Rancid were formed in 1991 by San Francisco Bay Area punk scenesters
Tim Armstrong (guitar/vocals) and Matt Freeman (bass). Lifelong friends and longtime punk fans, the two had grown up together in the small working-class town of Albany, near Berkeley; they'd also played together in the legendary ska-punk band
Operation Ivy,
Armstrong as "Lint" and Freeman as Matt McCall. After
Op Ivy disbanded in 1989,
Armstrong and Freeman spent a few weeks in the ska-punk outfit
Dance Hall Crashers, as well as Downfall; Freeman later briefly joined the hardcore band
MDC. Meanwhile,
Armstrong was waging a battle with alcoholism (but, fortunately, winning), and to help keep his friend occupied, Freeman suggested they escape their day jobs by forming a new band, which became Rancid. The duo added drummer Brett Reed,
Armstrong's roommate and a familiar presence on the Gilman Street scene where
Operation Ivy had cut their teeth. Just a couple of months later, Rancid were performing live around the area, and in 1992 they released a five-song debut EP on
Lookout! Records.
The EP caught the attention of
Epitaph Records founder/
Bad Religion guitarist Brett Gurewitz, and
Epitaph signed Rancid to a highly favorable contract guaranteeing the group a generous amount of creative control. The band's eponymously titled debut full-length album arrived in 1993, pursuing an uptempo hardcore/skatepunk style with few hints of early British punk. Rancid had been seeking a second guitarist, and
Green Day's
Billie Joe Armstrong even played live with the group at one show. They pursued
Lars Frederiksen, a Bay Area resident who'd joined a later incarnation of
U.K. Subs and was performing with the band
Slip;
Frederiksen initially declined Rancid's invitation to join, but when
Slip disbanded, he quickly changed his mind and came along on Rancid's first tour.
Frederiksen made his recording debut on the early-1994 EP Radio Radio Radio, a side dalliance on
Fat Wreck Chords. Released later that year, Let's Go was the album that made Rancid's name in the punk underground. It marked the beginnings of their fascination with the 1977-era London punk scene, particularly
the Clash, and it also provided their first widespread exposure when MTV picked up on the video for the single "Salvation." Let's Go quickly went gold, and with the breakout mainstream success of
Green Day and
the Offspring that year, major-label interest in Rancid quickly escalated into a full-fledged bidding war (even
Madonna's
Maverick imprint got in on the action). Ultimately, Rancid decided that no major could offer them the level of decision-making power that
Epitaph had given them, and stayed right where they were.
Rancid scored a major success with their next album, 1995's ...And Out Come the Wolves, whose title was a reference to the near-predatory interest in signing the band. The
Clash fetish was even more pronounced, augmented with a greater interest in the original
2-Tone ska revival
the Clash had helped influence (bands like
the Specials). "Ruby Soho" was a major MTV and radio hit, and "Time Bomb" and "Roots Radicals" were hits in their own right. The album went platinum and made Rancid one of the most visible punk bands around. They played the 1996 Lollapalooza Tour, and afterward took a short break, their first since becoming a quartet. During that time, Freeman played with former
X singer
Exene Cervenka in
Auntie Christ, while
Armstrong set up the
Epitaph subsidiary
Hellcat; he and
Frederiksen both began doing production work for other bands they hoped to spotlight.
Rancid returned in 1998 with the even more ska-heavy Life Won't Wait, a guest star-loaded affair that featured members of ska bands
the Specials and
Hepcat, Dicky Barrett of
the Mighty Mighty Bosstones, dancehall reggae star
Buju Banton, and
Agnostic Front vocalist
Roger Miret. While it didn't cross over on the level of ...And Out Come the Wolves, it demonstrated that Rancid retained a substantial fan base. For the 2000 follow-up, their second self-titled release, the group largely scrapped its ska-punk side, recording a visceral, hardcore-influenced album that blasted through 22 songs in under 40 minutes (in contrast to its two lengthy predecessors). Perhaps for that reason, Rancid received a highly positive response from the punk community. The band's installment in the
BYO split series arrived in March 2002 alongside
NOFX, each band covering six of the other's songs. Rancid's next full-length, Indestructible, followed a year later; though technically released through
Hellcat, the album was their first that got additional support from a major label via
Warner Bros. The highly personal album (songs were inspired by the deaths of family and friends, and
Armstrong's bitter 2003 divorce from
Distillers frontwoman
Brody Dalle) hit number 14 on the Billboard charts, as "Fall Back Down" did well on radio and MTV.
Following the record's release, Rancid went on something of a hiatus, the group's members working on various side projects:
Armstrong continued work with
the Transplants, his band with Rob Aston and
blink-182 drummer
Travis Barker, and collaborated with various artists, including
P!nk;
Frederiksen further played with his side band
Lars Frederiksen & the Bastards; Freeman briefly joined
Social Distortion from 2004-2005. By the spring of 2006, a revitalized Rancid regrouped; they toured worldwide starting that summer to the delight of fans. Several shows, however, had to be postponed and rescheduled after
Frederiksen collapsed on-stage in Montreal, apparently suffering a seizure. Soon enough, though, he was back and the band continued on. Rancid promised a new record for the following year, and
Armstrong released his first solo album, A Poet's Life, that fall through
Epitaph by releasing songs online for free download over the course of several months. With the band getting back on track, it then came as a shock in November 2006 when Reed announced he was leaving Rancid after 15 years; the split appeared to be amicable and he was soon replaced behind the kit by ex-
Used drummer Branden Steineckert. After taking some time to look back at their luminous history with a B Sides and C Sides compilation, a music videos collection, and an online webisode retrospective dating back to the bandmembers' days in
Operation Ivy, Rancid returned to the studio to record 2009's Let the Dominoes Fall at George Lucas' Skywalker Sound Studio with Brett Gurewitz producing.
It would be another five years before fans got another Rancid album. The band entered the studio in 2011 and did some recording, but
Armstrong eventually abandoned the sessions in favor of doing another
Transplants album and recording solo under the name
Tim Timebomb. One new Rancid track from the sessions, bluntly titled "Fuck You," was released in 2012. That same year, the massive online-only box set Essentials compiled their back catalog on 7" vinyl. In 2013,
Transplants released their third album, In a Warzone, after which Rancid got back together to tour and work on their eighth album. Again produced by Gurewitz, the back-to-basics effort Honor Is All We Know was released in late 2014. Following the release,
Armstrong stayed busy with a regular radio show, solo gigs, and production work (most notably for
Hellcat band
the Interrupters);
Frederiksen played in two groups, the Old Firm Casuals and Oxley's Midnight Runners; and the band played a handful of shows in 2015 and 2016. They also reentered the studio with Gurewitz to make their ninth album, the 19-song Trouble Maker, which was released in June of 2017. ~ Steve Huey, Rovi