Maybe a political punk band can’t necessarily change the world. But the members of Rise Against believe that it can still make a difference.
“Even if we’re saying that music can’t cause mass changes or a major difference, maybe it causes one person to go out and register to vote that day,” said guitarist Zach Blair. “That is our small part and it’s definitely worth something. Given the influences that we all grew up with, all those early hardcore and thrash bands, the politics were always intrinsic. These were disenfranchised kids so when they had a chance to create, they were going to talk about what was important to them. So even if it made a difference or not, our band would be talking about the same things. I don’t think there’s a reality where we’d talk about partying.”
Thanks to Tim McIlrath’s resonant songwriting and Blair’s guitar heroics, Rise Against have maintained their punk cred while scoring platinum albums and hit singles including “Savior” and “Satellite.” But their current tour is a little different. They’re going back to the clubs (albeit larger ones like Roadrunner, where they play on Thursday) with a deep-catalog setlist. “We’re at a crossroads right now, our next album is recorded but it won’t be out for awhile. So we thought it would be fun to do an off-cycle tour, playing some deep cuts and some that we’ve never played live. We have three setlists that we’re alternating, and ‘Savior’ is the only song on all of them.”
That new album should be a surprise. Instead of their usual producer (punk veteran Bill Stevenson), they’ve worked with Catherine Marks of Boygenius and Manchester Orchestra fame “We did want to create this one with someone who was outside our usual wheelhouse. She’s worked with great bands and won a bunch of Grammys. During recording we’d reference things that were completely new to her, like we’d name a Black Flag song and she’d have no idea. So it came out as Rise Against through a slightly skewed lens — I mean, you can still tell it’s us the minute Tim opens his mouth, so I can’t sell it as a big departure. We’re lucky in that we have a discernible sound and I think that’s all that anyone’s ever looking for, their own signature.”
Though he cut his teeth on punk and thrash, Blair’s musical roots go back a little further: His dad was a classic rock DJ and diehard music fan.”You can’t overstate the influence that had on me. My parents were a DJ and a florist, so there wasn’t much money and we lived in the same apartment complex my whole life. But he got to bring home vinyl and that’s what we did every Sunday, we’d listen together and he’d quiz me and my brother on these useless factoids of knowledge. I grew up knowing that the original bass player of the Eagles used to be in Poco.”
And the influence runs even deeper, because Blair’s parents named him after the obscure rock cult movie “Zachariah.” “Yeah, my parents were pot-smoking, drug-taking hippies, and I was named after a hippie B-movie Western. To this day I collect different versions of it — Don’t you love that first scene where Joe Walsh and the James Gang are playing out in the desert? I’ve become a little obsessed with that movie, and I guess I’ve got to be.”
