Rise Against has long been known for their politically charged music, which they remain committed to, regardless of whether some of their fans agree with their stances. In fact, frontman Tim McIlrath recently confessed that there’s still a part of him “that doesn’t mind making people a little uncomfortable.”
In a recent interview with the 100 Words Or Less podcast, McIlrath was asked about expressing his and the band’s social and political convictions through their music, even knowing that some listeners may not share their viewpoints. “There’s that 16-year-old me that doesn’t mind making people a little uncomfortable,” Tim said, as transcribed by Blabbermouth. “I’m not that person today, but that kid still exists in me.”
“And so it makes me not care too much about the friction that I create,” he continued. “And not in a mean or confrontational way — I just know that that’s where change happens, in that friction, that you gotta be a little confrontational, you have to create a little bit of friction.”
McIlrath went on to say, “And I also feel like we’ve been given this huge opportunity to play for a crowd that’s bigger than [Chicago venue] the Fireside Bowl. And so there’s a lot of responsibility, like, ‘Hey, you guys made it out of this scene, and now you’re in this bigger scene. So, tell them. Tell them what we talk about. Talk about environmentalism. Talk about sweatshops and fair labor. Talk about animal rights.’”
“You now have a bigger microphone, a bigger bullhorn,” he added. “You’re doing it. So how could I leave that behind? How can I just drop that all of a sudden, just to get a few more smiling faces and thumbs up from a gen pop crowd of people who listen to everything and are unfamiliar with my scene? And so we’re a package deal.”
McIlrath then laughed and said, “We come with that baggage, and you’re gonna get it in the song and on the stage and whatever else,” adding, “And so does it ever bother me? Do I ever like lament? I want everyone to love what we’re doing. But it doesn’t bother me in the sense that, like, there’s nothing I can do about it. This is who I am. It’s, like, take it or leave it.”
“You can’t ask me to disown my politics any more than you can ask me to disown my family,” Tim also asserted. “There’s not a price tag on that. I understand what you’re asking, but you understand I’m unable to accommodate that request. So, sorry.”
The Rise Against co-founder then added that “if anything,” their social political convictions are a “part of who we are as a band and why you know who we are as a band. They’re part of our DNA and our identity. If people gravitated towards our music and our band, there’s something about what we do that made that happen.”
McIlrath then concluded, “So even if you wanna talk about it as, as strictly a commercial decision, it will be bad to take this out. We’re leaving this in. It makes sense on no level to all of a sudden strip a band of its personality.”
Rise Against dropped their newest album, Ricochet, earlier this year, and as part of the record’s rollout, they sat down with VICE and shared with us some of their favorite protest songs, which you can read by clicking here.
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