Up To No Good

Album: Let the Dominoes Fall (2009)
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Songfacts®:

  • Booker T. Jones contributes some Hammond B3 on this track. Frontman Tim Armstrong explained on the band's MySpace site how they hooked up with the Stax organ legend: "We thought a Hammond B-3 would be a good addition. Vic Rugerio from The Slackers and Roger from The Aggrolties, two of our favorite B-3 players, were unavailable. Chris from Hellcat suggested Booker T, who happened to be in town mixing his new album for our sister label Anti. Since we were labelmates, Booker said he'd love to do it. Ain't that something Rancid is labelmates with Booker T, I like the way that sounds."
    Bassist Matt Freeman added: "One of the best parts besides watching Booker play was watching all the star-struck studio engineers. These guys are all old hands who've seen everything, but Booker was that impressive. We are very lucky to have him on our record."
  • Rancid explained the track's meaning: "This song is about survival at any means necessary. We understand what it means to hit rock bottom."
  • Let the Dominoes Fall was produced by Epitaph Records founder and Bad Religion guitarist Brett Gurewitz. Drummer Branden Steineckert explained his contribution to this track: "There was a very live, spontaneous feeling when we tracked this song and the drums were recorded in the first take. Tim had showed us an idea he had on his acoustic, then we sat around for a minute with Mr. Brett and went over ideas and parts on acoustics. Then Brett said, 'great, let's record it!'… so my very first time playing this song on drums was what you hear on the record."
  • This was released as the second single from Let The Dominoes Fall.

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