Rancid are starving. They've been stuck in their rooms all day doing press and must get something to eat. Talking to the band with their mouths full seems more fun than trying to communicate with a bunch of grumpy punks suffering from low blood sugar, so we head immediately to the hotel restaurant. The tasteful, art-deco-appointed room is sprinkled with a late-afternoon business crowd talking in hushed tones, and aside from our party there's not a tattoo or ripped jean in sight. When mohawked guitarist Lars Frederiksen pulls his bottle of half-finished seltzer out of a bag, the waiter rushes over and tells him to "Please put that away" in a tone more appropriate if someone were swinging a dead cat around. But we get the message and leave in search of more solid fare.
The hotel is located not far from New York's Times Square, with its splendor of clip joints, titty bars and fastfood outlets, so we settle for a Howard Johnson. There, across from Midwestern dowagers in pastel stretch pants who respond to our appearance with an enthusiasm that tourists in the big city reserve for muggers and car jackers, the starving band enjoys some high-cholesterol fodder. Possibly one of the reasons that the Big Apple wasn't treating rock's Next Big Thing with a whole lot of respect on the August dog-day afternoon was that Rancid, despite their fearful appearance, don't have a terribly aggro attitude offstage. The band doesn't have that swagger commonly associated with impending success. If anything, these guys have problems with the notion that they are going to hit it big. Despite the fact that his mug has graced the covers of many of America's major national music mags, Tim Armstrong, who founded Rancid with bass player Matt Freeman and drummer Brett Reed in 1991, admits quietly, "I have a hard time thinking we'll be phenomenal. I'll believe it when I see it. I don't know why but I have a hard time accepting things like that. It feels too quick." Tim has a history of being ambivalent about success. His previous band, Operation Ivy, who are today something of an underground legend, broke up in 1989, the day after the record-release party for their first full-length. At the time, Tim says, the band quit because they were becoming "too popular" and he didn't like playing sold-out shows at Gilman Street, the do-it-yourself, cooperatively run Berkeley club that has dominated the East Bay punk scene for almost a decade. Matt, who was also in Operation Ivy, which mixed raw punk and ska at a time when the influence of hardcore still dominated the scene, claims that there were other tensions that led to the bands demise, but points out that anyway their attitudes have changed. Today, the old punk position equating popularity with "selling out" is an anachronism. "The world has changed in the last seven years," he says. "Think about it; all that happened before cellular phones."
"Today, I'm more confident and don't listen to what other people think and I do what I want," Tim continues, thoughtfully picking croutons out of his Caesar Salad. "Back then we were dealing with a lot of pressure of people not liking us, saying stuff like 'sucker sell-outs playing ska.' They said we were too big because we were selling out Gilman Street. That freaked us out. Now, it's more important for me to play my music than break my band up because some people think I'm a sell-out."
Tim's self-confidence was bought at a very high price. He had to utterly transform himself before he could form another band. When Operation Ivy ended so did the one control he had in his life. The drinking and drugging which had previously only dominated his off time became his only activity. As he remembers that period, a shudder runs through his body, and he temporarily loses his appetite.
"The time before Rancid was a horrible time. There isn't anything to look back on and romanticize. I don't want anyone to go through that. It's so f*cking lame to have to detox off a two-week drunk. I checked into one detox ten times. When I was in there I had no f*cking hope. I knew that in a couple of weeks I would be drunk again. It was a downward spiral. I didn't see any future. Finally I ended up in the Salvation Army with all the freaks. I had no money, no place to live, I was so beat up by booze and drugs that I knew I had to change. After I walked out of there, I never drank again. Maybe some people have that kick-ass, rock-and-roll, get-the-chicks experience with booze and drugs- mine was horror show." With a new lease on life, Tim got back together with Matt, brought Brett in on drums, and Rancid were born in 1991. But they were starting all over again. "The East Bay always has this band that everybody considers the cool underground band," Brett explains. "They may even have a record out and they last maybe six months."
After grabbing a mouthful of fries, Matt puts down his Reuben long enough to interject. "We knew we'd used up our turn a couple of years ago so we had to start again. We played our friends' houses in West Oakland and keg parties. We started at the bottom; it took us a year before we made a hundred dollars at Gilman street. It wasn't like, 'The big Operation Ivy celebrities are back.' "
But gradually people began to take notice, a process that accelerated after the release of their self-titled debut on Epitaph in 1993, a continuation of Matt and Tim going against prevailing trends. At a time when everybody was going in for melodies and trying to sound like Bad Religion or Buzzcocks clones, Rancid unleashed torrents of fast, raw and unrepentant street punk.
With this sound, Tim's spiked Mohawk, and the stance he loves to adopt for photo opportunities-his mouth curled into a snarl and middle finger raised to the camera-you might think he's the very model of a '70s-style punk lout. But a very different picture emerges when you talk to him and his band.
First off, the quiet simplicity and sincerity with which he expresses himself is almost angelic. Then, there is the almost reverential way his bandmates talk about him when he's not around. Previously at the hotel, Lars and Matt both cited Tim as a major influence in their development as musicians. "I learned a good deal of what I know today about playing from Tim," Lars said, and with a choke in his voice adding, "Dude, that guy saved my life."
"I was having life problems and I knew that I didn't drink like a normal person," he continues at the restaurant. "I was in a band called Cajones and they kicked me out because I would get so drunk that I would forget guitar strings and play with three strings. I needed something else to concentrate on. When I first heard Rancid, I fell in love, and then I was given the opportunity to do music that I loved. One of our first practices was my last drunk and it wasn't pretty. I as drinking all day, continuously, and had drank 30 beers. I was walking around with my dick hanging out and telling girls to put it back in my pants." Saving his friend from further embarrassment, Tim cuts in. "I fell in love with Lars that night of the famous penis incident. He was telling me, 'Dude, I got to stop. I'm just bugging out.' He spent the night at my house and then he had to go home and I had to give him money just to get there and I told him right before he left, 'Dude, I want you to be in my band but you can't get f*cked up like that anymore.' And he stopped drinking right after that."