I recently got the opportunity to interview the singer of a band I have been following religiously since their first LP dropped. I’ve met and spoken to all the members a few times before, but this was the first time I was able to sit down for a while and really find out what their world is actually like. No matter what you think you know about this band, there’s always more. There’s a passion that burns deep from the soul of this band. It’s a passion that cannot be confined to a five-inch piece of round plastic or twelve inches of wax. It will not be held back by any label or brand. It will burst through the metal barriers and past the thick-necked guards. It will scream out from the speakers in your room, your car, and from the stage. With the help of those that believe in it, that passion will reach all corners of the earth. This band has a purpose. It’s not to have fancy cars or to be able to wake up at 2pm and go pluck the check from the mailbox. These guys are trying to open the doors to the world outside of our routine. There’s too much strife and unrest in the world to be satisfied with the way things are. Tim McIlrath explained how he and Rise Against are trying to educate and motivate. Here’s my conversation with him:

Suburban Horror: So I thought instead of you giving us a quick history lesson on the band, I think it would be better for anyone who doesn't have it yet, to go pick up the re-issue of The Unraveling and just read the liner notes.
Agreed?

Tim McIlrath: Yeah, that's a good point.

SH: Well I'd like to say I’ve been a committed fan since The Unraveling and it’s amazing to see how far and how quickly you guys have grown since then. Does it seem now as if that was a long time ago?

TM: Yeah it certainly feels like a long time ago but we've worked so hard for it. It was so slow, but from an outside perspective it would seem like we blew up overnight. But for us, we played those towns...every town in America year after year after year. The first time we hit 'em, it was like fifteen kids there, and then maybe a hundred kids. It was just a long hard road and something we worked hard for. This is a really rewarding place to be right now.

SH: The change is definitely noticeable. I remember the first time I saw you guys play, it was a really small crowd and you were opening up for Strung Out down here in San Diego. Since then the crowds just get bigger and bigger.

TM: Yeah, it's crazy. It's been a wild ride.

SH: I’m all kinds of excited to hear The Sufferer And The Witness. Especially since I found out that the Drum Ogre was going to produce it.

TM: Oh yeah, the Drum Ogre, Bill Stevenson!

SH:Why did you guys decide to go back to Ft. Collins to record?

TM: Besides the fact that we should never record with anybody other than Bill Stevenson? He's just a great guy. The environment that we created during the Revolutions Per Minute sessions was unlike any other environment we've ever been in before. That's something that took us a bit of distance to realize; traveling to different studios, working with different people. Seeing a little bit more of the music side of the world, we realized “Shit, we had an amazing time with Bill.” We have an amazing relationship with Bill, and that's just something that you can't take for granted. We’ve decided not to. We decided this is going to be a great record, so we have to do it with Bill, because he is one of the few guys out there who really speaks our language. He understands how we work, how our songs work, he understands how my voice works and how it doesn't work. It was just a great place to be. Being with Bill is just so comfortable. You’re up in Ft. Collins, CO, away from everything. Away from Chicago, away from the L.A. music world. You're just doing a record with no distractions, and you're with Bill, who doesn't give a shit what label you're on or who you're manager is, how many records you're going to sell or not sell. He just wants to make a great punk rock record.

SH: Will we hear any guest vocals from Chad Price again or maybe some crazy Stephen Eggerton solos?

TM: No but we actually hung out with Karl Alvarez a lot. Karl's a great guy. He dropped some serious wisdom on me on many a night. Bill is singing ALL over our record.

SH:Oh really?

TM: Yeah, he does backup vocals on a ton of stuff. He has a lot of great ideas and the backup vocals are where he really shines. He did play a little bit of the drums on our Journey cover on Revolutions Per Minute but I don't think we actually got him on any drums on this record.

SH: Okay. Well, onto the new record. What themes or issues does the new record deal with, and where does the title of the album come from?

