Rise Against

This past Thursday, I had the great opportunity to talk to one of my favorite lead singers, Tim McIlrath of Rise Against as they passed through Edmonton with Alexisonfire and The Fullblast. He was really cool, and gave some good answers, and the concert that night was amazing. I hope the trouble with the cops and security guards after the show don’t stop them from coming back again. Thanks to Ron from Universal Music for setting it up, and for Tim for doing the interview.

All pictures were stolen, without permission, from the band’s official site.

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Bobby: Let’s start off with some simples questions, you guys have been touring with Alexisonfire for quite a while now, in the States and Canada, how has that been going?

Tim: Really good, Alexis are super cool guys; they are an amazing band. Our bands work really well with each other for some reason too. The shows have been great. Touring Canada with them, touring the States with them, we’re going to Europe with them next month, so it couldn’t be better.

Bobby: Have there been any really memorable moments from it so far?

Tim: Yeah, definitely. We played Winnipeg for like 3,000 kids; it was just a giant show. We toured New Brunswick and Nova Scotia with them, like in the middle of nowhere. Just a lot of good punk shows. We just got back from Florida and Texas which were good times. Every show has been a good time, like we’ve had those guys come on stage with us and had them play guitar for some of our songs and I’ve gone out there and sung with them on some of their songs, so its just a really good relationship.

Bobby: I remember during Warped Tour you sung with Anti-Flag on “Die For Your Government”, well at least in Calgary you did, do you do that on a lot of your tours?

Tim: Actually, yeah, a few bands definitely yeah. I sang with Bad Religion on the last tour, they had a part then wanted me to do. Whenever I’m around Anti-Flag I do that song too. Yeah, I just think its fun. It’s a fun thing to do with other bands. I appreciate it, they appreciated it. I’ve gone on stage with Hot Water Music, like helping them out and stuff. I’m trying to think of other bands I’ve done that for. You know, once you become friends with a band, its just a really cool thing to do.

Bobby: After this tour you guys are heading to Europe, are you excited for that?

Tim: Yeah, definitely. We haven’t been to Europe since we went there in 2003 with the Mad Caddies. So we’re looking forward to getting back there. Our record just came out there, so it will be good to finally get back over there.

Bobby: Alright, you guys are heavily involved with People for the Ethical Treatment of Animals, what exactly do you do with them?

Tim: We basically facilitate any sort of campaign that they want to do in anyway that we can help. We’re out here playing punk shows year round; we do shows every night, so whenever they’re in town and they want to set up a table at our show, we’re more then happy to help them out and pass out literature and do whatever we can. If they are doing something online with a contest or something like that, we lend our band or our music or just whatever we can to get attention to that contest or to that information they want to get out.

Bobby: Can you tell us a bit about what PETA does?

Tim: Sure. I mean PETA basically keeps an eye on the world, specifically in the contents of animal rights. You know what I mean? They make sure that animal rights issues are as at the forefront as they possibly can be and basically push for more animal rights.

Bobby: This question actually comes from Spencer, out of your three albums, which one do you think was your favourite to record?

Tim: I’d say Revolutions Per Minute was my favourite to make.

Bobby: Why’s that?

Tim: It came together so well. I mean the jump from The Unravelling to Revolutions Per Minute I think was the biggest jump we made as a band. When we wrote the Unravelling, to be honest eleven of those songs were already written musically by Joe before I even joined the band. It wasn’t as much of a collaboration, you know what I mean? It was kind of like there were these songs and they needed vocals and I did them. Then we spent a long time figuring out who we were as a band, who we were as musicians, and as people and our relationship together; and then with the product of that relationship we were finally able to go back into our practice space and finally look at our songs an go “hey, we’re finally a band now.” You know what I mean, “What do you want to do for this next record?” And the songs just came together so well.

Bobby: O yeah, it’s an amazing CD.

Tim: Thank you. Yeah, it was a lot of fun to make and it was definitely a big jump for us. It was the record we wanted to make for the entire two years we were on tour for The Unravelling.

Bobby: For Revolutions Per Minute, I’ve always wonder, whenever you say American or American, in the lyrics booklet you spell it with a “k” instead of a “c” – why is that?

Tim: It just a very subliminal rebellion to America and the word America and the idea of what America is and how we’re supposed to spell it. It’s just kind of like “Fuck you, I’m not going to spell this country the way you tell me to spell America.” Just like something fun to do.

Bobby: Alright, lyrically, you guys have always impressed me. Half the time your lyrics end up being my MSN name somehow. Where do you come up with all the metaphors and lyrics?

