Songfacts®:

• Rancid is an American punk band who formed in 1991. Based in California, they include vocalist Tim Armstrong, guitarist Lars Frederiksen, bassist Matt Freeman and drummer Branden Steineckert. Let the Dominoes Fall, which was produced by Epitaph Records founder and Bad Religion guitarist Brett Gurewitz,was their seventh studio album.
• The band explained this track on their MySpace site: "This song was written about growing up in the East Bay. Writing about the bay area always came easy to us. In so many ways you are where you came from, it's engrained in you. It can shape you and define you as well as the experiences you may have throughout your life. As you grow up you rediscover where you came from. So much of our history, family… roots come from the Bay Area. We had finished our record and decided to record a few more songs we had written, which is not uncommon for us to do. For example we wrote 'Ruby Soho; last minute, "Salvation" was the last song written at the very end of making Let's Go. So when we feel something we go with it. 'East Bay Night' is another song like that. It harkens back to Operation Ivy and Rancid's first record."
• Freeman commented: "Tim and I grew up in the East Bay and our parents still live in our childhood homes. It's a big part of who we are and continues to be. The song has a classic Matt and Tim dueling bass and guitar middle section. It sounds very East Bay punk rock feel to it. When we were recording it, I did the bass solo with my old 77 P bass. It is a little out of tune on the high register. The bass is twenty years old, it happens. Mr. Brett wanted me to do it over again with another bass, but Tim said no. Out of tune, so be it, it stays."
• Armstrong said: "I've been playing music with Matt for twenty five years and have known him since we were in the first grade. There's a deep connection between us. So when we play music together that connection we have come across. How could it not! We don't think about it, it just happens. The middle eight in 'East Bay Night' is a great example of our chemistry. He's flying through the scales and I'm playing the octaves. It's loose and it's wild, but it's real to me."
• Frederiksen: "Punk rock is best when it's blaring, adding the soundtrack as you gather with friends. As the mental Polaroid camera is taking snapshots of the interactions between us, this is a song that documents that like photograph."