The band had been recording for a second album since early 2010, also in the midst of
The United States 2010 Recession. This caused an eventual peak of 14% unemployment in the band's state of California. The recession caused a partial motivation for "Been to Hells lyrics of failure and the darker tone. The song is specifically about people who come to Hollywood expecting to achieve greatness and fame, but are unable to accomplish this for reasons of drugs, temptation, and apathy. When speaking about the track's message, J-Dog says it's about "The truth about what really happens to people when they move to LA, to be actors or models or god knows what other delusions people have... failure. It's all too true, but most people aren't there to see it first hand... But we are, so it's our interpretation of it all. And make sure you stick around til the end..." The first surfacing of the track was on January 11, 2011, when the band officially announced the title of their second album,
American Tragedy, and released a short one-minute preview video of the album. The video included an instrumental of "Been to Hell", which was untitled at the time. The track was the third song released following the first single, "Hear Me Now", and the promotional single, "Comin' in Hot". The full song was released on the band's official website at midnight on February 5 as a free download to add fans to their mailing list and to promote the album. In addition, an official lyric video was released that showed flashes of Los Angeles and the band's new masks, an elaboration of the album's preview video. The track was removed as a free download a few weeks later before it was released as a single and put on iTunes on March 15, 2011. A remix of the song by
KMFDM titled "Been to Hell... and Back!" was included on the 2011 remix album
American Tragedy Redux. ==Music video==