lot of bands. You know, I'm pretty like, now you're judging. Now you're

being good. Yeah, yeah, yeah. But then I realized I was like, there's someone out. There's a bunch of people out there right now who are seeing that and they're going to go discover the nerve visions. There's 12 year olds still in this world that don't know who the nerve agents are. Right. But they know who cat from scowl is and they're excited about it. Exactly. Which is a very impactful thing. That's why I'm wearing the spiritual cramp. So that people will look and be like, what's spiritual cramp on this audio only podcast? Yeah. That's funny. I do really remember me being like 12, 13

and getting sort of like into this like entry level punk and having my friend's older cousin and he was like a full on like punk punk like hawk like subhumans patch on the fucking denim cutoff vest you know what I mean like and they were like this is discharge. I'm like 13 I was like what the

fuck is this. This is so cool. And sometimes you need one of those people also in your life to like just hand you tapes and stuff. So in high school, me and my friends, we all got into like AFI, no effects, rancid, Green Day, like these entry level bands, right? Right.

And from there, you know, we all kind of like went our separate ways or whatnot. But I remember this one summer, it was our freshman to sophomore year. Two of my friends came back from the summer and they had turned into like street punks.

Like full on. Like egg white's in the hawk and the whole thing. And I remember but I hadn't. I was still like this dorky little skate punk. It's like every all the other girls got their period and you did it. Straight up they came back and I was like well what the fuck like I don't I don't know

I don't know who you know anti-Semex is you know I didn't know what that was and picked it up pretty quick I got to figure this out, boss some egg whites and sure got that shit. going. Oh, yeah. All right. Well, why don't we start on this journey? They do have a lot of albums. They do. They put an album this year. They did. Yeah. Honestly, a great record.

Honestly, really good. It's really good. Yeah. I love it. I hadn't listened to it and absolutely love and respect to Rans and it wasn't for any reason other than it just hadn't crossed my path in any meaningful way. And then I was listening to it and I was like, all right. Yeah. It's really good. It's probably like their best record in a long time in my opinion. In the back half of their catalog, yeah, I think it's probably it's probably the best one. Yeah, for sure. Should we start with a history of ska, fun facts? I was going to, I was hoping you'd suggest that.

You were hoping that I won't go into too much detail of this because if you want the whole thing, I did it on the Operation Ivy episode, which obviously is closely tied in to this episode so you can go back to you guys and listen to that. But I just am kind of obsessed with this, which I don't know, it's not a fact. It's like a theory, but it makes so much sense to me. And I'm a girl. I'm not interested in the truth. I'm just like ideas.

So in Jamaica, in the mid-60s, right, people would listen. They didn't have their own R&B radio stations there. They would try to pick up the ones from Miami and Norlands, right? And they were listening to like Fats Domino and stuff like that. I've found my three-on. But because the radio waves, were so far away, it would like skip out all the time. And the theory is that that sort of like delay and choppiness of the guitars in the way

that they were hearing it basically influenced that sort of same thing that they willfully created in ska music, which doesn't that make so much sense? You mean like the like the dub elements and stuff like that? Yeah, just kind of like the. And like the stuff that was like kind of made it more staccato. guitar and stuff, which that's not what was actually coming. That's not actually what the music sounded like, but that's how it was

heard by them because of the skipping out of the radio waves. Is this true? I don't know. I'm saying it's a theory, babe. It's a theory. It's a crazy theory. I think it makes a lot of sense. Anyway, it is generally agreed that the guitarist Ernie Ringlin invented

the muted scotch hop. That's in the Encyclopedia Britannica. My God, I'm so happy to be here and learn all this from you. This is amazing. Well, clearly someone didn't listen to the Operation Ivy episodes. I did it. When you said that, I was like, God damn. I can't believe that's a really good episode.

Not to, like, cheat my own horn, but it is quite a good episode. And then obviously, we'll go through it quickly, but like, you know, early Scott. And then it was like Scotelites. And then it was two-tone, you know, in England, like the specials, madness, the lector, English B, etc., etc. And that sort of moved over to America in like early 80s with like the Toasters that was a New York band, the Untouchables in L.A. and the uptones in Berkeley. So that's kind of important. What else is happening in the East Bay? Lots of stuff. We'll get into it. We're not quite there. But right, I mean, Dead Kennedy's Avengers. That's kind of happening in San Francisco. And then we'll get into like the first little glimmer. of punk in the East Bay.

But we're going to start with Timothy Lint Armstrong. That was not as given middle name. That's a nickname. He was born November 25th, 1965. He's a Sagittarius. What's your assignment? You're not an astrology girlie? I am by proximity.

I'm a cancer. You're astrology by proximity to your wife, who's probably very into astrology. Shockingly enough, she's not. Barb? Barb does hair is not into astrology? We stand Barb does hair. We do stand.

Barb is hair. Do you know Katrina? Yes, of course. Katrina is very interesting. Christina does facials. Yeah, Katrina does her Instagram, but at Christina does facials. It all comes back to Barb. Yeah, Barb is the wind beneath your wings. Oh, that's for damn sure.

So you're a cancer, emotional. I am a little emotional and sensitive. Some would say, Barb might say that. Barb might say. Yeah. Well, I'll tell you about Sagittarius. Sagittarius is sort of, it makes a lot of sense to me that Tim Armstrong is a Sagittarius. There's two zodiac signs that are like most likely to do whatever the fuck they

want all the time. And that's Aquarius and Sagittarius. And Sagittarius in particular is just like hates rules, hates being controlled, super free spirited, can be quite like blunt in their speech and stuff. Really bores easily like needs to be constantly stimulated. It really does from everything I've read about Tim Armstrong. For me it checks out fully with his vibe. That checks out. Yeah. That's so badass. That's so cool.

He grew up in Albany with his mother, Jackie, and his dad, Donald, who was an army vet. I think he was in and out of work, but at times he was a city maintenance worker. They were very, like, working class and had two brothers, Greg and Jeff. He might have had more than two brothers, but these are the ones that I could find. The brothers are important. Tim and his brother were dropped off at this woman's house in Berkeley, named Mrs. Jones, starting when Tim was three years old to take music lessons. Sounds like it was like a hybrid music lessons babysitter situation, but at three, they would just like teach him songs and he would

play like little three-year-old percussion. So basically since he was cognizant, he's been doing and learning music. Quite cool. And he loved it. He said on Toby Morris's podcast that his first memory is crying because he had to leave Mrs. Jones's house and he wanted to stay and sing. his little alphabet songs or whatever. Yeah, he's definitely like a true musician to his core. Yeah. Everything that guy does is basically intentioned to be making music or art. In some way, it's incredible.

It seems like he's both just like dispositionally that way and also like has that 10,000 hours thing, that Malcolm Gladwell thing. Because like if you're playing music since you're three, like this is all you've done. You're going to become so good at. it yeah totally according to tim armstrong i came from a family of hardcore drunks my dad his five brothers both my brothers were drunks i drank the whole time i did drugs etc i'm getting a little hud though because at the age of five years old who does tim armstrong meet in albany in the neighborhood you already know the vibes roger matthew freeman oh okay freeman born april 23rd

1966, a Taurus like myself. You know that checks out too, bitch, because what are Taurus's? Loyal. A word. Salt of the earth. The rock that you can lean on. Also kind of stubborn. But like, what would we, we would have no rancid without Matt Freeman because he's,

he's the rock. So he's the rock. Tim's the, Tim's the artist. Tim's like, yeah, the artist, the fire that kind of like pushes it forward. Okay. Got it. that's kind of like Barb and I that's you and Barb oh my god you guys have a relationship

just like Tim and Matt Freeman yeah so they've been friends since they were five they met in like this like father and son thing called the Y Indian guides Matt Freeman's dad was a cop again working class community and Matt was very scared of Tim's other big brother Greg who in this Indian guides

was showing off by doing pull-ups bitch and Matt was like oh no he's scary this is a very work like I want to say it again because I think one thing about Rancid that is meaningful is they are a hundred percent working class punk band. They sing about those preoccupations of the working class. Like they're political and they're and they're preoccupied with that. And it comes from like this upbringing of Matt and Tim and Lars had a similar one, I think, in the South Bay. Yeah, totally.

I think that's another reason I was drawn to it. Yeah, you felt seen. Yeah, for sure. Yeah, those guys are really smart, too. It seems like they never signed to a major label, you know? They just started their own label. It's like, no, I know. Smart, hardworking people do.

Smart, hardworking, working, working class people. So Tim would hang out at the 7-Eleven where his brother worked and also at the Golden Gatefield's racetrack. He said that's the first place he saw a pimp in a purple suit. I don't know if we call them that anymore, but that's, this was a... What else would we call them? I don't know, babe. I'm, I'm 41.

I can't stay hip to all of the correct language. Yeah, okay. I just call them a pimp, too. Maybe they're also sex workers. It's not really important to our purposes here. Yeah, okay. So Jeff is selling slurpees at this fucking 7-Eleven in Albany, and Jeff is really into punk.

He's the first person in Tim's life that gets into punk. He buys the Ramon's album, Rockett to Russia. And he had this Radio Shack portable record player, and they would listen to it 20 times a day. And Tim was like, I'd never heard anything as great as that. What is your relationship to the Ramones? My relationship to the Ramones is deep. Yeah, I think I got to the Ramones before I even got to Rancid.

So by the time I got to Rancid, I understood the context for what they were doing. Like, things like saying like, like, let's go. Yeah, the gang vocals. Yeah, gang vocals. And like, the performance part of like, you don't have to sing and, like, you don't have to sing in like your own voice necessarily. Yeah. Like when Joey Ramon sings, like, he's singing in like the Ramon's accent.

He's a crooning kind of. Yeah, he's crooning. Yeah, totally. And so is Tim, you know, that like they both kind of do it in different ways. Like, I bought a Ramones compilation. Yeah, it was called Ramones Mania, bitch. I had it too. It's a double CD.

Yeah. I know exactly what you're talking about. I got it at the commissary. My grandparents took me to this like a military commissary. is naval, naval base, Travis Air Force Base. And they sold the Ramones there? Yeah, they sold CDs. There was like an electronic department.

The Ramones are also one of my favorite bands, too. The Ramones and Rancet are like two bands. I take a lot of what it is that we do in Spiritual Cramp. That's interesting because I will say I listen to the Spiritual Cramp album. So good. Yes, that's right, you guys. I am a special person in the music community and therefore I've been, I've had access to the spiritual cramp album that's not out yet.

it's excellent but it's not what I I was like okay let's hear this rancid influence then I was like yeah it's not what I mentioned it's like the ad libing that time does right and like just like there's there's certain things that you're doing you're doing a bit of a voice yeah for sure I'm definitely like I just like like I sing the way that I want someone to sound you know like when I'm like if that makes any sense at all like I'm like man I wish there's bands that sounded this way. So that's how I sing because I, like, I don't just, like, sing in this voice because, like, my regular voice is kind of annoying and, like, awkward. I don't think that's true. Well, thanks. But, like, you know what I mean? When I start singing,

it's like, I could be larger, I could be larger than, you're doing, you're doing theater. You're performing. Yeah, exactly. And I learned a lot of that from Rancid. Like, Tim's personality in the band, it's like, it's like, it's larger than life. Totally. When you listen to it, you're like, you're like a, you're like a, like I wouldn't say maybe a cartoon character is the wrong word because it's that sounds a little derogatory. Right. But it's very, it's just like it's this unique, like maybe persona also is the wrong word. But that's kind of closer to right. I mean, Tim Armstrong has hands down to me one of the best punk singing voices, like of all time.

Like it's so singular and so there's just something about the quality of it. It's also so hot. Like, I mean, I'm going to, I was a 12 year old girl. And I was like, the fuck is this voice. I'm obsessed. It's so, like, sexy. Yeah. It's, like, also you could tell he doesn't give a fuck.

Like, to sing like that. Like, you really have to just be like, yo, like, I don't care. Like, I'm doing some crazy shit here. Yeah. And when you, when you don't give a fuck what other people think about you and you do crazy shit in within art, as long as it's thoughtful, I think that it naturally draws people. people to it. 100%. And generally, you have to not care what people think about you. I've learned that lesson the hard way here on the Bandsplay and podcast, which as you guys, I bet as a podcast as like, like, we know what you do, like a figurehead of this, this kind of thing. Like,

you probably get a lot of feedback. A lot of feedback, babe. So much feedback. Feedback. Yeah, totally. Me and Tim Armstrong, though, we don't give a fuck what you think. Okay. So. So. You're going to. get it. You just have to, here, I'll tell you the shortcut. The shortcut is to learn that not only do the negative comments mean nothing, the positive comments mean nothing. None of it means anything. It's all like, that's fine. That has nothing to do with me. What you think of me has nothing to do with me. It seems like something you have to practice daily. May I recommend starting a really long

podcast and then for two years having to listen to it back like four hours of your own voice every week? That will help you. I'll consider. Yeah, you'll experience complete ego death and you'll feel like, who even cares about anything? That's cool. Yeah, I don't think that starting a band is good for ego death. No, I guess not. Well, it's like it's this, I mean, I guess it's the same thing as what you do, but it's like, it is important that people receive what you're doing well in order to. Yeah, but you have, you can't think about that because who receives it well will receive what

you do authentically. And the people that don't receive it, well, they're not for you. and you're not for them. Not everything is for everyone. It's not illegal to not listen to spiritual cramp, and it's not illegal to not listen to bandsplain. There's other things. Keep it moving. Yeah, totally.

I was talking about this yesterday. Someone says something like, yeah, you know, you can only plant your fruits, and you can work hard to harvest them and make sure that, you know, there's care put into growing them, but you can't control what the fruit is going to be. You just have to allow it to be what it's going to be.

That's right. So to this day, Tim Armstrong's favorite band, as the Ramones. His brother also put him on to like the clash, the specials, also Blasters, an X, which really explains a lot to me because there's definitely like a beautiful little ribbon of rockabilly that runs through Rancid. Is there? Oh, for sure. You don't hear that? Procabilly. Rockabilly? Yeah. There's definitely, I even made some notes. We'll talk about which songs are. Also in the 90s, like, it was all so connected. Like, I very specifically remember, like how close of neighbors punk and rockabilly were whereas now it's it's divergent

rockabilly didn't have um such a it's you know people don't it was cooler it was cooler yeah so they both went to albany high school they in 1983 they had to come up with an act for the albany high variety and talent show it was called the cougar follies matt and tim tried to play the alvis song blue suede shoes well it's the one fall of morning Who for the show? Ready to get a ready now. You want to know something about me? I got to interject here.

Please. My first show that I ever played was the Y East High School talent show in Vancouver, Washington, and I played Blitzkrieg Bob by the Ramones. Just by yourself? Just you and a friend. With a friend. And I broke a string on stage and I had to stop halfway than the song. Maybe it was different in your generation.

But when I was in high school, it was very deeply uncool to be in the talent show. You know, I was kind of a deeply uncool person. You were painting a picture for me where you were like this cool, bad punk kid, but now I'm like, I'm like, I'm not he's in the talent show. No, I wasn't cool. I just got into trouble all the time. Yeah. No, I wasn't very cool, to be honest.

I was in the talent show in middle school. What did you do? We did a song from Greece. Look at me. I'm Sandra D. And I was Rizzo. How would it go? I think, well, I'm a natural.

performer, if you must know. I think you can tell with this charisma and charm. Absolutely. Yeah, exactly. So Tim Armstrong's first band was called COD. It was with his brother Greg and he describes it like bad black flag circle jerks and discharge. There is a recording of this band because there was this compilation in 1982 called Get Off My Guts. Are you familiar? No, I'm not. It also has Jesse Michaels' first band with Aaron Comet Bus, which was called SAG on it. So Aaron Comet Bus was putting out all these tapes. He was a documentarian of this sort of scene. And I think he put this together.

It's also a band on here called Blasphemy, one called White Meat. Yeah. Those are on there. I want to tell you some of the song titles, Want to Fuck Miss Pac-Man. That was an SAG song. C-O-D. Redneck with Spikes. Okay.

That was their song on there. A lot of Pac-Man on here. I'm not really sure why, because they also had a song called Pac-Man works for the CIA. Why the obsession with Pac-Man? I'm not really sure. I mean, they're teenagers. So maybe that's why. I mean, they're quite young.

Tim starts another band called The Surf Rats. Those were sort of like Ramones-ish band. And then started a band called Noise. I think Matt was in that band with him. And basically he says about Noise, the rest of the band sucked. They were fucking knuckleheads to quote him. And he was like, let's go start our own band. So they start basic radio.

It's like all of the genres mixed up. Like Jeff Ott said that basic radio was like, if they happened now, we'd probably call it world music. They were kind of a punk band, kind of a ska band, kind of a reggae band, kind of a rock band. Dudes could play saxophones and all sorts of instruments and shit. That's interesting. I'd never heard of basic radio. Yeah, that was basically the first Tim Armstrong, Matt Freeman, joint. and you kind of get that scot element,

that like also a little bit of hip hop. I mean, Tim Armstrong is a really diverse musical interest. They play their first show in Dave Mello's garage. And Dave Mello from Operation Ivy, his parents let them have shows in his house. And they played a couple of years, maybe played like 10 shows, and they're still quite young.

