Tim McIlrath Breaks Down Rise Against’s Nowhere Generation II EP Track by Track: Exclusive
- Oops!Something went wrong.Please try again later.
The post Tim McIlrath Breaks Down Rise Against’s Nowhere Generation II EP Track by Track: Exclusive appeared first on Consequence.
Our feature series Track by Track allows artists to run through every song on their newest release. In this latest edition, Rise Against frontman Tim McIlrath dissects the band’s surprise new EP, Nowhere Generation II.
Rise Against surprise-released the new EP Nowhere Generation II this past Friday (June 10th), featuring five new songs not included on last year’s full-length album, Nowhere Generation. In an exclusive for Consequence, frontman Tim McIlrath breaks down the EP track by track.
The new EP comes ahead of Rise Against’s headlining North American summer tour, also featuring The Used and Senses Fail. The outing kicks off July 15th in Las Vegas, and runs through an August 8th show in Norfork, Virginia. Tickets are currently available via Ticketmaster.
Regarding the decision to release these five new songs as separate EP, McIlrath explained, “We’d written 16 songs for [Nowhere Generation] and then we decided to break them apart. Not only could the music get lost, but the message could get lost in asking people to listen to this all at once. I think this is, hopefully, a more effective way to give these issues the platform and the spotlight that they rightly deserve. We wanted to hold onto these and give them to our fans when we feel like they’ve had time to properly digest this first batch, so these songs were the aces up our sleeves.”
Vinyl copies of Nowhere Generation II are available for pre-order via the Rise Against webstore, Amazon or Bandcamp. Stream the entire EP and check out Tim McIlrath’s track-by-track breakdown below.
“The Answer”
“The Answer” starts with an audio sample from a Major League Baseball game. A well-known pitcher had recently seen old tweets surface where he had used racial epithets and homophobic slurs before he was a pro. The tweets were released while he was at an away game, the All-Star Game in fact. When he returned to his hometown stadium after the incident; the crowd gave him a standing ovation. What you hear at the beginning of that sample is audio of that awful ovation, or America at its very worst. The crowd made the story about them, not the pitcher. The song is about how ignoring this sort of groupthink is not the answer. The mix by the brilliant Jason Livermore really brought this song to life.
“Last Man Standing”
From the moment Joe [Principe] started playing this bass line I was pretty much singing the vocal line that you hear. The off-time riff in the beginning of the verse and in the bridge makes the song interesting. I filled in the lyrics in later, and it became another anthem about committing to a cause or a person. It’s about focusing on what comes after the fray and resolving to still be standing after the storm. Some of the lines became weirdly prescient, since they were written pre-COVID: “Today the world looks like a broken toy, once capable of endless joy.”
“This Time It’s Personal”
I grew up on a lot of angular post-hardcore stuff, like Kerosene 454 or Fugazi. This intro riff reminds me of that era, with the same vibe coming back at the bridge. My original demo of this song sounds very similar to the final version. The bass line in the verse is a highlight of this song, and Brandon [Barnes’] drums are so powerful as usual. The pre-chorus has big rock vibes with the chorus feeling like a comet entering the atmosphere. This song is about the difficulty in knowing what to let roll off your back, and what to take serious issue with. It’s about knowing when to chase something and when to let something go. The chase can be inspiring, or devastating.
“Pain Mgmt”
Joe brought this riff in, and it was great from the start. It had a triumphant marching vibe, and the lyrics took on a dark overtone about trying to save someone. Sometimes, despite all our efforts, nothing we can do is enough, and we must reconcile that it might not be in our power to save everyone. It’s important to not beat yourself up for something beyond your ability. This song is about trying to leave the light on for someone who needs to find their way in from the dark, despite knowing you can’t always coax them out of their hiding place.
“Holding Patterns”
This has a throwback quick and dirty punk vibe for Rise. This is the kind of song that sounds best when produced by the guys like our guru/mentor Bill Stevenson at The Blasting Room. This song is about finding your allies in the world and trying to hold on to them despite the forces that might try to tear you apart. Sometimes all we have is each other, and we are lucky when we meet people that help us put one foot in front of the other every day.
Tim McIlrath Breaks Down Rise Against’s Nowhere Generation II EP Track by Track: Exclusive
Spencer Kaufman
Popular Posts
Britney Spears' Ex-Husband Crashed Her Wedding, Promptly Tackled by Security
Ozzy Osbourne to Undergo Surgery That Will "Determine the Rest of His Life"
Justin Bieber Diagnosed with Rare Disorder Causing Facial Paralysis
Why Kelly McGillis Isn't in Top Gun: Maverick: "I'm Old and I'm Fat, and I Look Age-Appropriate"
David Koechner Arrested for DUI for Second Time in Six Months
