SOCIAL DISTORTION Announces New Album 'Born To Kill', Shares Title Track

Orange County's finest are back with a vengeance: SOCIAL DISTORTION's long-awaited eighth album, "Born To Kill", will be released May 8, 2026 via Epitaph Records.

The official music video for the hard-charging title track that's been lighting up crowds at the band's shows for the last several months can be seen below.

"Born To Kill" is more than the conclusion to a 15-year wait between SOCIAL DISTORTION albums, it's a revelation: 11 songs of pure, unadulterated rock 'n' roll fury, joy and catharsis, all imbued with the signature blend of defiance and world-weariness that has made founder Mike Ness a poet and sage to the dispossessed for more than 40 years.

The first SOCIAL DISTORTION album since Ness's recovery from a bout with cancer, "Born To Kill" brims with aggressive optimism. The album wastes no time letting the listener know where its heart is, with its title track and mission statement dropping nods to Lou Reed ("rock 'n' roll animal gonna come your way!") and Iggy Pop and THE STOOGES ("The agenda is, yeah, to search and destroy") and an homage to David Bowie ("it's a rock 'n' roll suicide") following a few songs later on "Partners In Crime". This is a man, a band, and a record that wear their influences proudly while creating timeless anthems and ballads that both chart SOCIAL DISTORTION's path forward and celebrate its storied past: "Tonight" and "The Way Things Were" are emotionally charged reminiscences in the vein of classics like "Story Of My Life" from the band's eponymous 1990 breakthrough and "I Was Wrong" from 1996's "White Light, White Heat, White Trash", the latter containing a potent distillation of the SOCIAL D ethos: "I wrote a song with a stolen riff / If you ain't got a song you ain't got shit."

Co-produced by Ness and Dave Sardy, and featuring guest appearances from Benmont Tench of TOM PETTY AND THE HEARTBREAKERS and Lucinda Williams and collaborative cover art by Ness and Shepard Fairey, "Born To Kill" is the latest installment in a remarkable catalog that spans nearly three generations, including "Mommy's Little Monster" (1983),"Prison Bound" (1988),the RIAA-gold-certified "Social Distortion" (1990) and "Somewhere Between Heaven And Hell" (1992),"White Light, White Heat, White Trash" (1996),"Sex, Love And Rock 'N' Roll" (2004),and "Hard Times And Nursery Rhymes" (2011).

As announced yesterday, SOCIAL DISTORTION will support "Born To Kill" with an extensive North American tour. The trek will kick off August 25 in Phoenix and play a total of 23 shows in 21 cities before concluding October 3 in San Diego.

Last December, Ness, who revealed a diagnosis of tonsil cancer in June 2023, offered an update on his recovery, telling Kevin Ryder at the annual KROQ Almost Acoustic Christmas 2025: "I was afraid I was gonna not gonna live. I've been through some hard things in my life in some dangerous situations, as you can imagine, but nothing like that."

Asked if he had to learn to talk and sing again, Mike said: "I had to learn to eat, swallow — everything. I mean, they went in there — they sent a robot. I call him Ike, the robot. He went down and cut out my tonsil and the tumor. And then the second part of the surgery was, they slit my neck and cut the lymph nodes out. So I could not eat food. I mean, I came out of surgery with a drain and a feeding tube."

After Ryder noted that he is "glad" that Ness could sing again after his cancer battle, Mike said: "My voice is stronger than it's ever been. I think I'm singing like there's no tomorrow. So every show is great because I'm singing like there's no tomorrow."

Ness started SOCIAL DISTORTION as a teenager in 1979. Over the course of the next decade, Ness battled drug and alcohol addiction, spending stints in jail and rehab.

Formed as rebellious teenage punks in the working-class suburb of Fullerton, California, SOCIAL DISTORTION survived their tumultuous youth to pioneer an undeniably honest and fiery brand of rock 'n' roll that would incorporate outlaw country, classic seventies punk and primal blues. Seven studio albums and countless electrifying live shows have earned the band a dedicated worldwide fanbase and catalog of timeless anthems, including "Story Of My Life", "Ball And Chain", "Prison Bound" and more. The band's last release, 2011's "Hard Times And Nursery Rhymes", entered the Billboard 200 at No. 4, and in 2019 SOCIAL DISTORTION celebrated 40 years as a band.

Photo credit: Jonathan Weiner