Then Tim played bass for Crimpshine for a little bit. And then basic radio kind of falls apart because Matt and Tim were basically kicked out of their own band. I guess the guys from the band wrote them a letter and said, we're sick of playing lame gig contests. I only wanted to bring this up because Aaron Cometbuss thought that was so funny that he used that as the title of the Crimpshire album. So that's why the 1989 Crimpshrine album is called Lame Gig Contest.

Damn, that's great. How did you find that out? I don't know, baby. I have my methods. You're like the Nard War of Podcasts. I'm much prettier. Well, yeah, and like cooler and not annoying. Well, I mean, I'm annoying in my own way.

dude. So Tim is like bummed, right? He doesn't get to be in Crim Trime. Basic radio falls apart. All he wants to is play music. He's also really into hardcore. And obviously, hardcore is really happening in New York at the time.

So he gets on a Greyhound bus. For three days, he's on the bus to get to New York to check out the punk scene. He has punk dreams, babe. He says, on that bus, he heard accents he had never heard before. He goes to the Sunday matinee show at CBGPs. He's so into it. Murphy's law has put out a record. You're hearing the record everywhere, according to him. New York has happening big time. Quote, I'm going to move here. Then I went to a fanzine store and I got Maximum Rock and Roll. There had been a lot of talking about a new club that was going to go down on Gilman Street, a punk rock club. I grew up right there. I had to go home. I wasn't fucking New York. I still get chills thinking about it. I got right back on the Greyhound, another three fucking days, no money. All I had. was crackers and water. Isn't that so that story really like moved me for some reason? He went all the way to New York to like chase his punk dreams happens to go and open a maximum rock and roll finds out Gilman is

opening and is like oh I'm going home bitch Gilman's opening I'm going home. It's crazy. Yeah. And then this is the cutest part of the story. Matt Freeman said there's this book called give me something better, which is like the history of punk in the East Bay. And then this one he's interviewed and he says you actually brought me back a rolling rock beer you carried it all the way i had never seen a rolling rock before damn they're the best they're best friends how cute is that i just picturing little tim armstrong like you know teenage like what 1819 with a roll delicately cradling a rolling rock three full days sleeping with it to make sure it doesn't break so that he can present it back to his bestie matt freeman at home i find that very moving well i'm really happy that he decided to do that

back home to the Gilman, huh? Come back home to Gilman. To Gilman. So anyway, stuff's going on, right? Fang already exists. Tim says that Sammy Town from Fang, they were friends since they were kids. And he was like, that's the first person. Anybody knew that was like a real punk rocker.

You remember him? He had the hair and the horn. Yeah, he's still a real punk rocker. Yeah. He's a lifer. Christon parade had started also. It's kind of thrashy, right? Little emo, dark, political.

Good band. neurosis bitch fucking the best did you know that neurosis started out sounding very much like Christon parade and they got really into LSD and that's why their sound change Oh it's LSD that did that to them

It is fucking Berkeley so it makes sense But as it played a kind of a big part in the punk scene up there Okay so we painted a little picture Tim Armstrong has taken the bus Back three days They are at Gilman from the very first show Here's what Tim

said in an interview with Larry Livermore in the early 2000s. I didn't even think about playing. I just wanted to have some cool place to be. It was that fucking innocent. Does that make sense? I mean, like how hungry was the whole climate? It was like we were starving. It is kind of crazy, right? Because like, again, you're a little bit younger than me. I mean, my first favorite active, like, not massive band was Blink 1882 when I was like 13, 14. And I could go to a punk club and see them. Like, that was just easy. It was easy. It was available. But like, and you grew up, obviously, I'm assuming, having that be available to, right? It's not like you had to, like, get on a bus three days back from New York City because finally one place opened where you could go see punk bands.

Yeah, no, it was just readily available to me. Yeah. It's on the moment I got into it. It's crazy to think, like, that's how, like, just like, what a, what a magical thing it must have been for Gilman Street to open for these people. Yeah, we had the Phoenix Theater in Petalima. Sure. You're famous. Yeah.

I mean, I can definitely relate to that. Like, I was just like, I just needed a place to go. Yeah. He just got. Yeah. So Gilman is open. They're so excited. Matt is the de facto garbage man.

He comes every Monday and takes the garbage out. Every time he runs the garbage to the Berkeley dump, he gets one free ticket to Gilpin. Wow. To win Isocracy played because Isocracy would bring bags of trash to their gigs and dump it all over the fans. Very cool. That was their vibe. They loved that. Very cool vibe.

So this is great, right? So then what happens? They form Operation Ivy because Jesse Michaels has returned to Berkeley from he was in Philly. I won't go deep into Operation Ivy again. We have a whole episode of that. But you already know what happens. Tim and Jesse link up. They have the same influences.

They rope in Dave Mello. Actually, here's a fun fact. Operation Ivy was actually the first name of Isocracy. And Isocracy aside, they didn't like the name. And they were like, we want to be isocracy. And so they were like, can we have the old name? And they were like, yeah, sure. That's cool.

Yeah. So anyways, they're up Ivy. Fucking amazing band, I must say. Had a brief and beautiful run. You can listen to it on the Bandsplan episode. TLDR is they were together for two years. They played 185 shows, recorded it a total of 32 songs. That's a lot of shows in two years.

They did one national tour in like Matt Freeman's dads or mom's car. Yeah, the car. Yeah. I think they played at Gilman all the time. I think that was like part of it too. And yeah, broke up in May of 1989. Matt and Tim started dance hall crasters. Did you know this?

This was news to me. Yeah. And then they quit the band, right? Yes. So they had started it with like Tim Armstrong singing. Matt was playing guitar. Eric Larson was playing drums. There was a keyboardist.

And then there was like another vocalist, Ingrid Johnson. There's a bunch of people in this band. They played one show, their first show, at Gilman in 89, but then Matt and Tim were like, we don't like this, and they left. So Dan's Hall Crashers kind of continued and morphed into what we know it is today. Enough is enough is enough. They quit after one show. Well, yeah, I don't think they played much after one show. They were just like, this is not our vibe. They started a band called Downfall. Okay. A ska punk band that had Dave Mello in it and also Dave Mello's brother Pat. And this guy, J. and Hammond, who would later also join Dance All Crashers. Anyways, they only played four shows or something. They lasted three months.

They have one song. It's on the maximum rock and roll. They don't get paid. They don't get laid. But boy, do they work hard compilation. And also one other song on this very small world compilation. And one song on Lookout Records Can of Pork compilation. So Matt Freeman leaves this band to join MDC on bass because he was like, well, I don't

MDC wants me to play bass. Although I think something kind of important was Tim Armstrong was a gnarly gnarly drunk. That's what I hear. Yeah. So I've been told. So you've been told. I mean, he talks about it.

So Matt is like, I don't want to be in bands with you anymore, Roe, like you ruin everything. I'm going to play bass for MDC. Tim Armstrong also goes on tour with MDC. He has a roadie? That might be a little bit later. here's what Tim said about heading bottom in 91. He had ODed three times.

He said, I had no place to live, and I spent all my money on alcohol and drugs. Matt loved me, but I couldn't stay with him anymore. My mom wouldn't let me sleep in her basement anymore. My brother Jeff loves me so much, but I couldn't stay at his house anymore. I slept in my girlfriend's shack, but I couldn't nowhere. I had burned all my fucking bridges. The people who loved me were like, dude, it's not fucking cute anymore. And that was it.

It was hopeless. So I moved into a Salvation Army shelter for a few weeks to get myself together. And when I got out, that's when rancid happened. That was in Spin Magazine. Wow. That's incredible. sobriety goes crazy for motherfuckers. I think one thing that people say about Tim Armstrong a lot is that, like, this was the only

thing he was ever going to do. And if he didn't do this, they don't know what would have happened to him. And I think he says it himself. He's like, I had no skills. Like, I, like, truly had no other thing that I could have done besides music. and so if it hadn't have happened for him, you know, who knows what would have happened. Totally. And it was very street.

I mean, basically Matt Freeman was like, listen, I will be in a band with you, but you have to be sober for a full year before I'll even fucking think about it because I am not doing this shit. And, you know, what did he do? He went to the Salvation Army. He got himself together. There's like a really sweet quote from Matt Freeman in this New York Times profile where he said, I'm not an expert on alcoholics and I don't feel comfortable telling people what to do. I was just sticking by him. I loved the guy and I didn't want to see him die.

He was the only best friend I ever had. And then he was crying in the interview. Crying also. I cried for him. I was like, that's so lovely. Like his friend just like pulled him out of it, you know? Yeah, totally. Tim Armstrong says it was a nightmare.

But sometimes I think alcohol saved my life. I don't regret any one drink I ever had. I swear I don't. I had to go through it. What else can a 13-year-old kid do? Alcoholic family, total chaos all the time. Yeah. I mean, that's real, realistic and open-eyed.

So Tim stays sober for this tour with MDC. He makes it a whole year. I think he comes to Matt. He's like, I've been sober for a year, bitch. Let's start a band. So they start a band. They recruit Tim Armstrong's roommate, Brett Reed, as their drummer. Brett Reed, born July 12th, 1972, a cancer like yourself.

Legend. Legend. He just was a punk skater kid who just hung around on telegraph and he was just learning how to play drums and they were like, that's perfect. You're in. They were going to call the band Basshead. Did you know this? I did not. They liked the double entendre. Oh, yeah, I got it. Yeah. I don't know about that. I don't know about that either. Brett Reid was really hot. He was really hot. He had really cool style. Really cool style. Both Rancid and Op Ivy, I think, had something really going for them in which they had very attractive. members and that does help you make it also green day yeah so they're a trio right they're playing keg parties they're trying to make it work uh matt freeman's a delivery man they got to play at gilman and rehearse there as long as they cleaned it after the weekend gig so it must have been really funny to going because operation ivy was like they were like the kings of gilman street for a

stretch of time right yeah and it must have been funny from going to being like the star of gilman to like literally cleaning the toilet so that you could rehearse there. Real egalitarian, real punk. I wonder how quickly Rancid started to catch on from the Op Ivy thing. Well, I'll tell you, it's very, it's very interesting because apparently, and this is like within the next year or so, they did not have a following in Berkeley. In Berkeley and the Bay, people didn't like them. Wow.

That's shocking to me. They hated Green Day for different reasons. But they liked Green Day. Day, right? But Green Day had a following. It's interesting. Like, the older punks had like a thing about Green Day. Even before they, I think they got signed to a major because they were like more poppy. They weren't really political. You know, like, it was just like a little bit of a divergence from what was happening at Gilman. But for whatever reason, Ransett just did not have a local following. It was not a thing. That's crazy to me. I know. To hear because you would think like, like, I think that Hop Ivy's last show, they like oversold out the Gilman. Oh, yeah. I mean, Op Ivy was so big. And because they broke up, like, in the middle of, or the, like, crescendo of their success and popularity. So, yeah, that last show was, you know, people coming out of the walls. I actually asked Jesse Michaels, because, you know, I know he left soon after Operation Ivy broke up on, like, a long soul searching mission. But he said, I saw Rancid three or four times before I moved out of the Bay Area. I saw them once as a three piece and then later with Lars. The first.

couple of times I saw them was in the first year and it blew my mind because I had played with Tim and Matt for years and I had even seen them perform some other bands they were in between Operation Ivey and Ransett but I don't think I had seen them at full strength they really had an out to conquer the world vibe at that time in the Bay Area certain elements of the scene were very judgey suspicious and hostile to anything that wasn't pure enough for whatever reason I feel like that kind of explains what we were talking about about like Rancid not having a local following you know Like it's like the judginess of the scene. Suspicious and hostile.

It's a crazy way to describe something. I know. But I feel like it kind of makes sense. What else did Jesse say? He said, I think that's why they had that almost confrontational approach when they played. It was a war for them. They were the only band the Bay Area at the time that had a real one, two, three, four

Ramon's attack from start to finish. The songs were undeniably catchy and it just worked. So they ended up prevailing. He said things were still slightly undefined between us at that time. so I would just give them a high-five at the show and mainly watch from the crowd perspective like anyone else. The bottom line is they were a fun, entertaining band comprised of musicians who were born to do what they do.

A rave review. Yeah, that's insane. I want to know who is Judgey suspicious and hostile. Yeah, name names, Jesse Michaels. Give us goss. They're doing music together again, which is really cool. Yeah, Doom regulator. Doom regulator, yeah.

Yeah, it's very cool. And it has Joey Castillo, who used to be in Queens of the Stone Age and Spencer, right? from trash talk? Yeah, from trashdorf. Formerly of trashd? Currently of trashd? Yeah, he's still in trashd for sure.

Currently, yeah. Sorry, Spencer, I didn't fire you from trashd. They put out an album. Basically, Larry Livermore had told them, whatever you do after Op Ivy, I'll put it out. But then, lokey, I think he wasn't that into Rancid, which is kind of weird,

but he still did it. He made them guarantee the losses on that first single against their Operation Ivy royalties, which they did have at that point, like Operation Ivy was selling records, postmortem. So there was royalties. And so they were like, okay, fine, we'll do it. So they make this EP, the Rancid self-titled EP in 1992. It was produced by Andy Ernst. Art of Year's studio, Bay Area Legend. Yes, exactly. He was the cornerstone of Bay Area Punk, if you will. I don't know

about this EP for me personally. I feel it's like you get the gist of what they're trying to do, but it's like all the pieces are not yet in place what do you think it's our first EP I don't even think I've listened to this it's not on streaming it's like on YouTube only I think yeah I've only listened to the first LP which is also a self-titled LP I believe so it's 11 minutes long it's not like super important the songwriting is already good because it's you know it's Tim yeah I think they're sharing vocals a ton on here him and Matt Freeman and I to me the results aren't super effective it took me so much research to fucking figure out when Lars Fredrickson joined this band, but I found it. LP2, right?

Well, yes, but he's in the band before LP, well before. He's in the band while they're making LP1. He just doesn't participate in it. Thank you, turned out a punk podcast interview because I did go there. Was it with Lars? With Lars, yeah. Yeah, yeah, sure. Lars Frederickson, born August 30th, 1971, a Virgo from the South Bay.

he played his first gig at age 12 because necrose needed to stop their drum kit from skidding. And so he was around and they asked him to curl up in the kick drum and act as a human ballast. So that was his first gig for necrose. And he was deaf for two days after that. But then he, at like 16 or 18, he joined the UK subs, which to me seems insane. Yeah, that's crazy. But it makes sense because Lars, like, I don't know if you ever spoken with him, but he is a head. Like, he's like one of the coolest dudes you will ever meet.

He'll walk into a room and, like, he'll just lay the Riz down on everyone in there and and hell have everyone in the palm of his hand. And I bet that that's something he's had since he was a kid. Like, he's a real cool motherfucker. Is Lay the Riz a Bay Area slang? Because I'm not familiar. Can you explain what it means? Riz is something that you can.

It's like, I think it's more of a romantic term. Okay. But I use. Like spitting game kind of. Yeah. Like Lars is like the man can talk. Like myself, he is very charming and charismatic. Exactly.

He's just like you. Perfect. And, um. Oh, charisma. Riz's charisma. Yeah. That makes total sense. Okay.

He's got a lot of charisma in the best way. And I bet that he had that when he was, when he was 16 and getting himself into some bands like the UK. Totally. And he's, and he's like a deep. Like it sounds like from reading all the interviews like he is like Truest deepest punk like in his blood and bones like really believes in this genre and all of its tendrils and like has really a strong opinions.

Yeah he still plays in like like like he's like the kind of guy who still plays in like really cool like boy bands because he likes playing in cool boy bands. You know not because he's like bored but it's because it seems like. Yeah. gives him life. Hell yeah, large-prudson. Well, I'll tell you what, he played in the UK subs, and then they kicked him out because he also was a gnarly drunk and drug addict by 20 years old. So he flew right back across the pond, came back to his home in the South Bay, joined a band called Cajonese. I'm not familiar with Cajonis. Me neither. He was kicked out of that band, too. Wow, he got kicked out of both those bands? Yeah. And then in 92, he joined a band called

slip. And that band got a gig at Gilman opening for Rancid. So this is how he first meets Rancid, 1992, in his band Slip opening. Then they just meet. Hi, how are you? Nice to meet you. I don't know if that was the exact words exchange, but you know what I'm saying. And a few weeks later, Lars travels back up to Gilman to see the UK subs play, but they do not show up for their show. And so he ends up browing with Brett Reed, who had also come to see UK subs. And Brett Reed is like Rancid's looking for another guitar player. I think before this, Billy Joe Armstrong had played one show with them on second guitar because Tim had asked him and he was like, I'm totally down, but then he was like, would you join the band? He was like, I kind of got my own thing going on.