TM: The Sufferer and the Witness is referring to the cause and effect relationship that we all have on each other. More specifically, what we have right here in America and the effect we have on the rest of the world. To give you an example of that might be the clothes you're wearing, the stuff you're buying, or the car you're driving. It's what you do right here and right now. The choices you make can and are affecting people all over the place. Because of that we are now living in an unsustainable society, and unstable economy, an unsustainable world. So that's something we really touched on in a lot of the songs. We live in a time of war. We're going into our third year of a war that most people didn't even want to go into. The people that did want to go went into it under a certain premise that turned out to be a lie. It's a scary place to be right now in America's history and in effect, the world's history. The Sufferer and the Witness discusses the suffering that goes on in our world. It's a suffering that people can no longer claim ignorance; it's suffering that people can no longer be blind to.
Let's say maybe ten, even fifteen or twenty years ago, a concept like sweatshops was still very new to Americans. No one would have ever thought that the clothes you are wearing come from the hands of eleven year old kids, who are getting paid a nickel an hour to do it and living terrible lives because of it. Nowadays that information is there. So we've gone from being blind offenders to straight-up witnesses of this. Now that we do know about it, it's up to us to decide what we're going to do about it, f anything at all. The Sufferer And The Witness is that dichotomy and it's making a comment that people are now aware of it. Now what do we do?

SH: I work in an indie record store so I can't help but notice that a lot of the copies of RA albums, Siren Song, specifically, that sell are because someone “really likes the acoustic song on the radio”

TM: Right right...

SH:But a great thing about your music is that many of the songs are a good kick in the pants-wake up call for people to stop living so complacent with their everyday routine and realize that, while we as a country have been making wonderful scientific and technological advances, we seem to be moving backwards socially and politically at the same rate. I read a specific interview with you before Siren Song came out in which you explained how you hoped this new deal with Geffen would help convey your message to a wider audience and maybe make some more kids aware that life is not, in fact, a bowl of cherries.Have you seen any signs that you guys are accomplishing that mission?

TM:Yeah I would say that we are. I don't have an exact gauge of who we're affecting and how many. I can’t say that all four hundred thousand people that bought our last record took something positive away from it, or were really affected/ changed by that. I can say that I get hundreds of e-mails everyday of insane stories. Insane stories like a woman with two kids who says she was in an abusive relationship with her husband and after hearing our record, she was motivated to get out of that relationship. [There was] some kid who was going to college and decided to change his major from business to political science because of our record. Things like that are really amazing. Some people send me videos that they made to the song “State Of The Union” and the song had inspired them to put together all this footage of the Iraqi war and it's things like this that make me think “Wow I can't believe something that I did actually inspired this person to do something. And in turn, what that person does is probably going to inspire someone else and so on and so on. It's really amazing and I don't need so many of those e-mails to validate what we're doing. Just one of them is fine. But we get a lot of them. We get a lot of people who tell us what we mean to them and we get a lot of lyrics tattooed on bodies. I think it's really cool. I'm especially flattered by the lyrics getting tattooed. It's one thing to get a band's logo on your body; it shows your dedication to what that band stands for but to actually pick out a lyric. That means, to me, that it's really touched you in some way. I guess even in a smaller picture, it's been great to work with a label like Geffen and meet people there who might say something like, “Dude, I'm so sick of pushing this kind of music” or “This band that band. I hate this person, but it's so great to have you here. It's so great to have your record on my desk so when I call somebody from a magazine or from a radio station, I'm behind it one hundred percent.” I think that's amazing. To hear people who are at the label suggesting things to us. Things that we can do politically or benefits. That's awesome because now we have this label thinking how we think and that's great. We've managed to touch a lot of people's lives and that was always the goal of this band. It makes what we do that much more important.

SH:Do you ever have record label bigwigs asking you to tone it down and maybe not be so vocal about these kinds of issues?

TM:We've never had that actually. No one has ever even hinted at that to be honest with you. Actually, it was funny when we first signed there was a guy over at Dreamworks who was trying to convince us to be more political. He wanted us to be the next Rage Against The Machine. It was so funny to me. I’m thinking “Am I really listening to some guy at a major label, telling me to be more political? What's going on?” I would have never predicted myself sitting with a major label listening to some guy telling me I'm not political enough. I don't know what his motivations were behind it and I certainly like the fact that he was into the idea of music being a vehicle for something like political change. But at the same time, he was trying to change our band and that was something that we weren't cool with. We're going to be Rise Against. We're not going to be Bad Religion or Anti-Flag or Rage Against The Machine. We're going to be who we are and do it the way we do it.

