Interviews: Joe Principe (Rise Against)

Today we're bringing you the first of a three part interview with Rise Against. Earlier this year, Punknews.org spoke with both bassist Joe Principe and vocalist Tim McIlrath about their new album, The Sufferer & the Witness.

Over the course of about two hours and more than 15,000 words, Tim and Joe talked about everything from Black Flag to 88 Fingers Louie to life on a major label. The next installments will follow over the next few days.

You can click Read More for the first part.

It seems like the album came together really quickly.

Yes! It was insanely quick. We always write while we are on
tour so we had the ideas, it was just a matter of getting us in a
room to sit down and work it out.

I’ve always thought Rollins ruined Black Flag. I’m sure that’s going to get back to me at some point

This is your second album for a major label. Did you feel
kind of any, like I mean obviously for the first one
there’s a lot of pressure from your original fanbase and I
guess with the second one you have a little more room to do what
you want?

With the first one I think we were just a little nervous going
into it because it was new territory and after working with Fat
Mike it was a little bit - I mean he’s just
easy. Going into Geffen it was definitely a little bit
different although they still let us do what we want musically,
but we were just nervous because it was a new process.

And of course, between 88 Fingers Louie and Rise
Against, you’d been on indies for at least 10
years.

We were the fourth band to sign with Fat Wreck Chords for
7-inches. It was Lagwagon, Propagandhi, No Use For A Name, and
then us, which is crazy. And then we went to Hopeless for our
full length so we’re talking over 10 years ago. Probably
going on I’d say almost 12 years.

I have that first 7-0inch in a box somewhere I
think.

(laughing) So do I!

On the subject of the new record, there was a new fanbase
that came onboard after "Swing Life Away" broke. I
think a lot of your longtime fans heard the song on the
compilation before, but did you guys expect it to blow up the way
it did?

We didn’t really know. We actually didn’t
even think about it, but when we were recording Siren Song
of the Counter-Culture we didn’t really think about
putting it on the album and then people were telling us that it
was a great song and that we should consider putting it on our
album so that more people hear it because not everyone is going
to buy the Punk Goes Acoustic compilation.

We ended up just doing it and Tim reworked it a little bit and
we kind of didn’t think anything of it after that and then
we were a little hesitant about releasing it as a single for
obvious reasons because we were not a Dashboard Confessional kind
of band. Somehow with this band though different styles have
always worked so we think it worked out in our favor for
sure.

It wasn’t contrived or anything at least that. It
was definitely a Rise Against song.

I think part of the reason it felt more natural was because
you guys put it out on just some comp. at one point so it was
like, if this was a big calculated thing you guys probably
wouldn’t have put it on the comp., you know what I
mean?

Exactly. Or it would’ve been insane planning on our part
to do it three years in advance.

I have to tell you when you guys announced the signing I
was a little surprised. And don’t get me wrong, I thought
RPM was amazing and I was a huge backer of the band
for the longest time and that one really blew me away, but you
guys always seemed a little hard for a major label.

It’s weird because the whole major label world was a
world that we didn’t think about or didn’t feel that
we even had a place in it and then just one day I got a call from
this dude at DreamWorks and he was the head of A&R. I thought
someone was playing a joke on me?

So then it just started from there. He didn’t even say
he wanted to sign or meet us. He just told us who he was and that
he liked our band. That was it and it really caught me off guard.
It was literally the day after I got back from a European tour
that we did with the Mad Caddies. It was a Fat Wreck Chords tour
and just like you know, I wasn’t even in that frame of mind
at all with the major label thing. And then after he called more
and more people started calling us and we were touring and people
were coming out to our shows. It was a really strange
experience.

What were you really going for with the new album? It is a
dark, dark album and definitely not what you’d expect from
a band that had a hit acoustic song. You even went back to Bill
Stevenson, who is definitely more in tune with the independent
punk scene than GGGarth was.