This is obviously before Green Day really explodes. So, you know, in a parallel universe, Billy Joe Armstrong could have been in Rancid and we would have had no, no Green Day. So Lars is like, yeah, I'd love to fucking be in Rancid. So Brett passes his number to Tim. Tim, Tim calls him up. They're like a week later. They're down in L.A. making their first album, which, like you said, they signed to Epitaph in the beginning. Lookout wasn't really that interested or was.

I'm not really sure. I think Larry Livermore was pretty pissed when they signed to Epitaph because he was like, this is your home, like whatever. But they just like Brett Gerwitz got them. He was super excited about what they were doing. They were the first non-L.A. band to sign to Epitaph. Yeah. Was this in like 91 or 92?

91. Yeah. They make the album. I want to say in 92 actually. So I don't know when they signed, but they make the album 92. Bad religion was popping by that point. Bad religion has been around for so fucking old. Like you really forget

that bad religion's like an 80s band. Yeah, for sure. Like 84, right, is when they started cracking. Bad religion started in 1980. Oh. Yeah. They've been around forever. So they were like elder statesmen already, I think, by the mid-90s, you know?

They signed Ranzet. First, non-L.A. band, kind of a big deal. They are making this album. Tim is like, listen, go listen to our EP and like, I'm going to send you the demo this album, learn the songs. So they're like, okay, let's have some band

practice. Matt Freeman takes him to a Mexican place around the corner from Gilman. Here's what Lars says. He ordered a pitcher of beer. That was like 10.30 in the morning. Matt, the responsible guy. I basically drank the whole thing. I think that was his first clue. Something was awry.

And then Matt was like, I brought Lars to Jesse's house, a block from Gilman. And I was like, hey, this is my buddy. I'm going to introduce you. We got a 12 pack. Lars drank most of it and just talk shit, insulted every single person in the room, at least twice, myself included. And I just got angrier and angrier. That's cool. Matt was not down.

Matt had already had to deal with Tim Armstrong being like an annoying drunk. And he was like, not against Satan. So he takes Lars and just drops him off with Tim. He's like, you know what? This is your problem. and I guess Tim takes him to Green Day and Tilt we're playing at Gilman. Lars goes and threatens to beat up. Joseph from the band Wax, who later founded Sidewood Dummy.

He's now a comedian. If he didn't buy him a shot of Jack Daniels and a beer. And then he peed on everyone. Very cool. Yeah. Very relatable. Lars was like, pants around my ankles, peeing on people. It wasn't a very Green Day thing to do.

That's funny Peeing on people not agree anything to you So Matt is like Absolutely the fuck not bitch But Tim is like look he's an alcoholic Like let's see if like we make a rule Like you can only be in Rancid If you stop drinking

Let's just see what happens And that's just super cool Tim just went through that Someone believed in him so he's like I'm gonna believe in someone else And like give him benefit of the doubt And apparently Lars said that He put him up for a couple weeks

And then he found me a place to live and gave me $100 and said, here's your first month's rent. He really looked after me. Oh, that's amazing. I know. And he got him sober and gave him a band. Yeah.

So it's like, so he says, you know, he's like, I was a mess. I was desperate to join Ransit, but they told me I had to clean up first. So I did.

This band is so important to me. I would die for these guys. He said that a melody maker in 1996. Wow. Very nice. Apparently, I guess, like,

the real time where he like was in the band in the band, was he came to see a Ranzad show because he's still not playing with them. He had like done these practices. he was a drunk he's trying to get his life together and they rancid was playing with citizen fish and matt had to like emergency leave to take his girlfriend to the hospital and he was like can you play bass in the show we don't want to cancel and large was like okay and he played bass and that's when like matt finally trusted him so it's february of 1993 is when he joins the band but he didn't play

on the album because he was like i wanted to earn my spot and i didn't feel like i earned it so i was like you guys do the album i'll just join and then i'll play shows and go on tour so that's why he's not on the first album but he's been in the band since very early on Got it. Okay. I didn't not know that. Because the first record in the credits, it's just... Yeah, because he doesn't plan. It took me a lot of triangulation to figure this out. And then the first album comes out. So let's talk about it.

Rancid, self-titled, May 10th, 1993. Oh, yeah. Great record. A great record. Produced by Brett, right? Well, okay. Here's another thing I learned. It's credited to Donnell Cameron, who is this guy that had produced the self-titled Drive-Like-Jahou album. Plus the longest line and white trash two hebes and a bean, the No Fax albums.

That's basically what he had done since. He also would go on to produce several albums that were very meaningful to young Yossi, including 1997's guttermouth album, Musical Monkey. Don't ever march in my room or kick your ass and call the cops. I'm not sure if you're familiar. Real heads now. A real guttermouth heads? I was a big gutter mouth girl.

Man, you know, I think I missed a bow. on gutter mouth. Yeah. What the hell? You were not like a fat records person. I was, but I didn't like pop punk. Yeah, gutter mouth is pop-munk. It was totally joke pop punk. I loved it though because I love Blingway too. It was like, they're not as good as Blink22, but I was real into musical monkey. So here's what happened. Man, I am a literal, this is called journalism, bitch. Okay. I just need you guys to know that. This is what I spend my time doing, unearthing facts about shit that happened 30 years ago. So I guess someone told Tim Armstrong, yo, they're talking shit about you on the computer.

On the computer, because it's so early internet, right? And they had gone on the internet, Cal Berkeley. And I don't know where this was, a forum, a message board. They were like talking shit on Ransin signing to Epitaph. And they were saying, like, they're selling out by signing to Epitaph. And that they were trying to sound like bad religion. And so Brett Gerowitz actually did produce the first album, but they purposely left his name off of it because Tim was mad about that like people on the

internet talking shit. I think I knew that. I think Brett Gerwitz has had a hand in producing almost all of the albums, whether or not he's credited. Yeah, I believe that that was what was told to me by a credible source as well. By Lars Friedrichs fan himself. No, no, no. They call this album Rancid Rancid. Yeah.

Yeah. I just call it self-titled. Self-title. Yeah. Let me let's fucking talk about it. Haina, bitch. Are you kidding? Hyena goes crazy.

Sorry, can we just briefly talk about hyena that the fact that it was on my holy Bible? Punko-Rama one, babe. Punkerama one, which came out in 1994. The first punkerrama, so meaningful and important to me, also had I want a riot, also had Liza and Louise on it. Yeah, rest. in the hallway goes crazy too. Yeah. I mean,

Adina's really good. Producer Jesse makes a good point. Great opening. Detroit. Great vibey song. It's cool because this record is still like, even though it's their first record, it's still like a really well-produced record.

Like it sounds like very high-fi. It's also really well written. Because if you really think about it, Tim Armstrong at this point, he's like 28 years old. He's been writing songs for 15 years. He was 28. by the time they dropped LP1.

Yeah. Whoa, I didn't realize that. I mean, Tim is older. Like, Operation Ivy is an 80s band, you know? Tim Armitter was born in 65. This makes so much sense to me because, like, the way that Rancid was moving, right? Like, they were moving like that of a band full of, like, people who are pretty, like, intelligent and pointed. Yeah.

Like, whereas, like, I think a lot of bands, like, things were just, like, accidentally happening to them. Totally. No, yeah. this is like the second rodeo of Tim Armstrong. Operation Ivy was like, he had, musically, I think Tim Armstrong wrote most of those songs,

you know, so he's been writing really good songs for a while. So it makes sense that like this, because hyena is like one of the top five rancet songs to me. And that's like first album. Okay. Out the fucking gate. I love hyena.

I love it. Respect. That's OG. That's OG head territory. And I respect it. Because punko-Rama one was so important to me. I listened to the shit out of that. fucking CD on my little disc man babe with my like foam headphones.

You already know. Yeah, I think I was a punkerrama four guy. Yeah, you're a little younger. I like them all, but this was the first one that I got my grubby little hands on and I learned so much. Yeah. Okay. It's so cool to me that that is one of your top five.

Out of my mind to me is also a very interesting song on here. Don't you feel it sounds extremely 1993? What does 1993 mean? There's just something like sonically about it that's so 90s sounding. I can't put words to it. Do you mean like grunge? Not grudge. Well, bro, grunge is like basically almost over.

We talk about this a lot on the show. Like grunge started in the late, very late 80s. And by 92, when Nirvana has fully broken and dominated the charts, there was like one more year where everyone's like Pearl Jam, Soundgarden, whatever. And then it like this goes to the next. thing. So 93 is really the tail end of that. Green Day like kills it. I mean, Green Day like kills grunge with this bright, new

sounding shit and breaks on to MTV and like sweeps the grunge out the door. Yeah. Thank God. How dare you? Well, see, that's the difference between remember my friend Juice, who I was talking about earlier? Yeah. Juice has a very fine appreciation for grunge music and all of that. I'm more of a punk

man myself. I need you to put on fucking super unknown, sound garden. Soundgarden. Yeah. Lift. Go to the gym and do some lifting like I do. Do some Turkish get-ups. I was just at the gym before I came here. That's why I drank so much water.

Well, next time you go, when you're doing your 10 minutes of Turkish get-ups, as I like to do, stick on some fucking super unknown. Okay. Okay. Black hole, son, won't you come? Here's what I'm going to say. Speaking of things I don't like, let's talk about rejection. You don't like being rejected? Well, nobody likes being rejected.

No, I'm talking about the song. It's called rejected. Here's what's happening with Lars not being on this album. And this is with ultimate love and respect to Matt Freeman. But his Cookie Monster ass vocals, it's ruining the songs for me. I don't know. I like it. I love it.

You like it? I love it. It's crazy. I never heard anything like it. He sings so much on that new record, too. Matt Freeman is a hog. Cookie Monster. Yeah, yeah, he sure got the cookie monster thing.

It's giving Cookie Monster. It's like boy vocals. It's like skinhead vocals. Sometimes it works. Sometimes it doesn't. I feel unrejected. It doesn't work because you just have this beautiful, this beautiful Tim Armstrong voice. It's just so crisp and sort of, but then sort of drunk.

Yeah, for sure. This beautiful mix of things and it has just hot guy voice. And then you have Cookie Monster. I don't know. It throws me out of it. We should mention they cover an uptone. song, Get Out of My Way, that's the last one. So then they put out a quick EP, Radio, Radio, Radio, Radio,

on Fat Records. It has a version of radio that's different, but that was co-written by Billy to Armstrong and Matt Freeman, has a dope-sick girl, just a feeling, and then a Blitz cover. Someone's going to die. They're covering Blitz. So sick. In 93, that's what I needed, you know? Like, that's what I, like, needed to find out about it.

I needed to figure out who Blitz was. Yeah, but in 93, baby, you were like, what, seven years old? You didn't know about this? Yeah, I was probably, yeah, but once I figured it out, it's like. Not that I had the radio, radio, radio, EP. I'm not going to pretend I was that real of a head. I was, I was 11 in 93. They put out the first album.

They're playing shows, doing whatever shows they can get, house parties, et cetera. they're mostly touring and playing with hardcore bands. I think spiritually they are very aligned with hardcore bands. What do you think? Oh, yeah. I mean, that's, yeah, they're, Rancid is the most down band with like, with like all that.

It's like sick of it all, H2O, like. Yeah, H2 doesn't exist yet, but so it's, but sick of all for sure. And Toby Morse was famously a sick of it all roadie. I'm talking about him.

DVS, balancing souls. They played a lot with bouncing souls. They also played with Fugazi. Oh, I didn't know that. Yes. And with Bikini Kill in the front.

I forget that because of Gilman, that sort of like very like early punk thing also had like a relationship with Olympia kind of doing the same thing. So bikini kill would come down there. Kill rock stars had sort of like there was like a cummings and going, which makes sense because later on Tim Armstrong will date Toby Vale and write a song about it, which we'll get to. Here's the quote I wanted to read you when you asked me about what the vibe was around Rand said in Gilman Berkeley. Richard the roadie. said in that book that I mentioned about East Bay Punk. Most hardcore East Bay Punks thought Green Day was stupid, but still they were able to find a local following. Rancid never did. That was always the joke. We'd go to Seattle or L.A., and it was absolutely fucking amazing, and come back to Gilman and get treated like shit.

Wow. That's unreal. I know. I don't know if it's because they were a bit more poppy sounding, but so was Green Day. I don't know if it's because they bailed on, look out and went down to epitaph. I really don't know. Sure. Let me ask you this. Do you know when it started to pop off in the Bay Area for them? I have no idea. I mean, I would assume it was probably

after Let's Go because, I mean, let's go is like kind of undeniably gets them a foothold. Yeah, that's the one. And I remember Salvation being played on alternative rock radio. Yeah. But I can't tell you if it was in real time or if it happened after Outcome the Wolves and they retroactively put it on. But I'm almost possible. Positive, it was in real time. So, again, I can't, I literally can't tell you if when it was that this stuff was playing, but Salvation was on the radio. Yeah. For sure.

All right. Let's talk about 94 real quick. We kind of touched on when we were talking about 93. I want to paint you a musical picture of 94. Pay it for me. Here are the best selling albums of 1994. My man, Darius Rucker and his band, Hoody and the Blowfish, Cracked Rearview. This to this day, by the way, is I think the 16th highest selling album, will be a lot.

all time. Seriously? That's right. Yeah. Unbelievable. Unbelievable. Green Days, Duky comes out in 94. We know what the fuck of a big deal that was. Buck Wild. Buck Wild. Change the game. My ass was glued to the MTV, waiting for Billy Joe to be sitting on that couch talk about masturbating. Mm-hmm. Mm-hmm. Mm-hmm. My babysitter bought me a copy of Duky. And this is probably in 94. Okay. So I was probably like, what was I? So I was seven, probably Did you just count on your hands how old you're? I did. And she bought me a copy of Duky and I, she also bought me a copy of Bone Thugs.

That record East. Boom, bum, bum, bum, bum. Yeah. I miss my uncle Charles, y'all. Yeah, it's a great album. You got it. Very big that year. But I got the copy of Duky and my dad found it.

Mm-mm. He was in that. That was not, and I know, and then I no longer had the CD. He took it away. Okay, so go on. Duky's going crazy. Nirvana, MTV, unplugged. in New York still selling numbers.

Another really important album from 94 for our purposes, but also bestselling, was the Offspring Smash. Oh, that's right. So in the same year, Green Days Duky and the Offspring Smash sort of like shove punk into the mainstream. Yeah, totally. And Offspring Smash is on Epitaph, right, at the time? Offspring Smash made Epitaph possible.

Yeah, that's what it was. funded epitaph for years to come. Right. But yeah. So, I mean, it's a huge deal. Like,

we've gone from your non-beloved grunge in 91, 92, to like within two years, that being sort of blasted away and being replaced by this sort of brighter, in one direction punk, right? Green Day sort of pop punk. And, you know, you could argue offspring is kind of pop punk too.

But that punk direction. And in the other direction, I think it's kind of three direction. Houdy and the Blowfish, fucking counting crows, Dave Matthews band, there's this whole other like string of sort of roots rock. I don't know what you call it. Alternative of rock. I don't know if that's considered alternative. But then there's still, there is alternative rock that's still happening, which is sort of like the tail end of grunge, Soundgarden, Super Unknown that I told you to go workout to comes out in 94. Holes live through this comes out in 94, which you wouldn't call a

grunge album, but it's definitely in that alt rock bucket. still the wezer blue album again i don't know what you would call that but it it was lumped in you know it's in the buzz bin yeah yeah totally what a fucking year dude oasis definitely maybe what a fucking year this was so june 14th 1984 let's go what a great album title yeah that's it for me like this is this is when things got really real for me like this is the first record i mean i got into Rancid for probably to out come the wolves, I think. Right. But this was like the next, you know what I mean?

I immediately just jumped back into this record. Okay. Well, let's talk about it. So Brett Gourowitz produced this album. Yep. First album that features Lars. Mm-hmm. I believe this is engineered by Michael Rosen.

Yeah, this is engineered by a guy named Michael Rosen, who is in the Bay Area. I've actually recorded with him before. He's really cool. Oh, look at you. Look at you. Being connected to Rancet at six degrees. Being a punk guy. Being a real punk.

It's pretty crazy to me, two things, that this took only six days to record. Oh, I didn't know that was that quick. There's 23 songs on this album. Yeah. I think it was originally meant to be a double album, but then the songs were so short. That didn't have to happen. Yeah. They're so short.

These songs are all basically two minutes all. That's amazing. You don't even kind of notice. It's a crazy good album. Yeah. I almost wanted to say it's like a no skips perfect, but. I think that is going a little too far, but it is very front-loaded. Nileism.

Nileism is also one of my favorite rancid songs. I love it. Top five. Tenderloin, too. Tenderloin's insane. I mean, radio, babe. Radio's amazing. And what a sweet and beautiful song.

The song about falling in love with music and like Tim Armstrong talking about music saving his life, never fell in love until I fell in love with you, never known what a good time was until I had a good time with you. That's what that song's about. It's about music? Yeah, he name-check's Clash albums on it. The Radio Clash, Magnificent Seven. He's talking about, that's what's called Radio. Yeah, it's a love song about music. Yeah. And how it saved his life. Isn't that so sweet? Man, that's so cool. I wish I could write anything that cool. That's like... I mean, you can. You have a long and beautiful career ahead of you.

