Life Won't Wait

Life Won’t Wait is the fourth album by the American punk rock band Rancid. It was released on June 30, 1998 on Epitaph Records and is the follow-up to the successful …And Out Come the Wolves.

The album branches out from Rancid’s punk and ska roots to explore roots reggae and rockabilly, and dabbles in elements of dub, hip-hop, funk and other forms of music as The Clash did with Sandinista!. The album’s personnel includes some of Rancid’s influences and contemporaries such as members of The Specials and The Slackers.

Lyrically, the album discusses riots, revolution, politics, and historical events as well as making references to the Illuminati and Bakunin.


Around early 1997, still riding high off of the success of …And Out Come the Wolves, Rancid decided to immediately enter the studio following the …And Out Come the Wolves tour to record the next album. The recording of Life Won’t Wait took place not just in the U.S. (from San Francisco to Los Angeles, New York City, New Orleans), but also in Jamaica. Two of the songs were recorded in Kingston: “Hoover Street” and the title track, “Life Won’t Wait”. With the cooperation of numerous Jamaican reggae artists (such as Buju Banton) is very distinctive on this album, not just in the vocals, but also in instrumental parts, which all makes Life Won’t Wait very different from most of the other Rancid releases.

Life Won’t Wait was also the first Rancid album not produced or engineered by Brett Gurewitz since their 1993 self-titled debut.