No matter what label we’re on or what producer
we’re working with we’re always going to write
whatever our hearts are feeling at the time. It’s
definitely a per day kind of thing and that’s just kind of
the result of that and Bill will definitely help that, help our
sound more than say GGGarth. I wouldn’t say Garth hurt our
sound, but he didn’t quite understand what Rise Against was
about. When we’re writing songs or working on song
structures you can say "Hey Bill I want this part to be
like Depression from Black Flag" and he’s
going to know exactly what I’m talking about and with
GGGarth it was like "What? What do you want? I don’t
understand." It’s like Bill has the ability to take
Rise Against and just step it up a couple notches you know
so….

We work very well together for sure.

On that note, what was it like playing Black Flag in the
movie?

It was awesome. If there’s any movie we were going to be
a part of that, it was that one. When I got that call saying they
were doing a movie about Dogtown Skateboards and Tony Alva and
they wanted us to play Black Flag, it really was just a surreal
thing and it was great because when we filmed, Tony Alva was on
the set and Bill Stevenson was on vacation with his family in LA
so he came out to the set and it was just great, just fun to be a
part of.

Did you hear from Keith or Greg or anyone about it?

No I didn’t hear from them, but it’s funny because
the drummer that played on that 7 inch, the Nervous
Breakdown 7 inch, was this guy Brian Migdol. Our booking
agent was moving offices and he was one of the movers. And he was
talking to Corrie who’s our booking agent and he said
"You book Rise Against right? I used to play in Black Flag
I was in the Nervous Breakdown 7 inch and I’d really
like to meet those guys." Whoa! That’s crazy!

I really love that single I think that’s the defining
Black Flag moment. I know everyone goes with Rollins, but I think
that’s the defining one.

I’ve always thought Rollins ruined Black Flag. I’m
sure that’s going to get back to me at some point but I
really like Keith Morris, Chavo… Ron Reyes was my
favorite… the Jealous Again EP is by far my
favorite Black Flag EP.

The new album definitely has a consistent feel and
mood. Do you guys write albums or do you write songs and
pick the ones that you feel flow together?

We definitely write songs and musically we never try to go for
a theme on an album. It’s just like I said these songs are
written over the course of a year or two of touring. Even if it
means writing a verse or a little guitar riff, the ideas are
there throughout a long period of time and we’ll get
together for a couple months and hash out all the little
intricate parts.

It’s kind of weird because sometimes we’ll have
bits and pieces and sometimes I’ll have the whole song or
Tim has the whole song and then we kind of work out the little
nuances. But it’s not like we’re writing all of these
songs in a months’ time, you know.

You mentioned that you all bring stuff to the table because
there was definitely an evolution between say The
Unraveling and RPM and since then
you are writing more as a unit because everything like you are
writing together more?

Yeah. I think that is the case and I think we took a lot of
basic frameworks on Sufferer and the Witness and we really
made sure that the drums were accenting vocal things and guitar
parts were played just write at least to where we thought were
just right- not overplaying or underplaying. I guess as we grow
as a band we’re paying more attention to that you know, and
I think with my bass playing too over the course of since I
started when I was 15, I think I kind of tended to overplay in 88
Fingers Louie and I’ve since learned to only play when
needed if that makes sense.

Yeah, I know what you mean. 88 Fingers Louie was a pretty
technical band even though people probably didn’t think of
them that way you guys were all pretty intense musicians on that
one, at least on the records that I’ve got.

I think that was a result of me trying to be like Matt Freeman
from Rancid and Dan trying to be Lagwagon or something. You know,
and that’s fine because we learned from that.

You’ve been doing this for a while so how do you keep
staying out on the road for such long stretches of time? It tears
up a lot of bands and you’ve been doing it for a long
time.