Come on, Michael, says producer Jesse. Come on. The clash we haven't brought up, but as much as Tim Armstrong's favorite bands, Ramones, Ramones, like, put him on to all this stuff, opened the world for him. It's really the clash, though, that had, I think, a bigger musical impact that you can really clearly hear in Rancid. Don't you agree? Yeah, for sure.

I'm maybe not so much. Are you not a clash girlie? No, I'm definitely a clash girlie. I just, I think that in like the first records, It's more punk. It's like, I hear the Ramones. But as when out come the wolves hits, it gets a little more.

That's when the clash starts. And like, you know, just like reggae. It like became like straight. And then what is the life won't wait after that. It's like. I mean, they have a similar trajectory because the first clash albums are straight punk too. You know, like. Yeah, it's a fair.

But they're still going up. They're doing upstrokes on the first ones. Like, don't talk to me about technical, musical things I hear on my own podcast when you know I don't know what you're talking about. You don't know what an upstroke is? No, I do. Actually, I do because when I first tried to learn how to play any instrument, they told me to just play downstrokes like the Romans because it was easy. It's the way it's supposed to be played.

If you come see spiritual cram player, it's all down strokes. Did I learn? The answer is no. Okay, but I'll come look at your, I'll come look at your strokes. Barb, that is not what I mean. I just want you know this is a PG and a PG program. Sign kick, bitch. I'm obsessed.

It's about a dream that Tim Armstrong had where he accompanies Wolverine. on his adventures. This is from Wikipedia and has no source, so don't trust me on... Wolverine. You're not a lyrics guy. He says, my name is Tim. I'm a less than no character.

Wolverine was sad and it made him mad. Every single cop got a bullet in the head. Wolverine said ACAB. Wolverine said ACAB. Wolverine's down. He's down, huh? He's down with the cause. Wow.

I didn't know that it was about Wolverine in particular. My name is Tim. I'm a lesser known character is such an oddly profound lyric, don't you think? Tim, I'm sure it's like a savant. Yeah, he is. I'm now extremely soothed by his accent, but like, listening to so many interviews to them, I'm like, it's not giving intellectual, per se, and I don't say that with any judgment, but then you get into, like, some of these lyrics and then some, some of the themes

that he's writing about, and it is really smart and profound stuff. Oh, yeah. it's just like presented in a way that is easy to digest. Yeah, he's like a natural. He's one of those natural people who just naturally can do stuff like this. Oh yeah. Just like Jonathan Ritzman style. It's like it doesn't have to be complicated.

It can be really, really straightforward. Well, it's just like some people are more thinkers, right? And the Smiths. A perfect example of this is like Johnny Marr is just a total natural. Like what he does, it's just like by the hand of God. I can write the best songs in the entire world. I don't really overthink a bitch I'm just the music moves me

it's in my veins whereas Morrissey also a genius is fucking thinking about it at every step of the way it is thought through that's not natural you know

but yeah the song is sick he's fighting crime in the streets with fucking Wolverine babe this song is also really about housing like it's like about a housing crisis and been unhoused it's really interesting it is

yeah I just didn't know it he's talking about about people, you know, down on Oakland off West Scrant, St. Joseph Relief Poor Program, a good place where good people get food. It's talking about unhoused people, where people are squatting and people are called the cops on them. But then him and Wolverine are killing the cops. Well, I guess that makes sense.

If that's what you want to do. I'm yeah let's talk about salvation okay cool I've written in my notes goddamn beautiful gorgeous song are you fucking kidding me

yeah that's what I wrote it's a beautiful song it's one of the rants one of the man's the best songs yeah one of the man's the best song it's about his time living at the salvation army like we talked about when he finally hit rock bottom

and had to sober up if he was going to be in a band Matt Freeman gave him the sort of ultimatum he lived at the salvation army and he said when I was living at the salvation army They would drive me into these communities I'd never been to in my life. And we'd pick up furniture at these beautiful houses. This furniture was the nicest shit I'd ever seen in my life. And they were giving it away.

The whole thing was so lame. That's what salvation is about. Maybe something beautiful comes out of all the horrible shit that happened to me. But dude, I had to go through it. I didn't go through any 12-step thing. I didn't go to rehab. I just knew right then the drug thing was over. Spin, 1999.

Yeah, yeah, for sure. This had a cool video, too. What was the video? They never had like anything. amazing content. I'm pretty sure they're just playing and there's like friends around, but it just, they just look cool as hell. Tim,

Tim Armstrong was so handsome. Yeah, there's swag lords. Looking back now, you're like, that hat was a choice, you know, but,

yes, their swag lords. They have like the full bondage pants with the zips and the fucking, I think the Salvation video is in black and white. Yeah, I'm watching it right now. Yeah. Dude,

they were punks. They were, yeah, they were like, this, jacket. This my fucking he was so hot. Those lips. Good for you. Yeah, those lips are going

crazy. Going crazy. He's a hot guy for sure. I think Brett reads the hottest though. Brett Reid's really hot, but you don't really see him because he's kind of shoved in the back there, you know? Yeah, anyways, yeah, this video's sick for sure. Guaranteed film that their actual practice studio. Yeah, for sure. And it was on MTV, which is kind of crazy. I love Salvation because the amount of syllables

Tim shoves into that one verse. Oh, yeah. His neighbor is called Black Hawk We pick up for the art boy His neighbor called Black Hawk Where all the original Because you know he was really into hip hop I think he's a bit of a rapper

I mean yeah straight up Like he straight up raps on all of their records It's so tight It's so tight Tenderline That's the song I wrote What if we do a wee bit of Rockavilly On this song

Just a little Rockabilly song Huh? I'm not saying it's a Rockabilly song. I'm just saying and they were like, what if we just did a little sprinkle of rockabilly on this? Yeah, I guess this is kind of a rockabilly song. Thank you. Yeah, you're right. It's got that like Yeah, it's got the little uh, the solos, the like blues solos and stuff. Yeah. What else is good on here? As one? Super fun. I love that song. Good track. Ballad of Jimmy and Johnny. Banger. Classic. I love that kind of song where they talk about things that don't mean anything or make sense anymore,

that like someone was a skin and someone was a, you know what I mean? Like these like these distinctions that actually like we've gotten to a place where like much like, you know, that thing where they're always like in the future, the face of everyone because of all the intermingling will look like this like Kim Kardashian face or whatever. Like teenagers now are like that version of every subculture. like they truly just do not distinguish between subcultures when like when i was a kid like you would get your ass beat if you were like listening to rave music when you said you were a punk or whatever like it was like real clear cut lines yeah people don't care anymore like that's why it like makes things kind of easy for music to be honest you can kind of make good songs and then every every time i go to a show every person there just looks like they work at urban outfitters absolutely just an entire staff of urban outfiters I'm the one. Incredible song. That's a good song.

Dope Sick Girl? Oh, Dope Sick Girl's going crazy too. It goes crazy. There's so many good songs on here. It kind of doesn't have skips. I mean, it's front-loaded because the bigger bangers are in the front half, but it's still really good all the way through. 23 songs, it's like a 45-minute record.

You don't really need to skip. Like, if you don't really need to skip. Like, if you don't like a song, it will end soon. Yeah. It'll be over soon. Again, Salvation's on the radio, but like alt radio, it's getting some MTV play, but it's not big. They're not, it's not like a breakthrough so much in that regard, but it kind of is. But more importantly, because Green Day and offspring have become so massive, a very similar

thing happens, like what happened the year that punk broke, where A and, and. and ours descended upon every town in America looking for a guitar rock band to sign to be the next Nirvana. Similarly, in a smaller way, the success of Green Day and Offspring made this sort of like bidding war around Ransett. Classic. Yeah, there's a lot of that going on during the time, huh? Well, yeah. The 90s were when the record labels, I would argue, had the most money in power and were able to do kind of do whatever they wanted. So Duky had sold like eight million albums and smashed and sold five million by the end of, 94 or so it's like it's fucking on madonna starts coming to rancid shows oh yeah yeah she she wanted to she wanted to sign them to maverick allegedly she sent a naked photo of herself to them did you read about

that i did i heard the band yeah i heard about that i wonder if that's real i don't know if that part's real her being at shows is real because toby morse confirmed her that he was at one of the shows that she was at because he was a huge he had like had her tattooed on his arm and he like freaked out when he got to meet her There's pictures of them of like Lars and Tim with with Madonna for sure. Apparently Epic was offering them crazy amounts of money. Yeah. It was reported at 1.5 million. It was reported at 2 million.

Either way, they were like, uh, no. Yeah. They were just like, we don't, we don't want to. We want to be able to do whatever we want. We want one record deals where we can walk away at any time. I don't think they had a manager. And so they signed. back to Epitaph. But allegedly before that, they did, I hope this is true, convince the A&R guy from

Epic to shave his head and die at blue and make a mohawk to try and try and win their love. I know. I really hope that happens because that's really funny. I felt bad even like having because like labels were like trying to sign spiritual cramp and like they would like take us out to dinner and like I knew that we weren't kind of signed to their label. Yeah. And like I felt bad even doing that. Like it's crazy to like think about it. You felt bad for the label. It's not. Yeah. It's like, come on. Like, I'm, I'm just, like, wasting your time just to be rude. Like, but, um, yeah, that's, that's crazy. You know what's cool about Rancid, though? Is that, like, about, like, all this that you're talking about is like, it's like those dude, these dudes and Rancid, like, I mean, it's, it's weird because, like, to, like, talk about people like this, like people that, like, I kind of know, you know, like, I know some of these guys and like, you know, we're not best friends. You haven't really revealed to this point that you're friends with Rancid. I wouldn't say that we're friends, but like, you know, their phone numbers? Do you guys text? you know, I don't. Do they send emojis?

Do they use bitmoji? No, no. Not at all. The opposite of that. But like, I mean, we're not like, you know what I mean? Like best friends, but like, you know, like we've played shows with like Lars's other band. And he's been really supportive of the band. And, you know, I know Tim from around town.

So it's like kind of, I don't want to like, it's like hard to talk about like, I don't like speak about their business. But what like about this band that I think is. so cool is like you're talking about like you know there's all these like label a and rs they're like throwing money at these guys at the at this point and like brancet are some of the only guys left in the game from all of this other than like offspring and green day who like they're still doing good and their band's still very credible and they started their own businesses and they're all like there's a lot of people who took that money and who are broke as fuck oh my god

a million people. I think it's very interesting. And from all this stuff I read, I really, I loved this, like, sentiment. Like, I remember, I don't have it right in front of me, and I can probably find it to read it directly. But Tim said something to a reporter, or that was along the lines of, like,

it was like when they were touring really heavy off, let's go before an outcome of the wolves came out. And he was like, I haven't had a day off. And it was, like, over a year. And he was like, and I don't want one. And he was like, I don't care. if we don't make, I don't care if like, not signing to a major means we're not rich. Like, I would do this for free.

Like, I'm paraphrasing, but it's basically that he was like, this is all I've ever wanted to do and it's all I want to do. And like, and I think you can really feel that like the motivation behind this band wasn't to like make it big. The motivation was like to do it at the highest level and reach as many people as possible. But like in their on completely the fuck on their own terms. Yeah, it's thoughtful. Yeah. There's like the thoughtfulness and intention behind that. And I think a lot of people, like in order to be truly thoughtful and truly intentional

with like, even like, you know, the way that you're navigating your business, it's like sometimes if you actually are making the right choices, like it does include like passing on things that seem good that are right in front of you. And I think that longevity is suited to that kind of business, informed business making. decisions. Like, so do you think Jawbreaker would have had a different career if they hadn't put that last album out on a major? Well, it's, it depends. I mean, it depends on the way that the band act towards each other because Joe Bricker, like, famously didn't get along. Yeah. So, like, probably not because they were probably going to implode the way that they did anyway. Whereas, like,

I bet in the Rancid van, it was probably pretty profesh, you know, like they were probably Branson did something so smart from the beginning, which is they nipped their drug and alcohol abuse in the bud from the beginning, which that undoes a lot of bans. You know, that's, you want to talk, things that cause strife and bans. It's twofold. It's people going completely the fuck off the rails with drugs and alcohol and or money stuff. It's like not splitting money and having money disputes. So I think I didn't read anywhere, but I'm just going to presume that they did some sort of punk way of splitting their, their money and also didn't have the added thing of having to deal with like the two people that

had the worst substance abuse issues stopped before they embarked on this journey. So it's like they were really set up for success. I just got back from like a 40 day tour and I don't drink and like going on that tour like I'm 36. You know what I mean? I'm not like like I'm not in my 20s. You're not a whippersnapper. Yeah, yeah, yeah. But you know, I'm still I'm still I'm still sick with it. but like but like I'll eat some fucking candy and go nuts bitch yeah I'm a mutte but I don't think that

definitely diet coke actually it for me but um wow yeah crazy right he's unhinged um but like I don't think that I could continue like we're you know we got a long year of touring ahead of us and like I don't think that I could look down the barrel of it knowing that I was going to be hung over or like

fucked up or doing drugs like and I don't think I can navigate it well either Yeah. I didn't say this really, but I have to say as someone who like, I think that again, I am not comparing myself to like Tim Armstrong or like we don't have a similar background or upbringing or any of that. But as someone who's sort of flirted with that place of going so deep into like drugs and alcohol because you truly do not fucking care and it's fine if you die. You know, like nihilism is one of the more apt and profound. capturings of that feeling that I've ever listened to. And it's like, I think he did such a good job of getting that down into a song where you like, if you've ever been there, you get exactly what he's talking about. I mean, it's right there in the title. But also it's like, you're like, yeah, no, I know what you mean.

What if I just lay here? That's fine. Who cares? It doesn't matter. Who cares? Definitely been there. There's a good who cares, positive. Yeah.

Where you're just like, oh, who cares? Do whatever you want. Life is that magical and happy. Like, who cares? Yeah. And then there's who cares. Yeah, exactly. And then there's can't control anything. It's like that dumb bus meme. You always see the guy smiling looking out the window. You can't control anything. And the guy like bummed looking out the window. That was the bum. Yeah, absolutely. It's like unmanageability versus power or control.

Yeah. Freedom. And it frees you to know that you can't control things because then you're like, well, I don't have to worry about that. I don't have to worry about this. Yeah, totally. Which is, you know, some, you got to I have trouble with like, I don't know. minding myself. It's a lifelong practice. Yeah, for sure, for sure. Okay, so we signed back to Epitaph. Now it's 95. Yeah. No doubt puts out Tragic Kingdom. It's a good year for music. PJ Harvey puts out to bring you my love. Melancholy and the Infinite Sadness, double album. Okay. My favorite AFI album, because the thing about me is that I weirdly only listened to AFI while they were still a punk band and then sort of didn't keep track and like never got into their later stuff and I will but I just haven't and I love answer that and stay fashionable.

Oh, that's what came out in 95. 95. Mom won't let me get a Mohawk. Yeah. Your mom won't. My mom wouldn't either. Yeah. Great song.

Two minute punk song. Also my favorite Blink 22 album comes out this year, Cheshire Cat. That's the one? I'm really angry with them. If you're listening, members of Blink 282, I don't know if you listen to this podcast. I hope you do. can you please play some Cheshire Cat songs on tour? Why are you doing this to the old heads?

Why are you doing this to us? You got to get the old heads some love. Mark. All right. Dot, dot, dot, dot, and out come the wolves. I love an ellipsy personally. August 22nd, 1995. Produced by Jerry Finn.

Produced by Jerry Finn. Who had, you know, mostly only done engineering mixing up until then. They really liked how he mixed Duky. Yeah. I just, as you know, though, in this same year, Jerry Finn, an absolute goddamn legend, also produced The Goo Goo Dolls, a boy named Goo. Oh, incredible record. The range. The range.

Yeah. Unbelievable. Also, Brett Gurowitz produced all the vocals on this album, which I learned from my research. He just isn't credited. But they ran out of time with Jerry Finn because he was contracted to go produce or mix jawbreaker, I think. This is what he had to do after. so all the vocal production was done by Brett Gorowitz. They recorded this at Electric Lady.

They recorded the vocals at Electric Lady, right? Yeah. Did they do the rest somewhere else? I don't remember. I could be wrong. I don't want to speak. Ad up turn. It's okay.

I'm wrong here all the time. I believe it was fantasy studios in Oakland. Yes, it was. Fantasy Studios in Berkeley. Yeah. If only there was a way we could know. If only, if only there was somewhere we could go and look. I believe that they were really rushed.

to do the vocals for this. They only had X amount of days, so they went to New York, right? With Brett and finished all the vocals. No, you go ahead. No, no, you're right. Tell me. That's really good.

