Rise Against’s Musical Dystopia

“And” is the first word Rise Against frontman Tim McIlrath sings on “Nod,” the opening track from Ricochet, released in August. It’s also the first word he sings on the next song, “I Want It All.” But that wasn’t a deliberate strategy, judging from McIlrath’s surprise when I point it out.

“Oh yeah, I didn’t think about that. That’s funny,” McIlrath says via Zoom outside his Chicago home, wearing a sweater on a brisk autumn morning after returning home from a tour. “That is a good device, especially considering that I think of all the Rise Against records as, like, one big ongoing story. This is just like the latest chapter of it. It’s like, ‘Oh, let’s pick back up, where did we leave off?’”

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Since forming Rise Against in Chicago’s hardcore scene in 1999, McIlrath has consistently written socially conscious lyrics about the military industrial complex, climate change, animal rights, and class struggle. And as many of the problems he’s written about have continued to worsen in America and abroad, McIlrath sees Rise Against as less a political band than a “dystopian musical project,” and many of the lyrics he wrote years ago sound remarkably prescient.

“Going back to 1984, Fahrenheit 451, or Margaret Atwood, these things that become timely are almost not an accident, like this is what we were talking about. If we keep going down this road, this is what it could look like, and then sometimes we do keep going down that road,” the singer-guitarist says.

Ricochet was written before the 2024 election, but songs like “Gold Long Gone” and “Damage is Done” resonate deeply with the parade of grim 2025 headlines. “Sometimes the things that we talk about end up sadly coming to fruition by the time an album actually finds its way to a release.” McIlrath adds, with a self-deprecating laugh, “I would love to have all these songs be irrelevant and I could go be unemployed and have the world be a perfect place.”

Rise Against has sold millions of copies of albums that have spun off more than 20 rock radio hits, making McIlrath the rare straight-edge vegetarian who’s shared stages and radio playlists with the likes of Metallica. That’s led Rise Against to turn down shows or opportunities that any other band at their level would eagerly agree to if they weren’t comfortable with a sponsor, and the band remains aligned on those values. “What I love about my band and the three guys and even our manager and our team is that we never sweated that shit,” McIlrath says. “Having that compass of punk and hardcore made it easier to navigate the murky waters of commercial music and still hold onto our identity and feel good about it. And then in the end, as a lesson to other bands, it didn’t limit us.”

McIlrath has become friends with one musician who’s very familiar with those murky waters. “I was just with Tom Morello last weekend at the Blackhawks game,” McIlrath says. “Tom was talking about Rage Against the Machine fans, and splitting them into different categories—the ones that are deeply involved in the politics of Rage, love it, and the ones that are just kind of like banging their heads along to the song—and just talking about how we need all those fans. We want all of them in the room together, they are all necessary.”

As consistent as McIlrath’s lyrical perspective has been over the last 25 years, he saw the tenth Rise Against album as an opportunity to experiment with the band’s sound. “Most of my favorite bands never made it to 10 records. And so what business do you have making the same exact record a tenth time?” he says. “If you wanna change the meal, you gotta change the recipe.”

The majority of Rise Against’s previous albums were produced by Bill Stevenson, the legendary Descendants and Black Flag drummer, at his studio the Blasting Room. For Ricochet, however, Rise Against chose to work with someone new: Australian producer Catherine Marks, who’s won Grammys for her work with boygenius and has a resume full of indie and alternative bands like Manchester Orchestra and Wolf Alice.

“Catherine just stood out as someone that was I think so far removed from, like, a Rise Against world that it sounded exciting to us,” McIlrath says. “And she brought a female energy to the studio that’s not often there. A little peek behind the curtain of Rise Against, 90% of our personnel is female—our managers, agents, lawyers—those are the people that have always kinda run our team. And that’s been successful, so to recreate that dynamic in the studio was fun and felt pretty natural.”

McIlrath, drummer Brandon Barnes, guitarist Zach Blair, and bassist Joe Principe still play fast and loud for most of Ricochet, but the album is more densely layered and musically varied than any previous Rise Against release, with McIlrath’s voice woven into the guitars rather than shouting above them. Marks’s mentor, veteran British producer Alan Moulder, mixed Ricochet, and the subtle electronics on the title track recall his work with Nine Inch Nails and U2.

McIlrath has always toed the line between singing and melodic screaming, and over time he found it harder and harder to perform some of Rise Against’s songs. “I came out of a punk and hardcore world, which almost by definition is an untrained world,” he says. “I didn’t anticipate doing this on big stages at 46 years old. I was, like, in a Knights of Columbus Hall with my friends, playing and screaming into a RadioShack microphone on a shitty PA.”

Deciding to start meeting with the Chicago-based vocal coach Davin Youngs was a game-changer that helped McIlrath avoid issues like vocal polyps and laryngitis that seem to afflict more and more touring singers these days. “For years, I relied on my adolescence and youthful exuberance to pull it off. And then probably five, six years ago, I hit a point where I was like, ‘This is really fucking hard to do, and I don’t know how I’m gonna keep doing it,’” McIlrath admits. Now, he feels ready to sing any song in the Rise Against catalog and hit any note. “I’m actually a far more competent singer today than I’ve ever been. It honestly changed my life.”

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