Social Distortion has set an (official) release date for their long-awaited new album. The record is titled Hard Times and Nursery Rhymes and is due out January 18, 2011 via Epitaph. After years of working with various producers in the studio, Mike Ness took on the duty for the first time with their new album. The band entered a Burbank studio in early 2010 where they recorded for the next several months in between spring and summer tour dates which included Lollapalooza and Outside Lands. In early October the band wrapped up recording before heading out for their fall US tour.

Mike Ness commented:

It's something I've always wanted to do. I love being on that side of the board. Even though I've co-produced all of our records, I always was there for everything. It just came to a point where I was like 'I think I want to try this, I want to do this ourselves.' By being at the helm this time allowed so much more focus for me to the fine details of every aspect of it, whether it was performances, or tones, or arrangements, backing vocals….everything.

The first single from the album, "Machine Gun Blues," will be released on November 9th, 2010 via iTunes.

The band kicked off a headlining tour supported by Lucero and Frank Turner this month.