I want to hear the rest because I have a little anecdote to add to it. Yeah, yeah, yeah. I'm regurgitating information from something someone told me one time, but like, it's really rushed. They went to New York, finished the vocals,

and I believe it was like mixed and mastered that night, or like the sequencing was done all in like a very, very short period of time for this record. They had the mixing booked already. That's why they had to do it so fast because they only had X amount of time with the mixer and it was already booked. And maybe that's why I'm thinking of who had to move on to do Jawbreaker. But whoever it was, the mixer was booked and was supposed to start on this date and they had to be done with everything by that date. So that's what happened.

And a really cute story is that even though they were so rushed, They're in New York. Toby Morris has just started H-2O and made a demo. And Tim was like, come by the studio and play me the demo. They're like fucking balls to the wall trying to make this happen. Still makes time for his good pal, Toby Morris, to hear the H-2O demo. I thought that was very sweet. Super cool.

Yeah. That's another cool thing about Rancid is like they've always been really good at like putting other bands on. Yeah, bromance. Yeah. I love a little, little, I love punk rock romance for sure. Me too. It really warms my heart. Oh, yeah.

So this album, it did well, Bibb. It peaked at number 45 on the Billboard 200. Kind of a big deal. It was the first album ever released on an indie label of the United States to enter the top 50 on Billboard. Isn't that crazy? Yeah, that's crazy. It's pretty fucking cool. Five months after its release, it was certified gold.

And then in 2004, it got a hit platinum. So, yeah, pretty successful. Yeah, I would say. The title is obviously like a nod to the. a bidding war, major label, feeding frenzy. And also is directly lifted from the Jim Carroll spoken word piece on the song, Junkie Man, where he says, and out come the wolves, outcome the wolves. Their paws trampling in the snow, the alphabet.

I stand on my head, watch it all go away. It's so sick that Jim Carroll is on here. It's so sick, dude. It's so crazy. What the fuck? Then the cover art, a little nod to minor threat, a little hot tip. Is that Lars? That's Lars, right?

I don't know. It looks like it. it's Lars. Guy with Mohawk, for sure. Yeah. Well, at different times also, Tim had a Mohawk. That's true.

Maybe not at this time. Yeah, I think it probably is Lars. Yeah. Also, at some point, before all this popped off, Ian Mackay tried to get Tim Armstrong to move to D.C. And start a band and be part of that world.

And he said no. Probably for the better. Probably for the better, yeah. I think the reason this album is so successful is because I feel on like, let's go, they toned it down a bit on the ska. and reggae and stuff.

And I feel like here, like you said earlier, the clash thing, they go more for it and it really works. Yeah, for sure. They laid into it. They laid into it.

In a big pop way with Jerry Finn. Jerry Finn is such a master. He was such a master. Dude, so sick. He's mixing was, I mean, whatever, like the,

I mean, the dukey sound is so amazing. Yeah. I mean, just jam after jam on here, I feel like. Oh, yeah. We should probably start

with Rudy. It's radical. You don't want to start with the first track, with the bass solo on the first track. I mean, we can totally say, Maxwell Murder, babe? Let's fight. That's, apparently it was about a drug dealer who would sell drugs on their doorstep. Oh, wow. Maxwell.

Maybe his name was Max. I think his name might have won Maxwell Murdle. Murder. Maxwell Murder? Man, do you think he could play bass like that, though? Probably not. He wouldn't be selling drugs if so, babe. I mean, I don't know.

I know a lot of musicians that are drug dealers. That's cool. Really talented musicians that are still drug dealers. That's cool. I mean, I guess you gotta pay rent. Lord knows. Lord knows. Those shows aren't too good these days.

These merch cuts, babe. But yeah, great song. Good bass solo. Fucking slaps. This really is kind of an album of no skips. Like 11th hour is amazing. Yeah. Just the fucking, I don't know,

Jimmy Cliff of it all, like the homage of it all, but just like adapting it to current, very specific Lars's own life and circumstances. Yeah, for sure. Benz and Otto. He said, give him the boot. You know I'm a radical. That's so wild. I'm a radical.

Give on the boat. The roots are radicals. Give on the boat. It's really slabs. The 60 bus out of downtown Campbell. Yeah, that's the Santa Clara Valley Transit Authority Bus. line 60. Okay.

Connects the San Jose area, including Lars' hometown of Campbell. Yep. To the Bart. This song is like a very much like the, in a way, like the roots, if you will, of what ends up being his solo project because I think Tim encouraged him right to write more songs about him and his friend Ben, Ben Zanato. He was on there. Yeah.

That's like in this song. So that's sort of what bloomed into his solo project. Time bomb bitch. Bye. Unbelievable. black coat, white shoes, black hat, Cadillac. Yeah. He's a time bomb.

I guess this guy's about, I couldn't totally tell. Someone Tim either met in rehab or someone that took him out of detox. Whoa. There's one line in Melody Maker in 1996. It just says, time bomb checks a friend who hauled Tim out of detox. Wow. So. Where do they haul him to?

Where do they haul them to do to Maxwell murder? Right back to Maxwell murder. Truly one of the most iconic voices. This is where you really hear it, right? The way he says, yeah. Yeah. So good. Why is it so good?

Oh, yeah. Tim Armstrong. This song was featured in the fifth episode of Gilmore Girls. No, it was not. Yeah, the episode about Cinnamon's Wake. Remember when Cinnamon the cat dies? Yeah. And yeah, this is a great.

It had really good music. They did. The video for Time Bomb was all the fuck over MTV, every day, multiple times a day. The guy that plays black coat, white shoes, black hat, Cadillac, that person is Toby Morris. Oh, Toby Morris is in the Time Bomb video? Yeah. It's like a bunch of like real skinheads and punks. They filmed it in New York.

Oh, cool. I want to say they filmed it at Arlene's grocery. Okay. Olympia Washington. I really love, this song is like, there's a couple songs throughout, like, like, like, the course of rancid discography that, like, really, I feel like show me that Tim Armstrong can write any kind of song. You know what I mean? He's just like so talented. And this song to me has sort of like Paul Westerberg vibes to it, like replacements you guys, right? Do you hear that?

Yeah, absolutely. It's apparently about Tim's relationship with Toby Veil, a bikini kill. Toby Vale, the range on that woman. You know, but there's all that mythology that smells like teen spirit was inspired by Toby Vail because she like spray painted on a wall. Kurt smells like teen spirit because they were dating. Junkie Man, co-written with Jim Carroll. Unbelievable.

I guess they met him because he was recording nearby. Also, while they were recording this album, Jawbreaker was recording next door. I think Rob Cavallo was recording that, right? Yeah, Rob Callow the God, babe. One of the greatest, one of the greatest producers of all times.

time. Dear you, dear you, such a good album. Ruby Soho, you have some stuff to say about that? Yeah, of course. I mean, like this whole record, like, front to back is, okay, I got to say it. I was listening to Rancid this morning. As you know, just like trying to do your homework. Yeah. Doing some Rancid. And I don't think there's any skips.

I don't think Rancid has skips. later on we get to. I don't know. You got skips later? I don't have any skips. It's not skips, really. It's not like anything like, they never really make a song that you're like,

oh, like ever, you know? No way, dude. It's just more that like some of the back half of the catalog, while like really good by just general standards, within the rancid catalog, our mid. Yeah. Well, I mean, I was like thinking about that too.

is like all these records have like 25 songs on them and it's like how do you write so many songs yeah and i bet that they recorded more too and just like didn't put them on there sitting around yeah daily city train beautiful nod to the to the to the bay area journey to the end of the east bay though banger we're going to the end of the east bay matt freeman's going to take us there i like that it's like a cute little reflection on like their roots on op ivy like it gets really specific like started in 87 and in 89 got a barrage or an ample play anytime. It was just the four of us. So the core of us, it's really cute. Yeah, it's really cool. They talk about this a bit on their 120 minutes interview with Matt Penfield. First versus about how great it was, then the second, and then about a third verse, it's about this kid who comes out to the East Bay.

And he's disillusioned, you know. There's also like an entire discussion about the gadgets. The gadgets like send in a question, a Q&A, like mailbag about what Ransett's favorite oil. songs are. And it's just, as producer Jesse and I said earlier off mic, we used to be a proper country where you could hear such discussions on MTV about oy songs, but no more. Oh man. So they were talking about oy music on MTV. Yeah, they were like, check out swing and utters. A swing and utters than oy band? That's what they said. That's interesting. I'm going to defer to Tim Timebaum and Lars Fredrickson on what constitutes oy above what I would think. I think they're more experts.

Lars produced that swing and utter's record, too, like the one that went really crazy, the first one. So that's why he was plugging it. I see there was the ulterior motive there. There's also a part where Matt Paynefeld's like, and next step, we have, you know, videos from blah, blah, blah, blah, blah, and dance hall crasers. And nobody says anything about the fact that Tim basically started dance hall crashers.

And I just thought that would have been an ideal moment to say that. They weren't showing any love, huh? It's just stone-faced. Yeah. she's automatic. Only thing I have to say out of this song, it's a good song, is the opening line is the funniest line

in the world. The way that she moves, well, I was aroused. Just no metaphor, no sugar-coding it. I was just, I was aroused. Yeah, that's so cool.

All right, that's Lars thing in that one. Okay, that's Lars. I love disorder and disarray. Yeah. Crucify, yeah, yeah. Also, I feel like you don't care nothing could have been a single. Oh, for sure.

Like that's the thing is like I think a lot of these songs. I mean, it's like a record of singles pretty much. Totally. The way I feel as the last track, bangs. It's really so good. It's got really good reviews. Entertainment Weekly get an A-plus.

They basically said that Rancid made a better clash record than London Calling, which is an absolutely bold claim. But you know what? That's true. Wow. You think that? I like, I don't not think that. When was the last time you listened to London Calling?

London Calling's a little bloated. That's the problem with London Calling. I mean, this is just like more ferocious. Like, it's just like, it's more aggressive, you know what I mean? It's like if you took like, like, you know, like, agnostic front and peppered it all over London Calling. Yeah. Yeah, they were a little. Again, I do think London Calling suffered a bit from, it did not need to be a double.

album and this is a classic clash thing that they kept doing they were like what if it's a triple album and you're like what if not yeah let me just cut some of those cut some of those dragging songs out and the dean robert crissow bob crissow gave it an a minus that's huge coming from him i'd give this record in a solid a he would not an a plus yeah no i'd give it an a plus i think i would give it an a plus for sure i'd give a lot of their records like a's i don't yeah but anyway It's funny. It's like an A minus, but like he says, even in punk terms, they're not great singers either. Not only won't they change the world, they won't change rock and roll, which is no reason not to wish them well. It's kind of harsh, but it's kind of rude. No, they kind of did change rock and roll.

I'm not sure they did change rock and roll, but Tim Armstrong is an amazing punk singer. Man, that's like, they like changed rock and roll for me. They changed your life. I'm not sure they like change the genre. That's a fair point. Yeah. Okay. They get a huge new fan base around this time. Obviously, it's just, it blows up. It's massive. It's crazy. You think about how much money was probably being thrown at them during this record. And how much, how they watch their shows get bigger and, like, they're, like, crazy fan bases. They interviewed some of these, like, fans outside of a show. I think it was in L.A. And this one kid, Greg from San Gabriel Valley, said,

I skate, I party, I listen to music. That's about it. He's 17. Yeah, bro. He loved Rancid's first two albums, and he loves the scorn his friends once heaped on him for it. That became the whole point for me. I liked it when people told me that. I wanted to be part of it.

Skiportings like that, too. The reason skating and punk get wrapped up together is they've both always been hated by everybody. Skaters are hated by businesses and the police. You screw up the streets. Everybody used to bag on me for skating, and now they're all dressing like skaters. the whole scene is sold out dude

me and Greg got a lot in common so sick also we need to bring back bag on me like he's bagging on me people don't say that enough anymore yeah okay here's the thing about what Greg said yeah let's let's

let's talk about what Greg said everybody wanted everybody want to wear a thrash or hoodie and tell the motherfuckers start doing thrash or shit you know what I'm saying until everyone loves everyone loves skateboarders now baby as even by the time

I was in high school, that was like, they had sort of like started to oust jocks as like the popular and cooler group. It was near the tail end of when I was in high school. So by the time you were in high school, the skaters were kings. It was the predominantly cool culture. I didn't feel very cool. I mean, you might not have been cool, but I'm just saying general skateboarding was cool. That's true. Yeah, it was like a popular culture. Yeah. It still felt like to me when I was like in, Because I got into skateboarding first, obviously, and then punk. I definitely remember, like, you know, it was still scary to be like that. Like, people thought you were, you looked stupid and thought you're interested, or at least to me.

We're wearing giant pants. I was wearing giant pants. And I had like, like, you know those little metal ball necklaces? Do I ever been? Yeah, I had those. Yeah, you did. And I was, like, wearing like a no-effect shirt and just can't clip in my life away. Sounds like we were dressing kind of the same

Every day when I go in my garage I see my alien workshop skateboard from when I was 12 years old And why do I still have it? I don't know Could I skateboard well? Absolutely not But you know my culture is not your costume That's not the point yeah That's not the point That's not the point bitch

It's not about skateboarding It was not about It was about me trying to kickflip and falling down all the time Oh my gosh same I sucked bitch I was so bad at skateboarding I was okay I could still I could still I can still skate a little bit. I broke my collarbone really bad in 2017.

Skateboarding. So embarrassing. It was so embarrassing. I was an adult man. I was skating in Williamsburg. Not paid to skateboard. Suffering a terrible skateboarding injury. On tour with my band, skateboarding.

But I broke my collarbone in front of like 50 people. Like in like an extreme bite. And I was by myself in an extremely populated area. And I had to take the train into Manhattan by myself. It feels like this not being cool thing is more of a you thing that has just continued. I think you might be right about that. But like, yeah, that's definitely true. Maybe it'll happen for you now because you're in a cool band.

Yeah, maybe. I don't know. The album's popping. Brantzapley's Saturday Live. Yeah. Roots Radical and Ruby Soho. Sick. Very sick.

They're huge. Touring a bunch. In 1995, Tim Armstrong meets Brody Dolly. She was in a band called Sourpo. She's Australian. They were playing a festival. I know that there was an Australian tour that was like rancid, jawbreaker, pavement, sonic youth, and bikini killing food fighters.

And the Beast Boys. This was like, yeah, Somersault tour. So isn't that in imagine? imagine you got to go to such a thing and see all of these bands so anyways her band was playing they meet they stay in touch we start dating later

they get married engaged married she moves to L.A. starts the distillers now by the end of 95 we talked about this Green Day and the offspring are so massive they've sold like 13 million records combined punk has gone basically fully mainstream there's this really funny

like state of the Union article in Caring where they interview like a bunch of different people from punk music. I'm just going to read you some of the quotes about what's like it's like an emergency summit here. Eric Melvin from No Effect says the underground scene, which is something that's not all over MTV or on the radio, is for the curious cats who want to know what's really going on. And then Fletcher from Pennywise, for many years we were proud to be a punk band. There's no such thing as punk now. It's too trendy. That's not good.

I know. Bill Stevenson from the descendants. I certainly don't need to be on MTV because I hate MTV. They were the ones who were playing Bon Jovi seven years ago. I think human nature and greed is what the problem is. It's not just the music business. It's people in general. I'm kind of starting to get a sense of what Jesse Michaels was talking about with the judgmental, I'm suspicious.

But also I get it. Like, whatever. There's always going to be factions that, you know, they believe it's one thing and they want to preserve the purity of it. And then the guy from the drop kick Murphy's Ken Casey was like, you know, half the people who say that Rancid are sellouts probably never heard Blitz until they covered them. You, he's talking about you. So a lot of kids originally found out about punk through Green Day, the offspring, and Rancet.

And it's true. Yeah, totally. You don't need to gatekeep punk. I think, though, that they're like, like, I mean, obviously I wasn't there, like, so, like, I couldn't tell you. But, you know, it must have felt like, because I know what it feels like, right? Like when people, you can tell that like someone just became aware of what it is that you're doing. Like, like brand new fans that are just like, ooh.

Less fans and more like industry people. Right. Like, oh, is this popping? Can I make money off of this? Yeah. Yeah. And you can see them like become aware of it and like immediately start to make contact with you without. Oh, were they like, that's the next turn style?

Exactly. Yeah. There's a lot of that happening right now. A lot of like dudes in like industry. sport coats right now are like sending our bands like DMs being like hey like do you want to like play with this weird old

outdated band that I managed from LA and you're like oh that's crazy that you just figured out what it is that and so like to think about that on a large scale for like these dudes had been doing it for 15 years already creating something out of nothing it's like I could imagine here's the biggest hater though

and I think I think I quoted him also in the offspring episode and Todd no last name from Flipside magazine Rancid are very much basing themselves in the clash to the point where they've released their Sandinista. This is right around when Life Won't Way came out. They even choose to pose in exactly the same way the clash did. Are they going to get Mick Jones tattoos next?

First of all, what is wrong with showing honor and homage to a band that, I mean, quite literally did change music and not hiding that you're influenced and inspired by them. I think that's cool. Yeah, I think that's cool. They never hit it. There was like an interview I read with Tim Armstrong where he was like, I mean, there's way worse things in the world than being compared to the clash.

