Land of the Free? is the sixth studio album by American punk rock band Pennywise. Produced by Joe Barresi, the album was released on June 19, 2001. After the commercial success of their previous album, Straight Ahead, Pennywise entered the studio in early 2001 to record a follow-up. Land of the Free? received positive reviews from critics and was well sold worldwide, reaching number 67 on the Billboard Top 200, and number 21 on the Australian ARIA Albums Chart. "Fuck Authority" was released as a single to promote the album. Background and production Pennywise released their fifth studio album Straight Ahead in June 1999. Its lead single "Alien" subsequently became a hit at radio. In the early stages of writing a follow-up, the material focused on social issues, such as their friends dealing with alcoholism and drug addiction. When the band were aware of the political climate around them – namely, school shootings, police corruption, and elections – they shifted their focus on these issues. Due to each member having their own four-track recorder, they were able to show a song in a more complete state to the rest of the band. The band would then work on the songs together; while producer Joe Barresi wasn't present for the majority of the writing sessions, he showed up on a few occasions to aid in the arrangements of two songs. Pennywise began recording their next album on February 3, 2001, at Stall #2 in Redondo Beach, California. Barresi and the band co-produced the proceedings, with assistantance from engineer Andrew Busher. Chad Bamford, Billy Bowers, and Darian Rundal later performed digital editing. Working with Barresi, the band wanted to create an album that was "more professional and just big", according to guitarist Fletcher Dragge. He added that Barresi pushed the band to "work harder and took our sound a little farther", however, as the band "don’t really listen to anybody," this resulted in some tension between the band and Barresi. Throughout the sessions, the band released audio interviews with each band member, and posted a potential track list for the album, which consisted of 17 songs. They held a contest where the winners, along with friends of theirs, could sing backing vocals for three of the songs, one of which being "Fuck Authority". On April 6, the band announced that recording was finished, and that they were in the process of mixing.