Tim: To be honest, it just kind of comes to me in the songs and when I’m writing. I think that metaphors are one of the best ways to put down ideas, and are something that people can relate to. So when I’m writing about something that’s on my mind, metaphors are kind of the way to do it, you know?

Bobby: You guys also have a few b-sides songs that you can only get on compilations and stuff like that. Like “Generation Lost” and “Obstructed View” – do you ever think you’ll put out a b-side album?

Tim: Yeah I hope so. I think that we will probably do that at some point. I think it’s a little too early on in our career to think about that at this point, but some of my favourite songs are b-sides. Like “Generation Lost”, “Obstructed View” and “Gethsaname” on the Thick Records comp.

Bobby: That’s the only one I haven’t been able to find. I’ve looked all over and haven’t been able to find it.

Tim: Yeah, Thick is a pretty small label from Chicago. But yeah, that one’s a favourite. Umm… For a long time “Swing Life Away” was a b-side, it was on the Fearless Punk Goes Acoustic compilation. What else do we have…? Oh! “Join The Ranks” of one of the “Live Fat, Die Young” compilations, that’s one of the first songs we ever recorded. So yeah, I hope we can put these all down and release them. We have acoustic versions of songs we’ve done at radio stations and stuff, so there’s a lot of different material we could put into a CD at this point.

Bobby: Do you ever play those b-sides live? Like will we ever see “Generation Lost” or “Obstructed View” live?

Tim: If you can convince the other guys in the bands to play “Generation Lost”, then we’d play it. I’m always a big supporter of playing “Generation” live, but no one else seems to want to play it.

Bobby: Why not?

Tim: I don’t even know. The band is definitely a democracy, so if they don’t want to do it, I’m not going to twist their arms about it.

Bobby: “Give It All” was your first single of Siren Song of the Counter Culture, and its one music video that I love to watch. Where did you come up with the concept for the music video?

Tim: A lot of it’s out of the lyrics, you know what I mean? It’s out of what I wanted to say with the lyrics and put it in a visual. “Give It All” is just kind of a punk rock anthem, about being a punk rocker in today’s world; like what being a human being in today’s world is like. We wanted to incorporate Chicago. You know, we’re very proud of coming from Chicago. The Chicago music scene, we love it. We wanted to incorporate a lot of that city into our video. We wanted to incorporate our message into the video, that’s why we have a lot of those billboards being spray painted and stuff. And a lot of it comes from just the sheer fact that we’re at a point in our band where we were able to get like a train and have our friends on it and have a show; you know what I mean? Like we’re just kids who ended up being in a punk rock band and then somebody was like “Hey, let’s make a video and you have all this money to do with it – what do you want to do?” and it’s like “Damn, lets get a train and ride around Chicago and play a show”. Something like that, it was a lot of fun to do. And we didn’t want to do something really cheesy or overproduced or one of those rock videos that are out nowadays. We wanted to do something that was more in line with what our band is all about.

Bobby: Do you think we’ll see another single from the album?

Tim: Yeah, you will actually. I think that the next single will probably be “Swing Life Away.”

Bobby: Will there be a video for that too? Or just radio?

Tim: Yep, we’re going to do a video for that too.

Bobby: Any idea as to what you’re going to do for that video?

Tim: We’re shooting it next weekend. It’s going to be a video that sort of showcases another side of Rise Against. Another side about the people. Like we don’t play on that stage every day of the year, every hour. Everyone in the band as their own little lives, and I think the video is going to be a little more along the lines of what our lives are about, that sort of thing.

Bobby: Talking about “Swing Life Away”, that was originally released on the Punk Goes Acoustic compilation. Why did you decide to re-release it on Siren Song of the Counter Culture?

Tim: Mainly because it was getting such a good response on the Punk Goes Acoustic CD. A lot of our fans were digging it and we just wanted it to see the light of day a little more, you know what I mean? Like songs on compilation CDs are only heard by a couple of people who actually go out and get compilation CDs. Then after they are out for couple years, people kind of forget about them. So the song was getting a good enough response and we were like: You know what, we want to share this song with our regular listeners who don’t necessarily buy compilations or would even find out about compilations that we’re on. So we put it on the record.

Bobby: Your new record was on Geffen Records while your two others were n Fat Wreck Chords – why the switch?

Tim: To get our songs out to more people. We wanted to see what we could do on a major label and see if we could survive. When we took that risk, we knew it was a risk we were taking that could backfire. But we sort of deemed our message and what we do as a band important enough to take that risk. And we don’t live in fear of being dropped by the record label. I mean, we have the four of us, the band. We have the show tonight; we have our fans, nothings changing that. All I care about is playing this show tonight and interacting with our fans and playing music that people will want to hear. Whatever label you slap on the back of my CD, well jeez, who cares.