That's like if you played baseball and they were like, you play like Willie Mays and you would think that was what a bad thing. I don't know sports. Yeah, they're like comparing you to one of the greatest people, one of the greatest bands of all time. Yeah. Anyway, it's a lot of hatred. in here, babe. In 97, Tim started Hellcat Records as a sublabel of Epitaph. He said, I used to tell

Brett Gurowitz about all these young bands like Green Dan, no doubt, and they wound up getting huge. He said, I should just start my own label. So he started putting out Dropkick Murphy's, US bombs, the gadgets aforementioned that I really liked, and a couple of other bands. Then they hole up in Silver Lake to make their new album. Tim Armstrong bought a house in Silver Lake. It's a nice neighborhood. It wasn't then. It's funny. Like, it says it in the article. We're like, oh, it's a little.

And then you remember that in 97, Silver Lake was like not anything like it is now. Oh, really? Yeah. Silver Lake was, you know, it also became gentrified, you know. Yeah, sure. Let's talk about it. Let's talk about the hold up, the album they hold up in to make this beautiful 1998 album, Life Won't Wait.

Incredible record. It really has an incredible. It's, I used to. think Outcome the Wolves was my favorite. Yeah. But I think maybe this is my favorite. I agree with you. I think Lifewellian is the best Rancid record, for sure. I think Outcome the Wolves would, like, is the seminal rancid record that you should give anyone who's starting. But I think Lifeful Wains is the coolest.

Outcome the Wolves, let's go, have more individually iconic bingers. Yeah, for sure. But as a work of art, as a whole piece. This the one. Straight up. I agree with you. Thank you. I do this for a living.

What do you like about it? What is it about it this album for you that makes you feel like it's like the best one? I think the way that I would verbalize it, this is like the follow up record to outcome the wolves, right? So like they're experiencing this like immense success and everything's blown up and they're starting their own label and they choose to go and make a self-produced record, right? And it's like Tusk from Fleetwood Mac if that was a good record. excuse me wow I think Tusk

low key you fuck it high key is maybe my favorite fluid back album damn that is controversial

dude over and over think about me what makes you think you're the one storms bitch goodbye are you storms goes crazy

I will say that but it's just like a lot of people could have fumbled the bag on on this record and I don't think

that Rancid did that like instead of letting the fame get to their head. Like the pressure. Or drugs. Sure. Well, I mean,

Tim and Lars are so per so. Yeah. It's just like, it's like a thoughtful approach to a follow-up record like that. It's like how far, like do you want to go absolutely. Because Tusk, they went absolutely insane,

right? Like the production on the record is just bonkers. And this isn't too far out from how come the wolves. But it's for sure. really, really pushing the limits. And yeah, I mean, it's just like they dive deeper into reggae and interesting production. And I think that's what it's me.

They do, I mean, that's the thing. They do go a little crazy, right? Like, I feel like they, not in a bad way. Like, in the like, we now have the means to be more ambitious. Yeah. So let's be more ambitious. And let's like explore all these things, all these interests. And also, I think,

one thing I really love about this, which, you know, it is called their Sandinista. And there's a, there's a review of Alcom of the Wolves that even predicted it. It was like, will their next record be their San Deneas? And it's like,

actually yes. Yeah, totally. But San Dena also had a lot of like guest musicians and vocalists. And that's like, I think part of what makes this album so cool and like textually interesting is like, there's so many other musicians and vocalists and stuff on here. Like, you start with like fucking blood clot.

And it's, you have Billy Joe Armstrong, Marky Ramon, and Howie Piro doing those gang vocals. It's so sick. So sick. Eric Stefani plays piano on Hoover Street. Okay. Gwen Stefani's brother, original founder of New Doubt. I love that song.

To me, it's like a sort of like their light lost in the supermarket, which is one of my top three clash songs. and press his letter The King Caslo was Buzhou Bantan, bitch? You were like, oh, what if I got Buzhou Bantan on my album? Yeah, it's crazy. It's so good. He's on Life One Way.

This is when they, like, really started to, like, get down with some real reggae. Yeah. And it was so legitimate, too. It was not, like, it was not poser-esque at all. Go back to Op Ivy, you know? Like, this has been part of, like, Tim Armstrong's musical DNA since day one.

Like it's not posery. It's like really in there. Yeah. New dress. I love it so much. So I always say about you two that like every time you think a song is a love song by you two, you just look a little closer and it's actually about God. Yeah, totally. Totally.

And with Rancid, you're like, God, what a beautiful song is a love song. No, bitch. It's about politics. Right. They're not, it's not a love song. Like new dress, I'm like, oh, gorgeous love song. No. It is working class girl puts her money to the test

She's got a new dress She's got to look her best Yugoslavia's been blown to bits, yeah She's got a new dress She's looking to the west Speaking of not being posers They also never stop Discussing political matters

In their songs For the whole career Which I think is really admirable Yeah for sure Do you write just straight love Or political songs? I just like all of the lyrics that I write are so simple.

It's kind of like a thing that people have always talked to me about. It's like, oh, it's like really straightforward. It's like, guys, that's all I'm capable of doing. It's just your style. Yeah, yeah. He is a poet. He's also just really well-versed. I mean, like, I say that again, love and respect,

but like it doesn't seem like bands, I'm going to say this, and then people are going to be like, what about, what about? So I'm probably wrong, and I'm probably not super aware of it, but like I less and less to come across bands that are like actively writing about like really specific political situations, which I guess makes sense because we're so oversaturated with that stuff in our day-to-day lives in a way that we never wore in the 90s because we didn't have social media.

But like, okay, Warsaw, for example. Yeah. Let me tell you a little bit about Warsaw. Yeah. The opening lines. Okay. That is the vision of the anarchist. It is also a boy's dream.

That's a quote. That's a quote from the Dutch politician. Fritz Bulkestein. He was debating Noam Chomsky in 1988 about the manufacturing of consent, a book that Chomsky wrote with Edward Herman, which argues that the mass communication media of the United States are effective and powerful ideological institutions that carry out a system-supportive propaganda function by reliance on market forces, internalized assumptions, and self-censorship. without overt coercion, basically saying that, like, the United States uses propaganda to get what they want done, which has been true since then and is obviously true now.

But, like, bro, like, the level of, like, political literacy to know about that and to quote it in your song. Yeah, totally. Because, you know, I feel like people, like, really underestimate Tim Armstrong. You think so? Yeah, I think because of, like, the way he presupport. the way he speaks like you know he's working class he's the punk whatever like but if they look closer it's like this man is really smart and really like aware of what's happening yeah totally it just kind of comes across to me like they seem like really well-informed really well and you know

intentioned to people like with like what it is that they're writing about but i mean yeah i guess if i guess if you're just like black coat white shoes yeah sure black hat catac you're like okay that's cool. And then you're like, oh, wow, this is about the fucking media control state. Well, this is literally about martial law in Poland existing because of an uprising by a trade union. Like, it's so specific. Like, what a very specific. I'm like, wow. I think it was directly inspired. There was an LA Times article in 1997 that was talking about literally specifically the use of American baseball bats. in acts of violence by youth in Poland. And that's why this song talks.

I mean, the lyrics are American baseball bat, demolished the discotheque and how many blows to his forearm and neck till he lay in the schoolyard bludgeoned to death. So it was clearly very inspired by this article. But I just think it's interesting. I think it was so interesting that Tim Armstrong or whoever read the LA Times article became very interested in this conflict that happened in Poland 15 years prior and wrote a song about it.

Yeah. for sure. That's pretty wild, especially with the song right after it. Hooligans? Yeah. Goddamn gorgeous, beautiful song. We're all right for sure. Skiesman's drinking on their face. I really, really love the Ron Sid chant. So sick. We stand the specials, obviously, and that's who's on here.

Roddy radiation, Lionel Golding, and Neville Staples of the specials are on here. So sick. Crane fist, goodbye. Fucking banger. Incredible banger. Lester Square. Bangs. Who would have thought?

Banks. Diggie Barrett's on cash culture of violence. Is that him who says cast culture, like cast culture of violence? I think he's, yeah, I think he's doing the backing vocals, and I think he even has a verse, maybe. Piping hot track. Piping hot track. I think 1998 was on a skateboarding video game that you played. It was.

Man, Yossie, stop. That's unbelievable. One video game was it? No, I have no idea that. I just guessed that. Dude, it was like, it's like, I think it was on like Dave Mira, BMX or something.

That's just me being borderline psychic. Yeah, yeah. And also pretty easy to predict what you're going to say. Yeah, sure. You could imagine where I was at when this record came out. Skateboarding. Absolutely. Playing your little games.

Oh, yeah. They even name checks Sandinista on this album in Lady Liberty. So it's not. Again, they're not hiding their inspirations or whatever. And they got the dude from Agnostic Front on here. They're like, why not? Let's get Roger. It's insane.

Something in the world today. It's so good. Yeah, they got the specials in Ignostic Front on the same record. Like, you are so tight for doing that. And that really is the, like, the meeting point of France. That's like, that's where they live at the intersection of Agnostic Front and the specials. Yeah. This album, just incredible.

And it got really amazing reviews. Like people agreed. Four stars from Rolling Stone. Spin gave it a minus. Pitchfork gave it a seven, but... Pitchfork reviewed this record. Pitchfork reviewed this record in 2000. So a couple years later, I'm not really sure why, but we don't have to...

A seven. Are you out of your mind? This is absolutely a 9.9 at the very least. This is best new music. This is best new music. Oh, yeah, for sure. BNI. Oh, BNI for sure.

I don't think Tim Armistrott would give one single flying fuck. Fuck, no. I was talking to someone the other day who, like, I'm not going to say who it is, but docks them. I'm not doxing this person, but this person, like, owns, like, multiple houses in music. And, like, we were, like, talking and, you know, we're just talking about music and stuff. And they were like, I was like, oh, I said something about pitchfork. And he looked at me and he was like, he was like, you know, I own a vacation home here.

and like I don't know, house in the city here. And he was like, my band's name has never been printed on pitchfork. That's really cool to remember. Was it Paul McCartney? It was Paul McCartney. It was. It was Ringo, obviously. It was Ringo.

Yeah, like real who cares ours. Yeah, for real. Okay. So we're writing high. We've made arguably the best album of our career. So what do we do next? It's interesting. I do like psychologically wonder why

this and maybe you can explain as you have the mind and heart and soul of a musician. Do you feel like it was like, okay, that we did what we set out to do with that. We were so eclectic. We really like rummaged through all of our influences, got to got them to see the light of day and expressed. Now we're making a fully stripped back like hardcore. Hey, did you guys know we like hardcore music album? it's honestly

I think like from like a trajectory perspective there's no other move it is a really good move yeah because you're like oh we don't want to keep make we don't want to keep doing the same thing yeah and they had been making like songs like like that were on

the rancid 2000 record it's like out of nowhere no it's just a punch you in the face album I like I don't know how long Rancid 2000 is like the runtime of it but I bet it shorter than a lot of them Yeah, it's quite short. Yeah, that's really cool. It's under 40 minutes long.

Sure, which is still really long, considering the first spiritual cramp record is like 24 minutes. Yeah, but this has 22 songs on it. How many does the first spiritual cramp record have on? It has. It's going to have 10. Yeah. So it would have been. Do you put this album on a lot?

I for sure don't not put this record on. Like, you know what I'm if that's like a vague enough answer for you? What does that mean? like I don't put it on a lot but I but if someone put it on I would like high five them and be like good choice sure sure you know what I mean I wouldn't be like

oh weird choice I don't mean that disparagingly like just for me like it's very enjoyable but it's like I'm 41 years old and I can't really like there's not a lot of times or I'm like you know what I hear you know is like fucking balls to the wall rancid goes hardcore you know yeah good it's just I don't the

occasion for it doesn't come maybe maybe when we're lifting bro this should I'm gonna say those those those what do you call those Russian twists or whatever it is you do Russian twists are good I do love a Russian twist a Turkish get up Turkish are good too Russian twists really get that those abs popping I know I gotta do some more of those but this is the kind of record you put on while you're doing Turkish getups you know for sure 40 minutes put on don't Giovanni okay I need to talk to you about this it's very interesting because your friend Yossi recently went to her very first opera. And what was it? Don Giovanni. And I've been thinking about Don Giovanni a lot. But isn't that so weird? And I think I hadn't really, I truly, again, absolute highest love and

respect to Rancid. I have not thought about this fucking album in 20 years. Like I haven't thought about it. Yeah. It's not a Rancid album I returned to. Not because it's not good. It's just like not one I ever returned to. So I literally hadn't thought about it. And then to come back and be like, Don Giovanni? Wow, Don Javani be like, pop. popping up in my life. So Don Giovanni is like the original fuckboy, right? Like it's actually really depressing because you go and you're like, oh, this shit was written in 1773 and like there's been fuckboys since 1773.

His whole thing was like he, it was a part of a larger tradition of Don Juan type stories, but this is the most famous one. And his whole thing is like he would go town to town and just fuck bitches, lie to them, tell them he's going to marry them and then disappear. And he had a little servant with him who would keep a book and wrote down all the women's names in it. Whoa. Yeah. So one of one of these women, he gets caught leaving her like bedroom and she's like engaged in another guy by her dad. And her dad like confronts him and they fight and Don Giovanni kills the dad. So then this woman and her poor honestly sap of a fucking fiance who doesn't know she was cheating. set out to like find him and then also this other woman that he had like you know said he was going to marry who like fucking was like I fucking hate you

comes after him then he like goes he literally this fucking man goes to an active wedding in progress and woo's away the fucking bride Don Giovanni she's in a wedding this Don Giovanni bitch anyways they all hate him by the end they're all like literally praying for his downfall and trying to come get him including the ghost of the dad

who in the end basically haunts his ass and what happens at the very end is demons pull him to hell. Shit, really? For his bad behavior. And the moral, like, takeaway of Don Giovanni is you reap what you sow. Yeah. I bring all this up to say it's very, makes so much sense to put this song at the top of the album because the album, you know, they're getting always, again, into like these sort of

terrible political actors. And I feel, and I don't know, and I would love Mr. Timothy Armstrong, bang my line, let me know if I'm right. But like, the idea is like, you reap what you sow. Like, you terrible people, this, you will always reap what you so.

Yeah, for sure. 30 seconds of it too. I think it sounds like 30 seconds long, I think. Yeah, it's super. I mean, like, you know, they just get into the gist of it right there. Yeah, yeah, yeah. You reap what you so, bitch.

Yeah. pulled his ass to hell. How long ago did you see this play? Like, literally like three weeks ago. That's crazy. And so you are very fresh on the story of this. Yeah, and I had been interested in it because it's the only opera I really know about because I'd read about it in a Kierka card book.

Yeah. And I'd become sort of interested in it. Also, it's very interesting if you think about, like, romantic love and, like, how really, like, this sort of behavior between men and women has literally been happening for, you know, 300 years or whatever. Yeah, yeah, totally. Anyways, let's talk about the. the album. Okay. I think if it was just straight pummeling all the way through, it might be a little

one note and it wouldn't have been as successful, but they sort of break it up a little, right? Like, let me go. Let me go. Kind of, yeah, delves back into some like beautiful scollaments. I really like that song. Yeah, it's like brutal for like three songs and then on track four, they got to let me go. Right. They take their foot off your neck for a second. This record was the first record that they put out where I had access to the internet. And they promoted this record on the internet. I remember. And I remember being in like, this was 2000.

So like I maybe was in middle school. And I remember like watching like the music video for I want to say it was let me go. On the internet. How long did that take that to buffer? I couldn't tell you. I was at the school. So the school had pretty good internet. Sure.

Sure. Also I will say that. there's one song on the spiritual crampo be where I straight up said okay check this out and like I listened to let me go and I was like oh that's that's where I stole that from like I straight check this out and then you were like pick it up pick it up yeah exactly I don't remember that because I was in college but but I also had fast internet because I was in the dorm Black Hawk down Incredible

Yeah it's about the Somalian and Sierra Leone Civil Wars in the early 90s Again they're not stopping Yeah Rwanda what is that about Oh the 1994 Rwandan genocide Rwanda is a great song

Yeah Yeah it's very good I mean these are all These are all really good songs Corruption is amazing. Radio Havana, once again, they take their foot off your neck. Real clash hours on this song in a great way. Beautiful chorus.

It's beautiful. Rattlesnakes, too. I know it's a heart. It's a fast song. But he said, you're a rattlesnake. You're full of shit. I fucking hate you. It's so sick.

It is really good. This is great. It's just great. Yeah. Young Al Capone, dead bodies. Yeah. Bangor,

banger, binger. Banger, binger. Got an A-minus from Entertainment Weekly. Okay. It got really good reviews. I'm kind of surprised because I would have thought people would have turned on them a little bit for going so hard. Yeah.

But they didn't. No way. It's like the coolest thing you could do in that position. I mean, I agree, but like critics can always be trusted. Like, especially when you have like such a beloved album,

it's like clockwork, no matter what you put out next, the corrections are like, this one sucks. Yeah, totally. Because they want to, like, correct the scales that they were like so nice to you before or whatever. Where do you go from life, won't wait, right? Like, you could either just become the talking heads. Yeah, that would have been sick.

