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It's hard to believe that it's been 10 years since the first Rancid album was released. Not just because time has flown by so quickly, but because of the incredible highs and lows and trials and tribulations the band, its members and their lives have been through. Most of all because in 2003, 12 years since they formed, 11 years since their first single, 10 years since that first album, Indestructible stands as a testament to the strength and brotherhood, musical and personal, that has kept this band and its fans unerringly faithful to one another throughout.
At a typically epic 19 songs, Indestructible charts Rancid's evolution from anthemic hardcore (like the 1:36 title-track and insta-singalongs like "Born Frustrated") to punk-as-folk-music-of-the-disenfranchised-working-class (witness a single mother's plight in "Back Against The Wall") to a world-traveled palette of influences incorporating flavors ranging from familiar ska ("Red Hot Moon") to Zydeco ("Memphis"), spaghetti western ("Django") and straight up UK Oi/US street punk ("David Courtney"). At a juncture in music where virtually every genre has been co-opted, cross-pollinated or over-produced to death, Indestructible is a breath of fresh air: the product of sincerity and passion that never flagged in the best or worst of times, just stayed its course, undeniably true and unmistakably Rancid.
The origins of Rancid stretch back to Tim Armstrong and Matt Freeman's childhood friendship in Albany, CA (a one-square-mile blue collar enclave bordering Berkeley). Friends from the age of five, Tim and Matt began playing music together in high school, eventually forming the short-lived but vastly influential Operation Ivy in 1987. Op Ivy would become the keystone of the East Bay scene that centered around the Gilman Street club/musician's collective; the scene around which the lives of all four Rancid members would converge. The band's 1989 break-up found Tim spiritually adrift, eventually straightening out with help from Matt as they co-founded Rancid in September 1991.
When it came time to recruit a drummer, Tim turned to Brett Reed, with whom he'd been sharing a crash pad over a liquor store on the South Berkeley/North Oakland border. That Brett had been playing for roughly six months was hardly an issue; Rancid was playing shows within two months, releasing its first single in 1992 on the Berkeley-based label Lookout! (who had released the posthumous Operation Ivy compilation). The original three-piece Rancid line-up soon signed to Epitaph Records, recording and releasing a self-titled debut LP by 1993. Meanwhile, the band had set about recruiting a second guitarist. Green Day's Billie Joe Armstrong (no relation to Tim) even filled in for one show and co-wrote "Radio" which would appear on Rancid's sophomore effort, Let's Go. Lars Frederiksen, a native of neighboring Campbell who'd done a stint in a late model version of UK Subs, was approached but initially demurred in favor of sticking with his own band, Slip. When Slip broke up, however, Lars signed up, learning the entire Rancid song catalogue in one week.
The four-piece Rancid lineup that remains intact to this day made its debut on the early 1994 EP Radio Radio Radio and truly made its mark later that same year with Let's Go. Consisting of 23 songs recorded live over the course of four days, Let's Go focused and expanded upon the raw fury of the previous year's debut. LP opener "Nihilism" introduced the Lars/Tim dual vocal that has since become a signature of the band's sound, as they traded true to life accounts of their journeys to rock bottom and back up. Let's Go featured track after track that remain staples of the Rancid live show to this day: "Radio," "Tenderloin," "St. Mary," "Ghetto Blaster" and of course the single/video, "Salvation." A humble chronicle of Tim's tenure as a Salvation Army resident/employee, "Salvation" crashed the MTV playlist, providing the band with its first taste of mainstream exposure.
...And Out Come The Wolves blew out of the gate in 1995 with a triumvirate of instant classics: "Roots Radicals," "Time Bomb" and "Ruby Soho." It saw Rancid shattering stereotypes and limitations, as they established themselves as punk rockers capable of world-class songwriting. "Roots Radicals" mixed memories of the band members' personal and musical comeuppance with an avowed passion for reggae, ska and rock steady, culminating in one of the most rousing choruses ever committed to vinyl. "Time Bomb" kicked open the floodgate for an impending neo-ska revival, and "Ruby Soho" was a rare gem in the form of the quintessential Rancid love song. Additionally, "Journey To The End Of The East Bay" provided a historical narrative of the Gilman St. era, "Avenues & Alleyways" sounded a new generation's clarion call for racial unity, and "Old Friend" struck a chord of universal longing that resonates to this day.
The grueling ...And Out Come The Wolves tour wrapped up with Lollapalooza 1996, where Rancid played alongside mentors the Ramones and fellow Bay Area residents Metallica, marking not only the end of Rancid's 1995-1996 itinerary, but actually the first appreciable time Tim, Lars, Matt and Brett would spend apart since 1993. The relatively brief hiatus gave way to year's worth of sessions in various locales that would eventually be distilled into 1998's diverse and introspective Life Won't Wait. Recorded over the course of a year in San Francisco, Los Angeles (in Tim's own home studio, Bloodclot Studios), New York, New Orleans and Jamaica, Life Won't Wait saw Tim and Lars once again taking their vocal and lyrical skills to new levels of deftness sparring with dancehall kingpin Buju Banton on the record's title track, and on "Warsaw" and "New Dress," exploring world scale class struggle and out-and-out warfare, the latter drawing brilliant parallels between a working class girl struggling to stretch her budget and children fighting to survive in the former Yugoslavia. Elsewhere, "Leicester Square" wore a mod influence on its sleeve, with gritty Rickenbacker guitar tones propelling the true story of a friend attempting to rise above his gangster past while "Hooligans" spun similar tales buoyed by the guitar and vocals of Roddy Radiation, Lynval Golding and Neville Staples of the Specials.
In a move that surprised some but alienated none of their core following, Rancid stripped back down to the basics of the its 1993 debut for its fifth full-length released in 2000 and titled... Rancid. For this second self-titled release, the group temporarily sidelined its globetrotting ambitions in favor of a 22-song under-40-minute blitzkrieg that recalled the heyday of unilateral band favorites like Discharge�right down to the black-and-white packaging and hand lettered lyric sheet. Nevertheless, the band's inherent sense of melody could not be entirely subjugated, as the killer choruses of "Rwanda," "Let Me Go" and "Radio Havana" punctuated and punctured the fury. From start to finish, Rancid (or Rancid 2000 as it is now known to many) could well be the most unrelentingly brutal records to bludgeon its way into the top 100.
The three-year gap between Indestructible and its predecessor has only seen the band's reach and influence expand. Tim's Hellcat label has become a major force, building a catalogue ranging from Tim's recent side project, Transplants to the final efforts of the late, great Joe Strummer (also name-checked on Indestructible) to Rancid peers U.S. Bombs, F-Minus and more to Lars' own Lars Frederiksen & The Bastards.
Still, as varied and successful as their other endeavors may be, Indestructible leaves no doubt that Rancid is the bond and the force that propels these four unique personas, and moreover the greater sum and home that keeps them coming back. Rancid doesn't work without Armstrong, Freeman, Frederiksen and Reed, and none of them would function without Rancid. As they've acknowledged time and again in lyrics before and throughout Indestructible, they're lucky to have each other as brothers in life and music. And with this album, they once again share that blessing with all of us, welcoming us back with familiar punk and hardcore anthems, tried and true tinges of ska, and the requisite unforeseen musical excursions that mark every Rancid record, this time twisting the night away on "Stand Your Ground" and closing with a tale of political dissent set to a plaintive ballad on "Arrested In Shanghai." All told, it's only fitting that Armstrong name-checks his dear departed labelmate Joe Strummer in Indestructible's kick-off and title track: It's hard to imagine a record made in this day and age that so honors and respects his memory and legacy.
