In 2007, the Offspring first premiered "Hammerhead" at the Summersonic Festival, before any details of the new album had been revealed. The official premiere of the album took place on the band's imeem site on June 9 at 3pm UTC. They were removed swiftly but not before fans had ripped the clips and uploaded them to several fileshare and video sharing sites. On June 2, 2008, 30 second clips of each song on the new album were accidentally released by. In November 2008, KROQ briefly played "Stuff Is Messed Up", another song off the album, until the plug was pulled after "Kristy, Are You Doing Okay?" was confirmed as the third single. "You're Gonna Go Far, Kid" was digitally released in Australia in July 2008 as a single and also appeared on the album cover as a sticker promoting the album as "includes the songs "Hammerhead and You're Gonna Go Far, Kid". During the Offspring's three May 2008 concerts in California, "You're Gonna Go Far, Kid" was the only new song besides "Hammerhead" that was played, also causing fans to believe this would be the second single. Six other stations in the Southwestern United States followed suit. station KROQ began playing "You're Gonna Go Far, Kid", making it seem possible that this could be the second single, though the station has played non-singles from the band in the past. In June 2008, shortly before the album's release, the influential L.A. The album's title is derived from two tracks: "Rise and Fall" is the last track on the album and the song "Fix You" features the line "Rage and Grace". Holland announced on April 9, 2008, that the new album was finally finished and announced the name and release date, and that "Hammerhead" would be the first single. He also said the band wasn't "going to be making another Smash, or another Ixnay" but thought they were still "relevant to punk when they were created, and this one will be no different". In his journal, Holland explained that when there were no updates, it's usually because there's nothing to talk about- hence the faux "news." The next month, Holland said that the Offspring were "just in the studio getting some tracks down for the new record" and claims "it's a lot louder than the last couple". In January 2008, the band comically responded to upset fans who wanted news by having a "breaking news" story regarding the band buying plane tickets for their next show.
The band was at that time taking a break to spend Christmas with their families. On the Christmas journal entry, he claimed that he had two more lyrics to write, "a couple more" to sing and "various tweaks" to do before mixing could begin. At this time Holland announced that all of the songs were completely new with no re-recordings of older songs, jokingly remarking "that would be cheating, wouldn't it?" (in response to rumors that the unreleased song "Pass Me By" and the re-recording of their 1992-song "Dirty Magic" would appear on the album) and commenting that the new tracks "sound like a friggin' freight train." In July 2007, Holland also confirmed that the band had finished "two more songs" and the album was being recorded in Orange County, California. By May 2007 the music for thirteen songs had been recorded, with a further 10 tracks demoed. Recording took place in Hawaii and California with Rock. On November 16, 2006, the Offspring announced on their website that they had begun recording the album with Rock, with an intended release date of spring 2007. He described the new songs as "lots of guitar, energy, lots of energy, and good songs." In September 2006, it was announced that the album would be produced by Bob Rock, who was working with Holland and "helping him sort out songs."
On August 18, he posted another update on the band's journal, saying that they had demoed five songs and were looking to go into the studio soon. On June 13, 2006, Holland stated that the band (minus Willard) had been meeting every week and would begin recording shortly.
On February 7, 2006, Holland said in his journal that the band entered a demo studio to work on guitar tracks, and a week later, Holland said in his journal that he went out of town to "meet with a guy who might produce" the album.
After the Greatest Hits tour ended in the fall of 2005, the band took a break from writing, recording and touring. To coincide with that tour, Sony Music released the first Offspring compilation album, Greatest Hits, which includes their hits from 1994 to 2005. From June to August 2005, the band played the Vans Warped Tour for the first time, and followed that with a tour of Europe and Japan. Work for Rise and Fall, Rage and Grace dates back to September 2004, when frontman Dexter Holland said that he wanted to put out the next Offspring album in 2005 and that the new songs felt "pretty good".