Hardcore punk band Rise Against will be shouting their views in Auckland soon, but they're not quite what you'd expect, writes Scott Kara.
There's a legendary concert venue in Tim McIlrath's hometown of Chicago called the Aragon Ballroom. It was here he saw some of his "hero bands" for the first time, like Fugazi ("Their shows were always really moving") and Nirvana back in 1993.
And these days it's the place his band Rise Against play. "So I get pretty nostalgic thinking back to the bands I saw play there," says McIlrath on the phone from St Louis, ahead of the band's show at Auckland's Logan Campbell Centre tonight. "And it's always special returning home. We owe a lot to the city - that's where it all started."
It's 10 years since they released their first album; since then they have become one of the biggest hardcore punk bands around - and will support the Foo Fighters on a leg of the band's US tour later this year.
That has a lot to do with the fact they are on the more melodic - rather than ear-splitting - side of the genre, but also because of their prolific output, having released six albums in that decade, and their relentless tour schedule.
"It's no-frills punk rock. We get in the room together, with no real ideas, we plug in our guitars and say, 'What have you got?'. Two months later we've got a record and then we hit the road and play those songs for as many people as we can around the world."
Over the years their sound has become increasingly polished, while still remaining staunch to their hardcore roots.
Another constant is the band's political agitating and on sixth album Endgame they show once again that they're not afraid to speak their minds - or in McIlrath's words: "To provoke some thought and challenge preconceptions."
For example, Make It Stop (September's Children) is an emotional anthem which ends with a roll call of teenagers who killed themselves during a spate of gay suicides last year in the US.
"A song like that came out of this need to make a statement about the rampant homophobia, not just in America but in the rock scene that a band like Rise Against lives in. It's a very male-dominated, testosterone driven scene and it seemed like not enough bands of our ilk were talking about it."
Staunch stuff from an unassuming white boy who grew up in a "sheltered" Chicago suburb in an all-American family. It was when he started getting into music, reading books like 1984 and Brave New World, and "skating instead of playing football", that he rebelled and his progressive political beliefs strengthened.
And in the other members of Rise Against he found some like-minded musicians: the band are also straight-edge (except drummer Brandon Barnes) and vegan ("But my kids will be conservative Republicans who eat a lot of meat," jokes McIlrath.").
And while he doesn't want to ram his messages down your throat he does want to "slap you across the face". "Kids are hungry for music that asks some of the same questions they are asking. I'm not saying I have the answers, because I don't, but I'm at least going to ask the hard questions.
"And I look at these songs with the pretence that we're in a generation with attention deficit disorder. We all want it now, we all want to hear it right now, and so I want to be able to grab a listener and immediately communicate my thoughts effectively. I want these songs to be a bucket of cold water."
LOWDOWN
Who: Rise Against
What: Melodic hardcore punk out of Chicago
Where & when: Logan Campbell Centre, tonight
Latest album: Endgame, out now
