Rise Against’s Tim McIlrath Discusses Band’s 10th Studio Album

On Aug. 15, Rise Against will celebrate the release of their 10th studio album, Ricochet. Ahead of that, frontman Tim McIlrath joined Loudwire Nights on Tuesday (June 10) to dive into it.

Listen to the full conversation in the player near the end of this article.

“We’ve worked on it for awhile now, just putting a lot of finishing touches,” McIlrath explained to host Chuck Armstrong.

“We’re just really eager to get it out, finally, to people. I’m really bad at paying attention to the anniversaries or the numbers and how many years you’ve been around. I don’t think about that. I just kind of work on the next thing and I’m just kind of in that moment, in that tour, that show, that song, whatever. When we sat down to do this one, somebody mentioned this is your 10th record.”

For some reason, when McIlrath heard that, he paid attention to the significance of Rise Against hitting that milestone.

“That’s a 10th record, we’ve done 10 albums,” he said.

“With that came a lot of reflection and perspective and also a lot of license to sort of do whatever we want to do, you know what I mean? There’s something about a 10th record that I feel like we gave ourselves permission to just be like, alright, we’ve really ticked a lot of boxes and accomplished a lot of what we set out to do and really made our name and now we can just be open to whatever’s coming next.”

McIlrath said it’s felt like Rise Against have spent a lot of time “in the trenches” as they’ve built up their reputation over the years, but with Ricochet, there’s some relief.

“There was a bit of a ‘mission accomplished’ going into this record. We did that and that feels good and now we’re ready for this next chapter of Rise Against.”

Why Tim McIlrath Has Always Had Respect For Black Sabbath

Though McIlrath has always been open about the influence of punk rock on him as an artist and on the direction of Rise Against, he opened up on Loudwire Nights about the importance of Black Sabbath and Ozzy Osbourne, too.

“There’s a lot of respect for Sabbath in the punk scene,” he shared.

“[They’re] the godfathers of that kind of music, that music that wasn’t going to be everybody’s cup of tea, that was polarizing when it came out.”

He said in punk rock, there is no shortage of bands that explore dark imagery — but there was no band that did it like Sabbath.

“[They were] revolutionary to do that,” McIlrath admitted.

“And those players, I mean, Bill Ward might be the greatest drummer. Those recordings are so analog and they stand the test of time.”

And McIlrath’s respect doesn’t end with Sabbath.

READ MORE: Volbeat’s Michael Poulsen Says New Album ‘Felt Like Starting All Over Again’

“I loved Ozzy’s later, more popular stuff,” he said.

“When I go back to those songs, those are amazing rock songs. He was an incredible vocalist. Trust me, there was a lot of internal, agonizing debate in the Rise Against camp when [Back to the Beginning] was announced, because we were like, ‘Are we getting on planes?’ We know we’re not playing it, but do we have to go? We have to go.”

What Else Did Rise Against’s Tim McIlrath Discuss on Loudwire Nights?

• Why it’s easy to feel worn out writing and performing music that has a social message: “I think it’s normal to feel any sort of burnout when you are involved in art as resistance or activism…those are lessons that you have to kind of figure out as a young person. We came out of the gate with very urgent calls to action and then you realize the world’s not going to change overnight because you played a punk show in Kansas City, you know what I mean? You sort of realign a bit.”
• Why he sometimes views his band like a “teacher”: “Every year somebody’s turning 14, 15, 16 and putting their pop records down and picking up something heavier and coming to their first punk show, their first hardcore show … I think of our band as sort of the teacher teaching the freshman class, but every single year that incoming freshman class changes, it’s different. It’s new. We can’t get jaded.”
• What it was like going out on the road with Papa Roach for the Rise of the Roach tour: “I have to be 100-percent honest with you. That was one of my favorite tours that I think we’ve done. I didn’t know what to expect. Papa Roach is just a band that we’ve sort of crossed paths with peripherally over the last 20 years — festivals, shows, whatever. [They’re] always the nicest guys at the show and that was the case here.”

Listen to the Full Interview in the Podcast Player Below

Tim McIlrath joined Loudwire Nights on Tuesday, June 10; the show replays online here, and you can tune in live every weeknight at 7PM ET or on the Loudwire app; you can also see if the show is available on your local radio station and listen to interviews on-demand.