Rise Against Hope Their New Album, 'Wolves,' Is a Call to Action

Since forming in 1999, Chicago-based punk-hardcore kings Rise Against have always worn their liberal/leftist views proudly on their sleeves.

Anybody expecting the band to go quietly into the night in the wake of 2016’s bitterly divisive presidential election has another thing coming. If anything, the aptly named group is more energized than ever and is hell-bent on leading by example through its music.

“I think that in this post-election America, there are a lot of people like us who are still trying to process the grief and shock they feel,” says guitarist-vocalist Tim McIlrath.

“It just doesn’t go away overnight. You wake up and see racism, sexism and xenophobia gaining momentum. We all thought these things were put in cages a long time ago, and now we realize they’re not. So we’re still processing that grief and trying to come to terms with it all.”

For a time, McIlrath toyed with the idea of titling the band’s blistering new album after the song “Mourning in America,” but something about the sentiment didn’t seem to fit the spirit they wanted to convey. “It felt pessimistic, even defeatist,” he notes. “So then I thought, Let’s activate our community of fans. Let’s help make them feel excited to be a part of a resistance, to be the wolves at the gate trying to take back control. Because that’s what we are, and it’s what we have to do.”

Guitarist Zach Blair concurs that the new album title, Wolves, more aptly describes the band’s collective mindset and serves as a mission statement for their legion of fans: “It’s us telling people, ‘Yes, this sucks. Every-body’s bummed, but there is something we can do.’ The pie-in-the-sky idea is to take back the government. Get pissed. Get in the streets. Civil disobedience. Let’s swing