SH:That's good to hear. Maybe this will open some people's eyes to the fact that not all major label people are evil and that they're only out for their own gain.

TM: Right, but some of them are. I’m sure they are. I hear stories from friends of mine who are on major labels and are having a terrible time. It's turned into a nightmare for them. I've also heard bad or worse stories from my friends who are on independent labels. It's not really the type of label that you're on or how big you are. It's the people that are behind it and how much faith they have in your band. I don't want to go out there and encourage everyone to sign to a major label but I will say that it's possible to maintain your integrity, have complete creative control over what you do and actually have a good relationship or like the people that you work with at a major label. It's just a case by case situation.

SH:So you guys finally broke the Spinal Tap curse and are releasing an album with the same guitarist from the previous album! How does that feel?

TM: [laughter] Yeah, we were giving Chris so much shit about that the whole time. We were like, “You know we're about to start a new record so I was wondering if you want to stick around for auditions or do you just want to bail?” But we've been giving him that shit for a long time and it's funny cause we get along great with him. He fits well in the band; there was never any question about him doing this record with us. I'm glad he was able to come into this record with a little less of a train wreck than the last one was. He came in right in the middle of the writing and we just threw everything on his plate. “Learn these six songs that we've already written, help us write an additional six songs and then learn these two records”. He did have a lot on his plate at once and he worked really hard and got us through it all. He's been doing great ever since. He's become a real active member of the band and not just a gun-for-hire kind of guy. To be honest, I can't remember what it was like to play in this band without him.

SH:Awesome. So, one thing I really admire, as I’m sure a lot of people do, is that Rise Against always seems to have a relentless, almost menacing touring schedule. Do you ever feel like you’re losing touch with the world outside of the clubs and the van?

TM: We've completely lost touch with that world. I won't deny it but it's funny because I never really thought of our touring schedule as menacing or torturous. I just figured that this is what all bands do. You're probably the fourth person to say this to me today and now I'm thinking, “Okay maybe you're right. Maybe it is overkill but I guess there are a lot of people in bands who take a lot of time off. When this record comes out, it's going to be the fourth of July and there are people who say, “You've just stopped your last tour in January and you're going to put a record out seven months later? You've written, recorded, and released it in those few months?” And I was like, “Yeah I guess we did”. We have a lot of peers who like to take six months off or nine months off and then spend another six or nine months on a record. I guess that's just not the way we've ever worked. We want to stay out there and stay in everyone's faces and maintain our presence and take advantage of what we've been given, which is to be a bunch of kids in our late twenties playing punk shows. That's certainly an honor that we don't take lightly.

SH:I've seen RA live probably about 12 to 15 times over the years and it’s always an incredible show. How do you maintain such an intense presence night after night?

TM: I never go on stage with that intention. I go on stage completely exhausted. I go on stage after getting out of a van for eight hours and then doing interviews for another two hours, trying to eat before a set and trying to keep it down during the set. Just totally dead. I go on stage not really knowing how I'm going to make it through the next hour of my life. But when I get on stage and I see those kids in the front row singing and screaming along, I see the look in their eyes when they're repeating some of these words that I wrote years ago and I see them living through that moment that I lived through years ago. Then it really hits me. Not just what these songs mean to these kids, but what they meant to me at one point and how they are a part of who I am today. In that sense, the answer to your question: it's all the fans. It's all those people in the front row, all the way in the back. The people that sing along with me, and make me realize “These songs are important to us and we care that you're singing them. We care that you wrote them and they mean something to us.” I don't know if there's any other way to react to that than just sheer intensity. That’s how you get a Rise Against show.

SH:I was fortunate enough to go to the first two of the five Troubadour shows.

TM:Awesome.

SH:They were just incredible. I actually got my glasses broken at the first show.

TM: Oh shit. Sorry about that, man!

SH:No worries at all. It was a great time. I was right up front and it was the time of my life every time I see Rise Against play.

TM: I'm glad you were able to make it to that venue because we don’t get to play small venues like that very often anymore so that was a serious trip for us.

SH:Yeah and I just read a review about a small basement show you guys played near Chicago.

TM: Oh! Yeah we played in Palatine, Illinois just outside of Chicago. Where was the review?

SH:It was in Skratch.

