"Punk rock, for me," says Rancid's Matt Freeman, addressing the ages-old question of the true nature of punk, "has always been about a feeling of doing what you want to do. It enabled me to be in a band, to go on tour and put out your own record. It's a personal thing," he hastens to add, "some people are really into the scene, they're in bands or they're putting on shows. Some people just go because they think its cool and they like the music."
Rancid are part of a flourishing East Bay punk rock scene that has yielded multi-platinum artists like Green Day and the Offspring and cult favorites like NoFX, Pennywise and, well, Rancid. Punk rock has become part of the current musical zeitgeist, rising to its highest peak of popularity since the music's late seventies roots. For punk fans, however, the music has always been around in one form or another, the mainstream's current fascination with punk - the West Coast variety in particular - notwithstanding.
"It's always been there," says Freeman of punk rock, "it's been underground. There's still a big underground scene across the states. Rancid, Green Day, Offspring and Jawbreaker aren't the only punk bands in the world. There's still a lot of bands out there who are working hard, putting out records."
"As far as the East Bay goes, Green Day sold ten million records," says Matt. "But I don't think that it's had that much effect around here. There's been a few bands popping up out of nowhere, saying 'we're just like Green Day!' No one takes them seriously. Music fans are pretty fucking smart, as far as I'm concerned...you can't get much by them. They're going to realize what's real and what isn't."
The major labels have been quick to try and cash in on the punk phenomena, signing every band with a three chord sound, a tough name and a mohawk haircut. Contrary to what some in the scene have proclaimed, though, punk's meteoric rise to the top of the charts hasn't really soured the cream of the punk rock crop's music.
"Everyone saw it when Green Day blew up and they were saying, 'Oh my god, it's going to ruin everything!' Maybe I had a little more foresight than these people," says Matt, "I was saying 'it's not going to ruin anything.' So Green Day's going to sell a bunch of records, big deal! There's still going to be bands coming up. The punk scene has always been a circle of friends, a scene in itself. People go in and out of the scene all the time, it's not like all of a sudden all of these new people are going to come in and take it over. That's not going to happen."
Rancid's recently released third album, ...And Out Come The Wolves, finds the band at the top of their form, effortlessly blending roots rock and punk fervor with ska rhythms and more hooks than a fishing tournament. Critics have already began calling it the most important punk record since the Clash's London Calling. A high-octane cocktail of no-frills musical energy and electrifying punk riffs, ...And Out Come The Wolves is guaranteed to have you frantically shuffling your feet by the end the disc's third cut, Roots Radicals, looking for a mosh pit just four songs later with Junkie Man's driving beat and diving off the closest stage by the album's half-way point, the infectious Ruby Soho.
Beneath the scorched earth musical treatment given to each song on the album lies the poetic social consciousness of lyricist Tim Armstrong. Rancid's songs are sidewalk symphonies, streetwise vignettes peopled with cops and robbers, runaways and predators, raw romanticism and careful cynicism. It's these story songs that work to connect Rancid with their audience. "Records were always like that for me," says Freeman. "Why do you listen to a record? The music, in itself, is a pretty unique art form. You can look at a painting on the wall and you might get an emotion from that...with music, the lyrics make you think, which can create an emotional reaction, and then you get a physical reaction from the music."
"All of my favorite records have been ones that I've been able to identify with," says Freeman. "X are my favorite band in the world. They put out this record, Under The Big Black Sun, it has to be my all-time favorite record. It's got to be the most depressing record ever made - 'my girlfriend left me and I just drank scotch,' all of this stuff. But I listen to that record and it makes me so happy. These people are just like me, they're fucked up! I think people react in different ways, and we write music so that people can make some kind of connection with it."
Rancid was formed in Berkeley by Freeman and guitarist Tim Freeman. "Me and Tim have been friends for a long time," says Freeman. "We played in Operation Ivy together, we'd been doing bands for a while. We got together in '91, writing songs, and then we found Brett hanging out at Gilman Street. He couldn't hardly play drums, but he was a really nice guy, so we got him in the band." The trio of Freeman, Armstrong and drummer Brett Reed recorded a single for Lookout Records, Green Day's pre-corporate home, before releasing their debut album on Epitaph. "About a year later, we got Lars in the band," says Freeman, and with additional guitarist Lars Frederiksen Rancid recorded their breakthrough second album, Let's Go.
Bay area fans remember fondly Rancid's musical predecessor, an outfit called Operation Ivy that featured Armstrong and Freeman. "We were just a punk rock band," says Freeman of the band, "played 185 shows in three years and got fairly successful in the area. We were a punk ska band, did a lot of the same kind of stuff that Rancid's doing on ...And Out Come The Wolves." The band became a staple at Gilman Street, a legendary Bay Area punk club.
Operation Ivy's rapid ascent in popularity proved to be too much for its young members, however. "We started out playing punk rock parties, using the bass amp as a microphone to selling out Gilman Street," remembers Freeman. "It was a little too much drastic change at once, we didn't really know how to deal with it. We broke up in 1989," he says, "about three weeks after our record came out." That record, now a coveted collector's item, sold in excess of 175,000 copies, an enormous amount for an indie label artist.
After the incredible success Let's Go, Rancid found themselves in the unusual position of being at the center of an industry bidding war, with major labels courting the band like so many blushing adolescent romantics. All of the attention was to have a profound effect on the band's outlook towards the future and the subsequent decisions that they'd make, including their choice to remain on Epitaph, the legendary indie punk label owned by Bad Religion founder Brett Gurewitz.
"You're this band playing small venues," says Freeman, "and you go to opening up for the Offspring. All of these A & R people come around, literally offering you millions of dollars for something that you've always done for free. None of us went to college, our parents still work, so we thought, 'What the fuck, what's going on here? How long do we want to tour in a van?"
"When it came down to it," Freeman adds, "we basically went back to our roots and said that we wanted to stay where our friends are, which is the people at Epitaph and all the bands that are on that label. For better or for worse, that's where we felt the most comfortable, and that's why we stayed there. Whatever happens, it's always going to be where our friends are. All of those bands came up together, helped each other out. We'd have to leave that, and it just didn't sound good to us."
Rancid's Freeman takes the current fuss being made over punk rock in stride. "A lot of bands - Offspring and Green Day and us - are getting really successful," says Freeman. "It's popular now, so great! Next year it might not be so popular, but we'll still be putting out records." Like their music, Rancid are unpretentious and uncompromising, delivering musically exactly what their fans have come to expect - a straight shot of punk rock with no chaser.