Punk Rock Music Patches

When a bassist's resume matches the assortment of patches on your average punk rocker's jacket, you know he's hit a career high. Matt Freeman is well on his way. Get your punk rock music patches. A founding member of both Operation Ivy and Rancid, the 37-year-old from Berkeley, California is touring with Social Distortion, one of the biggest bands to come out of Southern California's Orange County punk scene. Social Distortion's rootsy, drawling style of punk rock is a far cry from Rancid's frantic high-energy sound.

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With Rancid, Matt established himself as punk rock's ultimate bad-assed bassist, executing melodic lines at breakneck speed, experimenting with unconventional techniques, and taking gutsy solos. But wicked chops aside, Matt is there to humbly serve the song.

Rancid was born in 1991 out of the ashes of Operation Ivy, a short-lived but highly influential ska-punk band Freeman formed with friend and guitarist Tim Armstrong. Combining punk-rock attitude and ska-riffic chops, Rancid, like L.A.'s skanking ska-funk outfit Fishbone punk rock patches, paved the way for the island-influenced sounds of bands like No Doubt and Sublime. Rancid is currently on hiatus, with Armstrong and guitarist Lars Frederiksen-and now Freeman-focusing on side projects.

Formed in 1978 by guitarist and singer Mike Ness, Social Distortion's lineup currently features Jonny Wickersham on guitar and Charlie Quintana on drums. Shortly after completing the latest Social Distortion record, Sex, Love and Rock 'n' Roll, longtime bassist John Maurer decided to forgo touring to spend more time with his family. John played on a lot of these songs for the last 20 years.

They called me in June to say that John had left after 20 years, and they asked me if I was interested in joining. I'm a punk rocker who plays punk rock, so to be asked to join Social D. was a huge honor. Punk rock music patches -- it's Social Distortion! Tim, Lars, and Brett [Reed, Rancid's drummer] were all into it, telling me "You've gotta do this."

Punk Rock Music Patches: Punk Stickers

They sent me a list of songs they wanted to play, and I learned those. It was cool to listen to all of those songs-I hadn't listened to Social Distortion in a while. I got out every record I own of theirs, and I didn't listen to anything but Social Distortion for weeks-in the car, whatever I was doing. I just got the songs in my brain first, and then I focused on the technical things later. When I went down to L.A. for a couple of days to play with them, it just clicked. See also punk stickers, and pages relate to punk rock patches | more