Hard Times and Nursery Rhymes is the seventh (and currently last) studio album by the American punk rock band Social Distortion, released on January 18, 2011. It is the band's first album recorded with bassist Brent Harding, their first album of new material since 2004's Sex, Love and Rock 'n' Roll, and their first release on Epitaph Records. Work on the album began in 2006 and it was originally forecast for a 2007 release, but was pushed back several times while the band continued touring and writing new material. After four years of writing, Social Distortion recorded the album from February to July 2010 at Ocean Studios in Burbank, California. Drummer Atom Willard left the group during the recording sessions in favor of his other band, Angels & Airwaves. He was temporarily replaced by Scott Reeder before David Hidalgo, Jr. joined as the band's new permanent drummer. Despite being listed as a band member on the album, Hidalgo did not actually play on it; instead, the band hired session musician Josh Freese to record the drum tracks. History In August 2005, sources reported that Social Distortion was going to begin work on a seventh studio album to be released in 2006. However, frontman Mike Ness told Crush Music Magazine that a new Social Distortion album would "probably" not come out in 2006 or anytime soon. He explained, "I feel like we've got a great start on a new album, we'd like to do a new album soon but I doubt it will be that soon. I figure I will use my time off next year to do the writing and maybe start it toward the end of 2006 recording. It'll be soon but I don't know if it'll be quite that soon." Also in that interview, Ness promised the album not to take another eight years; it instead was released within seven years of their previous album. In May 2006, it was reported that Social Distortion had started writing and rehearsing new material, with an intended release date of late 2006/early 2007. In July, Ness told The Desert Sun that the band would like to be in the studio in 2007 putting out their seventh album and revealed that "Bakersfield" was one of the new songs they were working on. Asked in that interview what things Ness was writing about, he replied, "the last record had a lot of songs