Right? Because after you do your Santinista, where do you go? Like, like, Rancid 2000 is not a return to form, but it's like, it's like a return to like a little bit more, let's go he kind of vibes. Yeah and it's also like we've been hanging out with H2O and sick of it all a lot. Yeah. It's so cool. What happens next? 2002. I mean, music has changed so much by 2002 in general, right? Like indie sleaze has happened in a big way, right? We have like interpolter on the lights. The strokes have come out. The face of rock music has like changed in sort of a pretty meaningful way.

in 2002 they put out that split series album with no effects do you know what talking about the byo split i was wondering if you were going to bring this up it's really good it's not on streaming but i think it's on youtube yeah i have i have the final i have the vinyl yeah it's where no effects covers like six rancid songs and rancid covers like six no effects songs it's sick yeah it's really sick What a good idea People should do that more often I'd be so into that Why don't we do shit like that anymore?

I don't know but You guys should do it with turnstile That's a great idea I'm one of those suits I'm one of those suits that's coming to tell you Let's make money Let's make money off of that You and turnstile

You and turnstile October 2002 The first transplants album comes out You thought I wasn't gonna fucking talk About the transplant bitch you were dead fucking wrong. You thought, bitch.

This band was formed to 1999 when Tim Armstrong played for his friend and Rody, Rob Aston, also known as Skinhead Rob, some beats that he had made using pro tools. And, you know, Skinhead Rob being a bit of a rapper, he was like,

do you want to contribute lyrics? So then they started this project. And initially, Tim played all the instruments himself, but then he started to like rope in other people. ending up with Travis Barker on loan from Blink 128. It's so good. Yeah, this record slaps.

Bro, diamonds and guns, we need, I mean, the hit, the banger, the Garnier-Fructice song. The lyrical dimensions of this song. Once again, we're talking about bombs going off in Sierra Leone. We're talking about taking more shots of Carlin. I'm sorry. Yeah, literally. Knock, knock, knock. that it's mama's on looking for the bitch took the money and run then talking about

fucking who the who's the fucking bitch who stole the heroin heroin heroin it's all gone that's the song you put in your shampoo commercial yeah it's unbelievable and then we have a nice little rap from sunduby yeah the soul assassins yeah i'm winking out flippin out parts is what i'm ripping out i'm slipping out i'm slipping out killin's what i'm living out this is just a gorgeous piece of musical history street. You're not bringing up what I was hoping you would bring up. DJ DJ. Quick death with your friend David Havoc.

David Havoc. You love it, David Havoc. I do. It's a good song. David Havoc definitely exists in the Tim Armstrong extended universe for a long time, and we're not there yet, but we will absolutely be talking about the fucking weird musical. Yeah, okay. Tim Timebomb, Rock and Roll Music Hour or whatever. I might be listening to you talk about that. It's insane.

I don't know much about that. It's literally insane. Okay. Also, and you want to talk about this. In 2001, the year before the Transpents album, Lars Fredrickson and The Bastards, first album. Incredible, incredible record. You love it.

I love it. It was the first, because I'm from the Bay Area, but I never had a car, and, like, my family didn't travel very much, so I didn't know what Campbell, California was. That's his hometown, yeah. Yeah, and I remember, there's a song, he says, like, Campbell, California, like, 1973, or something like that.

I remember the first time I drove the Campbell, California. I was like, this place has got to be cool. And then I realized it wasn't that cool. Get ready. Get rid of the heavy town from California. This is magic, magic. Yeah, that's how I feel about the intersection of Fountain in Fairfax in Los Angeles, which is famously an Afghan wing song.

And I was like, this is so cool. And then you go there and there's nothing there. So they're doing solo stuff. Then in 2003, we're back together to put out indestructible. Another piping hot. not LP. This sort of does amount to them signing with Warner Brothers. How did you feel about that?

At the time, I didn't really mind it. And with some time between now and then, I still, I still really don't give a shit. Yeah. I think at this point, it was such a different ballgame, you know, like by 2003. And we talk about this a lot here. There's like, I wish I could, like, distill it down to one event that made it that selling out didn't exist anymore. And we always joke that it was like when the Shins did a song for a McDonald's commercial.

Yeah. But it's around this time, basically. Like, it really is around this time we're selling out no longer is a preoccupation or exists. And like Napster had, and iTunes had really done something to the music industry. And like, you couldn't do it the way you did it before. So like, it makes total sense that they would be like, well, we need, we need to change it up a little bit here. Yeah, totally. And like that major boom of like band signing and then blowing up and or like getting shit on like some bands.

You know, it's like I think that would probably pass by this point, right? You mean like the like gold rush of, oh yeah, yeah. I mean, the labels were hemorrhaging money at this point because of digital music. Like they were their cash cow of CDs was like people were still buying CDs. Like it's 2003. It's not 2012. But like it's starting to really fucking house of cards. pops over here. Right. I bought this CD. I remember I had this CD. Yeah, you did. Yeah, you did.

Oh, yeah. Freshman in high school, let's go. Let's fucking go. Yeah. I didn't listen to this until now. Oh, wow. Yeah. I kind of, I think I fell out of the great magical word of rents that around this time. That checks from a timeline perspective for sure. Yeah. I think in 2003 I moved to San Francisco and I was like, once again, listening to backpack rap and the smiths all the time and keeping myself busy, you know, and the Postal Service album. Yeah. This is a breakup album.

In my experience, breakup albums are usually very good. That's what you get. That's the gold you get to mine from the trauma of something like a breakup. Yeah. And this is the breakup album of Tim Armstrong from Brody Dally.

Yeah. And this is the record where Tim went and got himself a six-pack. God, he was so hot. This is the era where he straight up, like, had, like, he was, like, for sure working out. Would you call it a revenge body? Oh, he for sure had a revenge body during this. Because I remember, like, this was, I think, the first Rancid record that I was, like, fully capable of, like, accessing with, like, autonomy, if that makes any sense.

I was like, I'm a fan of this band, and they're releasing a new record. But, like, you know, when Rancid 2000 came out, I was, like, I wasn't even like, I didn't even know that I was a fan. I just like saw it on the internet, you know. Yeah. But this one I went and I was seeking this out. So I was watching that six pack going crazy. He was going nuts for sure.

You're watching a six pack? Yeah, from afar. It's also interesting because like, I mean, there had been like, of course, it's like not unprecedented. There had been like more personal lyrics on Rancid albums. But I think he really goes hard. here in like super personal even the I mean the first song indestructible the title track I was really touched by like how tender the breakup songs are right they're not like angry per se they're they're just

really beautiful and tender and this one is like I won't get bogged down like some american consumer I'm dancing now to a whole different drummer and I'll keep listening to the great joe's drummer because through music we can live forever it's like back to like oh no matter what happens I One thing that will never let me down is my music. And I'm dancing there to a whole different drummer and I keep listening to the great Joe's drummer. It's so cool. It's so positive and it's so strong. I know.

It's so sick. Also, fall back down right away. Another cute little breakup song that's like, but you know what? I still have my bros. I still have my band. This isn't cute. This is serious business. I had a bad year.

A lot of gone through. What boy are you going to do? She's not the one coming back for you. Oh my God. So brother. My brother is hurting and he's got his lads to help him get through it. Red Hot Moon. I love it so much.

Piping hot. Also a really cool music video too. Yes. cool music. Got Skinhead Rob in the mix. Once again, Tim's vocals, just so charming and lovely. David Courtney, do you know who David Courtney is? I've always wanted

to know who David Courtney is, but never had any idea. Barb wants to know, too. I remember she asked me one time, she said, who's this David Courtney character? I said, I don't know. You came to the right place, babe. I had a feeling. David John Courtney. David John Courtney is an English, former self-proclaimed gangster.

Okay. Who later became an author and a celebrity. He often refers himself to Dave Courtney OBE, the suffix standing for one big ego. Yeah, he's basically a gangster, self-proclaimed gangster, and that's what this song is about. Okay. Yeah. Oh, you motherfuckers. What is the lyrics? Criminals will be suckers if you don't step aside for David Courtney.

That's cool. You better step aside for this guy. It's pretty cool. That's a great song. Start now. I'm sorry, I'll say it. It's also a sweet song. A little call for peace.

Yep. Sweet ditty. Yeah. Out of control. It was fucking crazy. We're out of control. Control. It's amazing.

That's an anti-Bush, I believe. They're sort of like referencing some buzzwords that George Bush used. We were anti-Bush during this time. Yeah. In this house, we're anti-Bush. I don't care how many fucking watercolors he does. Yeah. That was not our president.

No. That was their president. I was their president. Arrested in Shanghai. Here's my note. Why is this song about the oppressiveness nature of China so pretty? How do they do that? This song is about China.

Mikey, my brother in Christ, the fucking title of the song is arrested in Shanghai. You know, you never know. It could be like a read-between-the-lines kind of thing, you know what I mean? So I protest the massacres at the Tiananmen Square? I protest the massacres at the Tiananmen Square. Yeah, I guess that's pretty, writing's on the wall there, huh? Yeah. My friends say, yo, stay away, man.

You better not fucking go back there. Yeah, they told him not to go back to Tiananmen Square and do protesting. My friend said, yo, stay away, man. You better not go fucking back there. Oh. He's only got one weapon. And you know what? My only weapon, I call poetry.

Same. Tim, arm's. strong. Me also. Dude. I'm also a poet, poet podcaster. Yeah. Memphis?

Timberlian is rapping bag here, which I love to see. Go to rolling with the punk rockers. I ain't lying fake guns, fake bears, fake punk I ain't buying. Tim, that's what I'm saying. They've been in their rapping bag. No. I know. It's so sick.

It makes me want to rap. You could. Why not? I want to. I want to make a record where it's like, oh, he's rapping. But then everyone's... You already have a bit of like a... an accent going that might lend

itself a bit of a way of speaking that might lend itself to rapping. I would love to start just spitting hot fire all over some piping hot verses. Anyways. Okay, but then there's ghost band. Ghost band is so good. Do you know why they call themselves a ghost band?

No, I don't, but there's a ghost band playing our song. Yeah, I don't know what the song is about. It makes no sense, but... I think it's about a ghost band, I don't know. You mean like a band of ghosts that are literally just ghosts playing in instruments. Yeah. Another thing I feel like I've been doing some thinking and I got to take back what I said about how I don't think that Rancid has rockability influence because yeah literally take it back because you're dead wrong. I'm dead wrong about that. I even found proof. There's like literally them talking on that 120 minutes episode about how sick rockabilly is. Yeah for sure you're for sure right about

that. It's like writing a song about a ghost band is like pretty like rockabilly stuff. It's pretty that's pretty that's pretty uh it's borderline steampunk honestly in this the song like sounds like a steampunk it's like it's like ditty diga ditty it's flirting with steampung it's a little bit like we're a Disneyland we're going through the pirate thing there's a ghost band yeah it's bad dude once I went to the renaissance fair and there was literally a sick band playing

and they were it was a punkish band but they were pirates oh man that's actually really sick awesome yeah it was really sick I should have gone there in for me I want to do that. You could do that. Why not? Ask the Renaissance Fair of Spiritual Cram can play dressed as pirates next year.

That would be cool. Ryan, Biz 3. Get fucking the Renaissance. Get the Renfair on the horn, babe. I bet you could do that. Let's move and shake. I love Tropical London. I love it.

Yeah. Another tender breakup song. You know what? If you lose me, you lose a good thing. Good for you, Tim Armstrong. Good for you, Tim. Know your worth, babe. Know your worth.

Okay. That's the one thing I know for sure. It's one thing you know for sure, and that is right. You should keep your fucking head held high. You're right. Everyone watch and learn. This is how you do a breakup. When we chose to do this on Rancet, I'm like,

when we chose to do this on Rancid, I was like, oh, cool, like we'll get to do this on like a band, like one of my favorite bands, you know, like kind of casually. And like going through this, I'm like, man, this is like one of my all, like there's this. I know. It makes you more. Right. It makes you so much more into it. Yeah, that happens to me to you. Like, I'll be listening to Ransin for like the next month or so, like, of my own free will. Because that's what happens. Like you get so invested back in it. You're like this is so sick.

Like even like those lyrics like it's like, oh, if you lose me, you lose a good thing. That's one thing I know for sure. It's like that like type of mindset to apply to like because you know this really, you know, I don't want to speak on anyone else's business. But like this, you know, it's like a breakup record like you said. It was a pretty dramatic breakup. It was a pretty publicly traumatic breakup. For sure, for sure. But you know, none of my. I know. I know. I know. Bama, I'm not saying it's not, we're not saying it's anyone's business. I'm just saying we know that it was very traumatic. But like that's such a sick mindset to apply to something. Like when you like go through such a traumatic thing and just be like not like fuck that. If you lose me, you lose a good thing. Like that's the kind of person who knows how to follow up outcome the wolves. You're sorry.

With that kind of like mindset. Like it's like smart. I'll tell you what. It's only recently that I've entered that mindset in the last like couple of years. and it's such a beautiful place to be. Yeah, for sure. I'm like, oh, really, bitch? Yeah. I mean, okay. Like, just letting you know. Yeah.

There are 100 million 28-year-old girls with the exact same face and no personality that are hot, and there's one of me. Yeah. One of one. So you fumbled that bag, bitch. I can't wait until you wake up in the middle of the night in a fucking cold.

sweat in like six months. Yeah. And realize what you've done. And I'll just laugh. Because I'll be like, yeah, bitch. That's right. They're going to remember. You lose me.

You lost a good thing. And that's one thing you know for sure. And that's one thing I know for sure, bitch. It's an experience that I had the other day, right? I was like hanging out with like this person who I like sort of know, but they're like closer with my wife and like, like, it's like kind of like in the band of what you're speaking on. But like I said something to them like that something that like, something that like I

would pretty much only say to like someone like you know like a close homie but because they're friends with my wife and said around them and then the next day I was like my god like I shouldn't have said that to that person like sure yeah and then I had this moment where I was like not like I know what I meant I know I don't need to like I guess I thought about texting them you know no no being like hey like I just wanted you to know that when I said that and I was like no like I know what I meant like I don't need to like text it and like it's just the same kind of thing it's like yeah that's one thing I know for sure that's one thing you know sure also listen if someone's upset with you you let them tell you you don't know

if they're offended they'll tell you then you can explain you don't have to like go back and like oh my god the way I used to like come home from a party and then sit and have to do a beautiful mind about like every single thing I said that was cringe

or wrong like do a literal taxonomy like an Excel spreadsheet so that I could like not anymore babe I don't care you know what actually I am annoying so what same Yeah, totally. Sorry.

You don't want to be my friend? Don't be my friend. That's fine. And I think like, I think the moment that you realize it's just like, you're like, I don't care if I'm cool. Like, I'm kind of weird. Like, that's the moment that everything's going to open up for you. Exactly. And all of life because that's it.

You just, you get to be one person and this person. So like you better fucking get on board with yourself. Yeah. Because there's nobody. You don't get to be someone else. Absolutely. And Tim Armstrong always knew that, babe. Tim Timebub.

That's what I'm saying. Like, I think that these guys. like kind of have known that for a long time. And that's what, maybe that's like perhaps why they were so successful. At most respect. Yeah. My, my fedora is off. My fedora is off to you, sir.

Your, your pork pie cap. My pork pie cap is off. Although, I'm sorry, I'll say it. The only man that can pull that off and still look hot in history. No way. Do pork pie caps go crazy? I know. I know what you're thinking.

Oh, yeah. See, that's another one of those things. You just got to say it and be unapologetic about it. But you're not. You're lying, right? You're making a joke. No, I'm not even kidding. If you get a sick, like Fred Perry, like a three-finger collar and then like a V-neck, Fred Perry, yeah, that's right.

I'm going to talk to Barb off air and be like, don't not let this man do this. She would let me do that. I wonder if she's, should I yell at her and should I say, Barb, can I wear one of this? She doesn't even know what a pork pie cap is. She will and she'll be horrified. She says, I just heard her say, I'm right here. I'm not going to yell at her. She doesn't want it.

She doesn't want it. I'm telling you, I know. She doesn't want it. Here's what I learned about Rancid during this time. They just made good record after good record. Yeah. Straight up. Like, this one is really good.

Yeah, it is. It's an incredible record. So that fucking happens. Great album. That's also the year that David Havoc switches gears and goes so crazy. Where'd he go? Sing the sorrow. He didn't switch gears.

He just kicked it in a hot. Yeah, I guess he did switch gears, but he kicked in a fifth gear. He was no longer answering that and staying fashionable. He was no longer a mama. Let me get it. Mohawk. Hell no. He was, he was.

I don't want to use my nose. You want to go to shows? Song is so sick. I'm sorry. I'm happy for everyone within the AFI community that David Havik went in a different direction, but unfortunately I'm still living in the past. What happens next? I'll tell you what's happening next.

