IN FLAMES and NUCLEAR BLAST RECORDS are happy to announce exclusive anniversary vinyl re-issues of the band’s …
Earlier in the year, Rise Against released their brand new record, Wolves. The beast of an album is widely viewed as an absolute return to form for the band who have yet again solidified their status as an apex predator of the scene.
The album was thought provoking and a complete hook fest, meaning it’s hard earned home truths contained within, have never sounded so good.
Next February, the band will be sinking their fangs into Australian audiences via a run of headline dates hitting just about everywhere that counts. Before their arrival, we caught up with the band’s vocalist, Tim McIlrath.
Hysteria: So, it’s been a while between drinks for your Australian fans. We can’t wait to have you back.
Tim: It’s been far too long since we’ve been to Australia, so we definitely can’t wait to get back. We don’t play there enough and so this is something we’ve been looking forward to for a long time.
Of course, this time it’s gonna be extra special, considering it will be with your brand new album, Wolves. It’d be interesting to know, now that Wolves is out, it’s had some time to resonate with the fans. Do you feel as though the fans got what you were trying to do with Wolves?
Yeah. I’ll answer the question this way. We never know what we’re trying to do. We never really have an agenda or a mission. We never really lay it out. There’s never really a goal. We kind of just get into a room and bang out songs the same way that we’ve done since we were teenagers and just see what moment that we’re in, see what comes good to us and then it goes through the filter of the four of us and it actually comes out a Rise Against song on the other end. So, in some ways, it’s always just as much of a surprise to us as it is anybody else by the time it all comes together.
But I will say that I was impressed. It’s one of those things that came together pretty organically and naturally, like if we were doing it all. Because there was a lot of new stuff happening in our lives right now. A new producer putting this record together with us for the first time in over ten years, so it was a change of scenery and that turned out to be a really cool thing. It broke us outside of our comfort zone. It was one of those kick them out of the nest and see if they can fly kind of records. Because we were so comfortable with where we had been before, it had become a very safe place and so this was kind of a place where we could rely on the things that we’d learned and work with a different producer.
All these things considered, the new producer, being out of your comfort zone and not knowing what you were going to do with the album, you must have listened back to this thing at the end of it all and been pretty bloody stoked.
I was, yeah. Totally. When they all started coming together and started putting the finishing touches on the lyrics, we were like “Oh yeah, this is it, this is a Rise Against song.” And then as we started adding the songs to the live show, they kind of fit so naturally. That was when you knew, “all right, mission accomplished here.”
We never really have an agenda or a mission. We never really lay it out. There’s never really a goal. We kind of just get into a room and bang out songs the same way that we’ve done since we were teenagers[.] [TIM]
When you listen to the album now, or when you perform the songs now, are you finding little moments in the songs that you may not have been aware of at the time you were making them?
Yeah, you know it’s always been like that. Because the record is usually a dozen or so songs that we’re all working on simultaneously and as soon as you’re done with one you don’t have time to sit there…so sometimes I’m just focusing on my parts and it will be a while before I hear the bassline, before I hear some of the drum parts that Brandon did, because I was focusing on different things. So as the layers unfold, as we rehearse them, and sometimes we rehearse through songs … sometimes it’s the first time we’ve ever played them in their completed form. And then you’ll find out, “oh, you’re doing that” or “oh, I’m doing that”, or we re-wrote this, so yeah, all these little gems come out.
In Australia alone, the thing debuted at number five in our charts. Now that territory is normally reserved for the Ed Sheerans and the Adeles, but you guys kicked them out. And in other countries as well, it had a really similar response in the charts. Did you guys have any “Eureka” moments when you were writing this that made you think it was going to go down well?
I guess I fall into the category of people who don’t really care about the charts.
Growing up in a punk and hardcore scene, the charts aren’t really where my interests or my focus was. I can’t sit here and lie to you and say I don’t pay attention to them, because I notice that stuff and when I see a band like ours in those charts, to me it speaks volumes of where the audience is and that’s what always interests and fascinates me.
From the first time that Rise Against was a part of those charts and was having number one or top five records when we came out, at first I thought “holy shit, I can’t believe that our scrappy punk band is travelling in the same circles as these giant pop acts”, but it also alerts me to the fact that, “wow, there’s a really hungry audience out there that’s looking for music like this”, that kind of reflects the questions they have about what’s happening in the world. Maybe they’re just rocking out to a tune but something about the music is speaking to them and I realise, if we can crack those charts then bands just like us can crack those charts and more bands should double down and engage in this kind of music.
I suppose from a fan perspective it is almost relieving to see that there’s this many of us to get you into the charts. one of the reasons we resonate so strongly with Rise Against is because you guys don’t water it down for us, you don’t treat us like we’re dumb children, you level out the heavy message for us with this whole “okay guys, this is how it is.” So I think it is cool to see that people are resonating with substance so much, that’s kind of what I’m taking from it.
Yeah, you know its so refreshing and liberating to be in a band where you can speak your mind and not hold anything back and not bite your tongue. We talk about whatever we want to talk about, we sing about whatever we want to sing about. There’s nothing that’s off limits and when I meet bands who either refuse to talk about issues of change and awareness or to talk about who the President is, or talk about racism or sexism or anything like that, you can see that they want to talk about it but they really can’t. So I feel very lucky to be I a band where we can just lay it all out there. That comes across in the music too, we can be ourselves and we can be 100% honest in the songs.
I imagine a strong source of influence for the album would have been the American election and I can say that in Australia it’s influencing us too, it’s all over our news, it’s all we see, it’s constantly Trump, Trump, Trump. I cannot help but feel as though the last two weeks alone have probably given you enough material for another Rise Against album.
Yeah, that’s interesting that you say that because there is a lot of low-hanging fruit out there for Rise Against to be singing about and we like to engage in that. I feel like maybe Wolves wasn’t enough. I think everything is happening so fast that, A, I’m so glad that we waited until after this election to write this record. I feel like a new Rise Against record that was written before the election would be so different than the Rise Against record that was written after the election. I’m so happy that we had the chance to comment on what is happening. But even since then, so much has changed, so much has happened, America is going through this identity crisis, there’s so much to think about that, absolutely, there needs to be more songs that are documenting this period of history because it’s happening in the States but it’s reverberating all around the planet.
Listen to the entire Rise Against interview on Hysteria Radio!
Rise Against will be in town next year with SWMRS on support. They’ll hit Perth on Wednesday the 7th of February, Adelaide on Friday the 9th February, Melbourne on Saturday the 10th of February, Sydney on Tuesday the 13th of February, and wrapping things up in Brisbane on Wednesday the 14th of February.
Tickets are available via Frontier Touring.
