Ricochet<\/em>, released in August. It\u2019s also the first word he sings on the next song, \u201cI Want It All.\u201d But that wasn\u2019t a deliberate strategy, judging from McIlrath\u2019s surprise when I point it out.<\/p>\n\u201cOh yeah, I didn\u2019t think about that. That\u2019s funny,\u201d McIlrath says via Zoom outside his Chicago home, wearing a sweater on a brisk autumn morning after returning home from a tour. \u201cThat 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\u2019s like, \u2018Oh, let\u2019s pick back up, where did we leave off?\u2019\u201d<\/p>\n
More from Spin:<\/p>\n
Since forming Rise Against in Chicago\u2019s 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\u2019s written about have continued to worsen in America and abroad, McIlrath sees Rise Against as less a political band than a \u201cdystopian musical project,\u201d and many of the lyrics he wrote years ago sound remarkably prescient.<\/p>\n
\u201cGoing back to 1984<\/em>, Fahrenheit 451<\/em>, 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,\u201d the singer-guitarist says.<\/p>\n\n\n(Credit: Mynxii White)<\/p>\n<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n
Ricochet<\/em> was written before the 2024 election, but songs like \u201cGold Long Gone\u201d and \u201cDamage is Done\u201d resonate deeply with the parade of grim 2025 headlines. \u201cSometimes the things that we talk about end up sadly coming to fruition by the time an album actually finds its way to a release.\u201d McIlrath adds, with a self-deprecating laugh, \u201cI would love to have all these songs be irrelevant and I could go be unemployed and have the world be a perfect place.\u201d<\/p>\nRise 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\u2019s shared stages and radio playlists with the likes of Metallica. That\u2019s led Rise Against to turn down shows or opportunities that any other band at their level would eagerly agree to if they weren\u2019t comfortable with a sponsor, and the band remains aligned on those values. \u201cWhat I love about my band and the three guys and even our manager and our team is that we never sweated that shit,\u201d McIlrath says. \u201cHaving 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\u2019t limit us.\u201d<\/p>\n
McIlrath has become friends with one musician who\u2019s very familiar with those murky waters. \u201cI was just with Tom Morello last weekend at the Blackhawks game,\u201d McIlrath says. \u201cTom was talking about Rage Against the Machine fans, and splitting them into different categories\u2014the 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\u2014and just talking about how we need all those fans. We want all of them in the room together, they are all necessary.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\nRise Against\u2019s new album, Ricochet<\/em>.<\/p>\n<\/figcaption><\/figure>\nAs consistent as McIlrath\u2019s lyrical perspective has been over the last 25 years, he saw the tenth Rise Against album as an opportunity to experiment with the band\u2019s sound. \u201cMost 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?\u201d he says. \u201cIf you wanna change the meal, you gotta change the recipe.\u201d<\/p>\n
The majority of Rise Against\u2019s previous albums were produced by Bill Stevenson, the legendary Descendants and Black Flag drummer, at his studio the Blasting Room. For Ricochet<\/em>, however, Rise Against chose to work with someone new: Australian producer Catherine Marks, who\u2019s won Grammys for her work with boygenius and has a resume full of indie and alternative bands like Manchester Orchestra and Wolf Alice.<\/p>\n\u201cCatherine just stood out as someone that was I think so far removed from, like, a Rise Against world that it sounded exciting to us,\u201d McIlrath says. \u201cAnd she brought a female energy to the studio that\u2019s not often there. A little peek behind the curtain of Rise Against, 90% of our personnel is female\u2014our managers, agents, lawyers\u2014those are the people that have always kinda run our team. And that\u2019s been successful, so to recreate that dynamic in the studio was fun and felt pretty natural.\u201d<\/p>\n
McIlrath, drummer Brandon Barnes, guitarist Zach Blair, and bassist Joe Principe still play fast and loud for most of Ricochet<\/em>, but the album is more densely layered and musically varied than any previous Rise Against release, with McIlrath\u2019s voice woven into the guitars rather than shouting above them. Marks\u2019s mentor, veteran British producer Alan Moulder, mixed Ricochet<\/em>, and the subtle electronics on the title track recall his work with Nine Inch Nails and U2.<\/p>\nMcIlrath 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\u2019s songs. \u201cI came out of a punk and hardcore world, which almost by definition is an untrained world,\u201d he says. \u201cI didn\u2019t 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.\u201d<\/p>\n
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. \u201cFor 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, \u2018This is really fucking hard to do, and I don\u2019t know how I\u2019m gonna keep doing it,\u2019\u201d McIlrath admits. Now, he feels ready to sing any song in the Rise Against catalog and hit any note. \u201cI\u2019m actually a far more competent singer today than I\u2019ve ever been. It honestly changed my life.\u201d<\/p>\n
To see our running list of the top 100 greatest rock stars of all time, click here<\/a>.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n \u2018 The preceding article may include information circulated by third parties \u2019 <\/em><\/p>\n \u2018 Some details of this article were extracted from the following source www.yahoo.com \u2019 <\/em><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"\u201cAnd\u201d is the first word Rise Against frontman Tim McIlrath sings on \u201cNod,\u201d the opening track from Ricochet, released in August. It\u2019s also the first word he sings on the next song, \u201cI Want It All.\u201d But that wasn\u2019t a deliberate strategy, judging from McIlrath\u2019s surprise when I point it out. \u201cOh yeah, I didn\u2019t […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":2146785,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"om_disable_all_campaigns":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_access":"","_jetpack_dont_email_post_to_subs":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_tier_id":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paywalled_content":false,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"jnews-multi-image_gallery":[],"jnews_single_post":[],"jnews_primary_category":[],"jnews_social_meta":[],"footnotes":""},"categories":[25172],"tags":[410274,325576,410273],"class_list":["post-2146784","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-entertainment","tag-ricochet","tag-rise-against","tag-tim-mcilrath"],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"https:\/\/celebrity.land\/en\/wp-content\/uploads\/2025\/11\/Rise-Againsts-Musical-Dystopia.jpeg","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/celebrity.land\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2146784","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/celebrity.land\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/celebrity.land\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/celebrity.land\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/celebrity.land\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=2146784"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/celebrity.land\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2146784\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":2146786,"href":"https:\/\/celebrity.land\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2146784\/revisions\/2146786"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/celebrity.land\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/2146785"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/celebrity.land\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=2146784"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/celebrity.land\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=2146784"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/celebrity.land\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=2146784"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}