Indestructible. Rancid Tour is Indestructible. Okay. Yep. In 2004, they go on a hiatus. Everyone sort of works on their little side projects. 2006, they get the band back together to go on the Warp Tour. Shockingly, I think this was their first time on the Warp Tour. 2006, I saw this work tour. Yeah.

Okay, I need to talk to you about this because I think I had stopped going to Warp Tour on this time. Yeah. But looking at the lineup, I was like, okay, this is really, really an amazing snapshot of like the sort of sea change that was happening in punk and warp tour culture. Because I'm going to tell you, like when I was going to warp tour, it was still pretty straight up fat records punk. You know what I mean?

Like they would have like body count play and they would have like, you know, whatever, like some like cool other stuff. But it was very like core. And now it's like, oh yeah, no effects. Rancid. AFI. AFA. Bouncing soul.

Sure. Paramoor. This is their like second ever Orchard, but their first big real one They're like not only on the girl stage But then also, okay, from autumn to ashes Bullet for my Valentine

From first to last Shout out Skrillix That was Scrillix's band The red jumpsuit apparatus Yeah Motion City soundtrack Why are these names so long? Plain White T's

Hey there, Delilah fucking goes crazy I must say Jim class heroes babe Travi McCoy? That's right. This is happening in Warbuchar. So you see what I'm saying? There's like this shift into like we haven't quite gotten to like Blackvale brides and shit, but like we're going there. It's a, we're borderline blood on the dance floor like scene music. And then also weirdly I just have to point out Helmut played this year. Fuck yeah. I hope you guys both. Producer Jesse and you. I hope you fucking went. You saw Helmut when you went to this. You probably didn't. You probably fucking didn't. I don't know if I watched Helmut set. Yeah. Literal losers. Both of you. Anyways, my point being, Warpedor was, was, shit was changing. Yeah, yeah, yeah, right. Rancid was on it. Rancid played it.

And then something sad happens. What happens? November 3rd, 2006. Brett Reed leaves Rancid. Oh. Under still unclear reasons. And is replaced by Brandon Steinachert from the Used. From the Used.

Shout out. What is the name? McCracken. Burt McCracken. Then in 2007, Tim Armstrong puts out his first solo album, a poet's life. I also wasn't aware of this. Yo, this shit is fire. It's insane.

It is so good. It's a very, like, mellow, beautiful, like, he made it with the Agrolytes, which were Los Angeles. Yeah, sort of like Skawy band. Yeah. It's so, wake up? Yeah, it's insane. He's so talented. I must tell you, Tim Armstrong, he has slept on.

slept on. I'm going to go shout out from the rooftops. People are not putting respect on my man Tim Armstrong's name. Really? Who's not putting, who's not putting respect on Tim's name? I think people need to listen to this album, just really understand the range. Yeah, for sure. Range of this man. It's really beautiful. Anyways. Speaking of reggae, he produces all the interruptors stuff. Really? Yeah, he produces, like, I believe he produces all of it. And it's like, all those songs are insanely written. The production is insane. Did you ask Timothy Armstrong to produce your album? Did not.

Have you thought about it? Did maybe the next one? Yeah, maybe. Yeah. I'm just saying, bang that man's line. Let's get Timothy Armstrong on the horn. I've thought about it for sure. I don't know if you would do it.

You know what I mean? It's like, hey, do you want to produce a band that is it trying to sound like your band? You know what I mean? Probably yes. Yeah, maybe. Pretty cool. Well, that happens, and it's gorgeous and wonderful. But then also in that same year, they put out of B-sides and C-sides.

compilation just to break up the hiatus because they haven't put out something in a long time. And then in 2009, finally, they put out Let the Domino's Fall. Let the Domino's Fall. Produced by Brett Gerowitz out on Hellcat. So they did one record on... Oh, Warner's. Yeah, it was just the one, I think. Wow. I don't know why, but, I mean, it might have been because, again, music industry is sort of faltering by 2009.

Yeah, sure. And again, not... And this is, I say this, love and respect, but like, what's going on in rock music in 2009 is like Florence and the Machine, Mumford and Sons, Wilco, St. Vincent. You know what I mean? It's not really like real rancid hours. Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah. Passion pit.

Like, it's just kind of a different, it's a different landscape. This album debuted at number 11 on the Billboard 200, which makes it Rancet's highest charting album today, which to me is kind of insane. Because for me, is this a good album? Yes. Yeah, for sure. Is this a little bit we have Rancid at home? Yes. It sounds a lot like indestructible. Yeah. It sounds, it just sounds like it sounds like the other albums just slightly less good. Oh man. I don't know because like here's the thing about like you're listening to me for me. I mean, I guess like you know, the users individual experiences. Yeah. A lot of subjective, et cetera, et cetera. Yeah. But like it's like

I was there for everything up to indestructible. But by the time this record came around, I was listening to like, like, sick of it all. Like, I was like deep. I was like a hardcore kid. I was an Atex C kid. Right. And so like listening to punk, like I was like,

oh no, like I've been listening to punk for a long. So I didn't really get into this record. The song, East Bay Night, I've heard that song a lot. It's a great song. another is I like up to no good a lot too I think it's a good But catchy

Yeah That's what I'm saying This record is catchy as hell Here's what I'm saying There's good I'm not saying it's not good I'm not saying there's not good songs It's just like

Within the spectrum of what Rancet has achieved It doesn't really hold a candle To some of the other albums That's all I'm saying And that's okay Not all of your albums Are gonna be the same caliber.

Yeah. It just doesn't have as many standout tracks to me. I do want to talk with the one song on here that to me is like the best is civilian ways. Because this is like such a standout because it's so fokey and stripped down. Yeah. And it really

like I said before like I think it really shows you that Tim Armstrong can like the range of Tim Armstrong can like really write and do any kind of song. And this song is so beautiful and it's so not what you would expect on a Rancid album. I think that's really cool. They put that on there. So William Ways

Oh, now, what's foreign to me? I think I need more time with this record to, like, really have an opinion on it. But what I thought, my initial thoughts while listening through was that if you showed me this record while I was like 18, I would have probably been over the moon for it. It's just by the time it came out, I was kind of like, and I was like listening to like Joy Division, too. I was looking to hardcore and like unbroken. Wow. Unbroken is so good.

You know, Hall's likes Unbroken, Tim Armstrong. Oh, yeah? Okay. I think a lot of people like Unbroken. Yeah, I know, but I think I heard an interview where you like specifically talked about liking Unbroken. So it's time for us to talk briefly about 2011, which you somehow missed, but, and I also totally missed, but I did go back and watch some of it. Tim Time Mom's Rock and Roll Theater. Mm-hmm.

Tim Timebom's Rock and Roll Theater was a TV show, I guess. I think it was on YouTube. Was it on a TV show? This I couldn't really, but it's literally a, it's a musical. The one that I watch that features David Havoc is like Tim talking and introducing the little story and then Lars singing and like sort of, I mean, it's like, it's a musical. Like a story is happening while Lars is singing. and then Davey, it's, it's psychotic that it happened. It's not that it's bad.

It's just, it's just like you feel like you're on drugs. You're like, what is this? Good evening. My name is Tim Tambo. And this is rock and roll theater. Well, I'm the god of all gods. I'm the king of all kings. And there's nothing that I want because I have everything.

Wow. The seat. Okay. This is so, this is so biz, dude. It's show biz, baby. It's called diversifying. Oh my God. Lars is the boss.

He's the C. Yeah. Dante? Dante. He's Dante the CEO and then, okay, so everyone's taking their clothes off in the boardroom. This is badass. But he put out an album of the songs on here with his pals. I just love, what a creative man. Nothing's going to stop him from chasing his creative dreams.

If I did a Mike B's rock and roll musical theater, could you be in it as a podcaster? Yeah, as long as I don't have to sing. I'll do talking. Yeah, maybe like, you know, like when it cuts. Yeah. And, you know, and it goes to like real voice for like 10 seconds. Yeah, I can be the narrator. Oh, you could be the narrator.

You could be, listen, babe. Mike's rock and roll theater podcast. Yeah. Producer Jesse says it could be the Greek chorus. We can do this. Okay. We're going to ask producer Jesse and then we'll have him pop up in the corner. Yeah.

Why not? Okay. Now it's 2014. It's a good year. It was. Joyce Manor never hung over again. one of my favorite albums, My Torrance Brethren,

speaking of punk. Okay. Love that album. 1989 also came out that year by Taylor Swift. And into this world, unbeknownst to me, a rancid album called Dot, dot, dot, dot,

Honor is all we know, produced by Red Girl Woods. I have no thoughts on this album. You have no thoughts? I listened to it, and it was once again one of those things where I was like, yeah, this is good. And that's really it.

It's like, it's a bit we have rancid at home. Evil is my friend As a Slapper You love it I love it The song Raise Your Fist Kind of sounds like a Blitz song

It does yeah That song's good Raise your fists They're still doing them They're still raising their fists Against the power But you know what I'm saying It's like

It's a little less pointed It's a little more vague Like it's not again A song that's so specifically About the Rwandan genocide it's raise your fist against the power. You know? Mm-hmm.

This is another one of the records that I missed, for sure. Yeah, I missed it. What were you listening to in 2014, Joyce Banner? No. I was just listening to indie rock. And I still listen to like skinhead music. And I listened to like, I was not really listening to much hardcore. Kind of getting back into punk around 2014.

But like, you know, stiff little fingers and stuff like that, opposed to like, you know, street punk. Sure. And more like Buzzcocks, stuff like that. But I did kind of this record. I didn't really catch this record. That's all right. That's all right.

Then they take a really long hiatus. They don't put anything out for three more years. And then it is Troublemaker. Yeah. On Hellcat. I really like this record. This one I came back in on. What do you tell me?

Tell me more about this record. I liked it too, but I like Farewell Lola Blue a lot. That one stood out to me. It's just not one I've spent a lot of times with. It is interesting to me, I want to ask your opinion, because this album was mostly written by Tim because it was originally intended to be his solo album, his second solo album. Interesting.

But then Brett Gerwitz heard the songs and was like, actually, you should make this a Rentson album. Do you hear that at all? Yeah. I guess so. Like the first song is not, it doesn't sound like it would be a Tim Armstrong record. It sounds like it's super gnarly. So maybe it's like a mix of them in here because you can see they're credited.

So it's like that was created to Rancid and like the next three year credited to Tim, then back to Rancid. So maybe like once they got in the studio, they started writing some other songs. Yeah. I mean, Telegraph Avenue, I guess could be. That one is written by Tim. Yeah.

So maybe that was, yeah. But like, even that song, to me, it sounds like a rancid record. In my humble opinion. What's that song? It's like, it's got a really long title. It's like, uh, an intimate close-up of a street punk troublemaker. Yeah, that song rules. And that's like a fast punk song.

Like, it's like, it's not like a hardcore song, but. Intimate close up. What a street punk troublemaker. This record is when. I for sure kind of came back on the team and like what was it earlier you said we said they like existed the intersection of like agnostic front and rancid right yeah and the specials and the specials yeah but it's like they also like intersect like at the corner like a lot of glam rock too and just like straight up skinhead like strut music did joey castillo play drums on this record that's funny that you

say that i think so because i think when it was going to be a solo album joey castillo was playing drums then I think they might have just had Joe Casillo Play drums. Yeah. Dude is so good at drums and you can hear it. You go Joey C. Oh, yeah. This got a pitchfork review, 7.3. Okay.

Ian Cohen obviously reviewed it. No, surprisingly, Zoe Camp. Oh, Zoe Camp review that? Pretty sick, yeah. That's so cool. That's so cool. That's right for pitchfork. Zoe Camp expert on hard, hard music.

Oh, yeah. For sure. Shout to Zoe Camp. And then this, again, and I'm, love, respect, apologies. I was absolutely unaware that Rancid had put out an album in this year of Our Lord 2023. Imagine my surprise to hear that it is awesome.

Yes. It's the best one of anything. As far as I'm concerned, anything comes after indestructible. This is the best one of those ones, the back half. Yeah, I agree with you. It's so fucking good. Yeah, for sure. New American, slaps.

Don't make me do it. Slaps. Live forever. Bye. Slaps. Call in response. Let's go. Let's go. Slaps. Devil in disguise, too. Devil in disguise. You know what I like ranted? It's because they will straight up talk shit on some songs. Like that song, Devil in Disguise is definitely about something that happened to Tim. And like some person that he like knew who he like, who is not the homie.

well it mean it's it's a woman oh it is she's got a smile fit for a queen pick your pocket leave it clean oh you got it you got it long con swindle heist but yeah dude fucking rancid like strong in twenty twenty three i was really sad because i would have loved to go see them i'm sure they toured this album i think they did early i think it was just last month and i didn't know about it so i didn't go but i'm sure they'll play more shows and then i can go i'll shout out t j who engineered this record and mixed it. That's your friend.

I just met him once. I definitely do not know him at all, but he's like incredibly talented. Cool. Yeah, he's done like a lot of really cool records that I really like and is crushing it in the mixing game right now. Well done, TJ. Honestly, this album does sound great. Yeah, it sounds incredible. Also, the guy who did the artwork for this, I think he's in the Agrolytes.

Jay Bonner, he's done it. He does a lot of artwork for a lot of this cruise stuff. It's a pretty cool album cover with the like sort of a Xeroxy looking photos of them and like the square is very Ramonesy. Yeah, it's badass. And the, if you flip the record over, like the whole layout design is really beautiful. I really like black and yellow together. It's like, you know, it's like a clash record.

It's like it's pop-part. Totally. Yeah, yeah. It feels like the colors of a suit that Lars would have worn like black shirt with some yellow suspenders. Yeah, exactly. It's like what he was wearing in the Rock and Will theater, right?

Yeah, totally. Well, before we end this beautiful time that we've had together, let's hear from some Rancid mega fans, what they have to say. If you grew up in the East Bay, Rancid was the definitive punk experience.

Rancid being the best punk band of all time is objective truth. The reason why I love Rancid is because they provided a perfect soundtrack to a kid or a teenager, major living in Northern California like I did. I remember I heard Ruby Soho on the radio when I was like 12. And the next week, my cool high school year-aged friend took me to Amoeba for the first time.

And I immediately sought out rancid. The way they talked about their surroundings and the stories they told, you know, the streets, the geography, the cities, it just provided a whole new way and an outlook for me to view. the environment around me and the stories that could come from it and the relationships I had and etc. They have incredible vocals, incredible lyrics, incredible songs from everything from the guitars to the bass, and they're one of the only few punk bands that found commercial success without changing their sound. Always true to their roots, somehow always evolving and effectively executing multiple styles and subgenres within the

greater punk scope. Another great thing about them is they were such a good gateway band just by featuring their friends or shouting out other bands on tracks. The Life Won't Wait record is filled with moments where they just shout out a bunch of different bands names and it introduced me to a whole other universe of multiple other genres, not just punk. Gutter punk, ska, hardcore punk, punk, punk rock, d-beat. And if you consider all the side projects, you can add pop punk, hip-hop, proper hardcore, and somehow they've done it while maintaining their integrity. A life-changing band. There isn't really any better punk bands out there.

Rancid fucking rocks. That's incredible. I know. It's so cool, right? These are your people. Real rancid heads. The true rancid heads stand up. Well, Mikey B.

Yossie. Thank you so much. Thank you for the opportunity. It's been really fun. Well, Mikey, everyone, check out the new spiritual cramp album. It comes out next week. You can listen to some of the singles right now on Spotify, wherever you stream music. They will be on tour with my beloved boys military gun.

If you happen to be some of our UK brubs, that's December, right, Mikey? right it's December. So get some tickets for that. Check out my brubs. And once again, thank you, Mikey. Thank you. I appreciate it. If you liked what you heard today, subscribe for more episodes of Bandsblane. Our guest today was Michael Bingham. You can follow his gorgeous band on Twitter at spiritual underscore cramp and on Instagram at Spiritual Cramp TV. This episode was produced by Jesse Miller Gordon and edited by Adrian Bridges with help from Justin Sales. Executive producers for Bandsplaine are Gina Delvec and me, Yossi Seleck. Huge thanks to the rancid mega fans you heard on this episode,

Aldo Felix, Sam Novi, J.P. Zitland, and Tina Quoves. Our gorgeous and catchy theme song was composed and performed by Bethany Costantino and Jennifer Clavin and graciously recorded by Carlos Delagas in Los Angeles, California. Special thanks to our producer emeritus, producer Dylan, aka Dylan Tupper Rupert, and also Casey Simonsonson, Robert Adler, Leah Edwards, David McDunner, Dana Meyerson, Michael Hardman Jessica Hopper and

Athletic Greens come back every Thursday for a new episode of Bansplain on Spotify or wherever you listen to podcasts do we not say that

anymore producer Jesse is that is that a thing that we don't say anymore Jesse would know for sure he lived in New York for a long time

when you live in LA you at least touch it kind of just I feel like somewhere in my mind we do I guess okay well someone's somewhere

somewhere in the world someone would be mad about If I get canceled, it's for that.