Bobby: Is there a big difference between the major and independent label?

Tim: Not a big difference, especially with punk rock the way it is today. Like independent labels are so big. Like labels like Fat and Epitaph and Victory and Vagrant, all those labels are becoming so big that the line between major and independent labels is being blurred more and more. With a label like Geffen, its good because through out the whole world we have a support system. In every country, in every state, they have people who are everywhere. Where as a lot of independent labels are like Victory’s in Chicago, Fat’s in San Francisco, Epitaph’s in L.A.; like that kind of thing. But a label like Geffen, has staff all over the place that can help us out with websites like your own or other magazines we want to talk to; or getting our songs on a local radio station, stuff like that. That’s a really good support system that we benefit from.

Bobby: During Warped Tour this year, at the Calgary show, you guys were signing autographs and meeting fans for a couple hours. Do you do that at every show?

Tim: Yeah, we do that at every Warped Tour. And we do that at some shows whenever we have time, you know what I mean? For the most part, you’ll find our guitar player Chris selling t-shirts, we try to hang out with the crowd as much as we can and we try to meet people as much as we can because we’re not really the type of band who hides backstage all day. Some people think that we are and they like freak out when they see us hanging out.

Bobby: You’re just regular people.

Tim: Yeah yeah, exactly, like we want to hang out. I want to meet people that listen to the band, I don’t want to try to hide from them, I want to meet them.

Bobby: April Fool’s Day was two weeks ago, were there any big pranks you pulled on someone or were you tricked while on tour?

Tim: No, actually no, I think we were driving somewhere in Florida at that point. I think most of us actually forgot that it was April Fool’s Day, days normally just blur together while you’re on the road.

Bobby: Yeah, I completely forgot about it too ‘till a day or two afterwards and I’m like “ohhh yeah…”.

Tim: Like at least everyday in the van, somebody goes “Is today Tuesday? Or is it Wednesday?” and it’s like “Dude, it’s Friday.”

Bobby: You guys are also involved with the Shirts For A Cure project, why did you decide to do that?

Tim: Because it’s a great cause, it’s definitely a great cause. And something as simple as that, that we can lend our name to… Like we’re not the heroes. The people who run Shirts For A Cure are the heroes. Those people are really putting their time and money into that. For us, its simply just saying “Yeah, of course, you can make a shirt and put our name on it and of course the proceeds can be donated to something as important as Shirts For A Cure”. Those are the roots of punk rock. Punk rock is about change, its about social awareness, you know what I mean, and we thought Shirts For A Cure was completely in line as to what we do as a band.

Bobby: Now onto so more unusual questions that I like to ask at interviews just to spice it up, if you were a member of the opposite sex for a day, or however long you want, what would you do and why?

Tim: I’d probably try to interact with as many people as possible to just see exactly how women are treated in today’s society. Cause it’s completely different, like a guy like you or me don’t really fear walking down a dark street in the middle of the night, we just think “oh, whatever.” But for a woman, it’s completely different, you know what I mean? And I think a lot of men don’t really understand that, and probably will never understand it, I don’t presume to understand it either. So I think it would interesting to see just how women function in today’s society.

Bobby: Can you tell us something about the band or one of its members that not many people know about? Like a little quirk or something they do on the road?

Tim: Umm… yeah, let me think. There’s something very odd about all of us, we’re very odd people, so let’s see… As an insight to our personalities, our drummer Brandon is really into jazz, he loves jazz music. Our bass player Joe is addicted to Diet Coke; he drinks probably between six and twelve Diet Cokes a day. Our guitar player, Chris, owns about eighteen guitars, and he keeps buying them; and he loves to sit in the van with a pillow on his lap and he’s hugging it like this *pretends to hug a pillow on his lap*. What else… We’ve got a lot of weird little habits.

Bobby: If you could have one thing at this moment, anything at all, what would you have and why?

Tim: Like material?

Bobby: No, not necessarily. Like a few months ago, I was just really hoping for all the snow to go away.

Tim: Oh, right, right, right. One thing right now… I don’t know… I would love to find away to do a band where you can tour all over the world, but still be close to your family and your friends. Like a happy medium. So you can be a band on tour, but not be so out of touch with the people back home.

Bobby: I guess that’s about it, thanks a lot. Do you have any final thoughts you would like to add?

Tim: Thanks a lot to all our fans in Edmonton and in Canada who have been supporting us. It’s been an amazing ride, and we’ve had so much love and respect and support from everybody in Canada, and especially in Western Canada, and we really appreciate it.