I’m not going to lie, it’s hard. In our
personal lives we all have families and two of us are married and
two of us have daughters and it’s definitely hard as far as
that’s concerned. But, it’s also very rewarding to
see this band’s growth and to know that what we do has
meaning you know, and it’s kind of like- there’s two
parts that make up at least my life. My wife is one and this band
is the other, and without either or I’d be lost. So,
I think that kind of drives us to do what we do.

Warped Tour is a hard tour to do because you’re outside
everyday- it’s two months you know. Luckily we’ve
went through the hard part of it when we were playing the smaller
stages and you were wheeling your equipment through dirt fields
and that was hard to do, but it definitely gets easier when
you’re on the bigger stage.

You’ve been on the Warped Tour a number of times in
the past you’ve seen how things have changed over the years
where it’s not just about punk and hardcore anymore but
it’s about a lot of other things. What kind of reception do
you guys get?

Somehow you know over the last couple of years when
screamo’s gotten really big we’ve always seemed to
keep our head above water through it all, and a lot of punk bands
can’t say that. I don’t know we’re just
surviving through it for some reason and we’re really lucky
that the people who listen to From First to Last are going to
listen to and I don’t know why that is but I’m not
complaining.

I wouldn’t want this insane just blowup like Fall Out Boy is having. I mean I’m happy for those guys but it must be very stressful to be all of a sudden a double-platinum selling band.

I think kids still respond to good songs, regardless of how
it’s classified. My girlfriend’s not really a fan of
hardcore or punk, but she likes Rise Against.

We’re were sincere about what we do so I guess that
shines through the music…

You had Emily from Holy Roman Empire and Long Distance
Runner to sing, and I think that was the first time you guys had
a female vocalist. There’s a different sound and range that
you can get and I was just wondering if you guys have to think
differently when you write that kind of stuff?

No, they were existing ideas that we came up with. Bill came
up with the idea for a female to do the parts on those songs that
Emily is on.

Tim immediately said we had to get Emily. We used to share a
practice space with them and we’re really close with Holy
Roman Empire. Tony was our original drummer (he’s the
drummer for Holy Roman Empire). So it just made sense to get her
and it worked out really well. It is definitely a different
direction that we’ve taken as far as us in the past, but
it’s worked out.

It definitely makes it feel like a smaller world; Neil
Hennessy contributed to your last record, and now he’s
producing Holy Roman Empire’s demos. We were talking
when the Lawrence Arms came through the other day and we were
talking about Chicago.

It’s funny because it’s so big. Like Chicago is
insanely big, but the punk scene seems to be small. You know,
everyone knows each other. Glenn Porter who started out Alkaline
Trio with Matt Skiba was 88 Fingers Louie’s drummer.

I don’t know what it was like when 88 Fingers Louie
got started, but nowadays a lot of people have their eyes on
Chicago. And there are so many bands coming out of there that are
just blowing up. You know what I mean?

Without a doubt and Ryan’s Hope is great.

Thank You.

I was going to say that was great that you guys put out that
record and I’m glad that Dan produced it too. It’s
good to hear bands like that coming from Chicago you know.
They’re aggressive but they write great melodies.

If you guys ever want to take them on tour we
wouldn’t complain.

I’ll keep that in mind whenever we headline.

After you finish the next few months of tours are you
headed back to the studio?

No, you know we always like to leave a couple years in between
records so probably… I couldn’t even imagine when
we’d be back in the studio you know. We’ll at
least have a year and a half of touring….

Well it feels like the last album came out more recently
than it did because it was like 2004 so it’s been a few
years but, I guess because it took a while to really build to the
point where people outside of the scene that we live in started
talking about it. It felt like it was almost new again when the
single came out.

Yeah, it was a very slow and steady kind of growth. It was
like, just chugging along. And I kind of prefer that. I
wouldn’t want this insane just blowup like Fall Out Boy is
having. I mean I’m happy for those guys but it must be very
stressful to be all of a sudden a double-platinum selling band
you know?

So, we’ll see. I think with this next record it is a
step up from Siren Song so hopefully we just continue to
grow like we’ve been.