TM:Crazy. That's hilarious. Yeah it was just us and thirty kids maybe. It was all unannounced, just a fun time. Six months prior I ended up at a Wilhelm Scream show there. They were going to sleep over at this guy's house. The sleepover turned into a party...the party turned into a show...somebody called my phone because they knew I lived in the neighborhood and I just went over. I saw Wilhelm Scream play in a tiny basement. I had a blast. It was the best show I had seen all year. I met the kid who owned the place and he said, “Listen if you guys ever want to play here, just say the word. It'll be discreet. It'll be cool.” I said “All right. Be careful what you're offering me here 'cause I just might call you.” And I did. We finished the new record and came home to Chicago and we were so excited about some of the new songs. We wanted to play them and get some opinions so I called this kid up and said, “Hey. We're coming over to your house on Friday night and we're going to play a show.” He said cool and it happened. It was great. The cops came but they managed to let the show go on. We played with Much The Same who are good friends of ours and that was rad. It was just a cool little show to get us back to where we started and to serve as a reminder of where we came from and why we're here. Reminded us of the important parts of a show; a show without security, a show without guarantees or backstages or any of that bureaucracy that surrounds a show. It was just a lot of fun.

SH:How do you feel about this leviathan known as Myspace?

TM:[laughter] Well I can tell you that I'm NOT friends with Tom. I've yet to join the cult known as Myspace, but at the same time our band certainly takes part in it. I understand that it's a big deal to a lot of people. It's a big deal to a lot of our fans so we're certainly out there catering to that...or Chris, more importantly, is out there catering to that. He kind of likes that shit though. I have a sister who's a teacher and my mom is a teacher, so they talk about this stuff too. The lude and explicit stuff that some kids are posting on Myspace is questionable. I’m all for free speech. I would never want to tell someone what they can and can’t say, but shit it gets pretty scary out there when you have 12 year old kids talking about the sex they just had the night before. Who knows how much longer this thing will actually be around? I do have friends who back it a hundred percent. They say it helps them keep in touch with their friends and it’s a great tool to maintain friendships or whatever. I would never want to be forced to sum up who I am as a person in one dot com page. I wouldn’t want to create a little commercial for myself. Here’s a picture, here’s the bands I like, here’s some spooky poetry about me¦ It’s not for me but maybe it is for someone else.

SH:Okay cool. Well, last...what new albums are you looking forward to, recently released or still unreleased?

TM:Definitely the new A.F.I. I’m definitely looking forward to the new album. They’re such an amazing band.
I know Against Me! just put a record out but I’m already looking forward to the next one. I want to see what they do next.

SH:Yeah, me too.

TM:Oh, and there’s a band called Western Addiction on Fat Wreck Chords

SH:Ahhh I love Western Addiction! Since I work at a record store, I’m in contact with Jason all the time and he’s a super cool guy. They played down here in San Diego a little while ago and I went to see them play and they were great! I love their album.

TM:I LOVE Western Addiction. I had heard demos that he did years ago and they were cool. They definitely caught my ear. Then he sent me his record. I put it in, listened to it and I called him right away. I said, “Jason this is unbelievable!” He’s such a great guy and I’m really proud of him and the guys in the band.
Let’s see, what else? I just got the new Ignite record and I was pretty impressed with it.

SH:Yeah, I love it. I just saw them play with Comeback Kid a little bit ago and it was such a cool show.

TM:We just got to do those two dates at the Troubadour with them and I was really impressed. The last time I’d seen them was back in ‘97 I think at The Fireside and I was really curious to see if they still have it. They still have it!
The new Strike Anywhere, of course. I’m looking forward to the new Strike Anywhere.

SH:you at all excited about the Gorilla Biscuits reunion?

TM:Yeah but disappointed at the same time because we’re going to be on Warped Tour the entire time. Barring any unforeseeable miracle, I don’t see us actually making it to a show although it’s in the works. There are some flights being talked about on some days off so who knows. We’ll see if we actually make it out there.

SH:Well I hope you guys can make it out because that’s definitely not something to be missed.

TM:Totally.

SH:Alright well I just want to say that you and the band have been incredibly inspiring to me over the past five years and I really want to thank you guys for your music and your message and everything you guys do.

TM:Thanks a lot man. That means a lot, and thank you! It was great talking to you.

-Joe Scandal