I hope what it does too is that it reveals the songs in different ways to our fans.” “You sort of start backtracking toward the nucleus of the idea and then it really strips down and it reveals that this is what these lyrics are, this is how these parts change, these are the things that went into this song, even if it was subconscious, back then when we were making it.
But until you kind of strip it down to a guitar or a ukelele or a piano and do it that way, that’s when you find out what really went into a song,” explained McIlrath. You wrote it, you’ve been playing it for years and fans adopted it, made it their own. It’s the type of creative endeavor that gets to the heart of the group’s passionate, lyrically driven punk and hardcore songs. But adding the string arrangements that drive the current live set, and making all of it work within the confines of a cavernous venue like Chicago Theatre, was another thing entirely.
Stripping down familiar songs fans expect to hear a certain way for the record was one thing. So they’re getting to hear it in an entirely different way where the lyrics kind of come out more and the song comes out.” “Now, sort of dusting it off and allowing it to resurface in this new way, it’s being presented as almost like a new song for a lot of our fans. And I’m not sure how many of our fans ever made it to the last song on our first record, you know?” said McIlrath of a fanbase that’s grown immensely in the last two decades. “‘Faint Resemblance’ is the last track, the sixteenth track, off our first record that was released in 2001. Sunday night in Chicago over the course of 90 minutes, following a week of rehearsals, the group covered artists like No Use For a Name and dug deep in their catalog, exposing fans to some of their earliest studio output. At a capacity of 3,600, the venue provides the intimate experience this tour demands, a theme on this outing which resumes Wednesday and Thursday night at the historic Paramount Theatre in Denver before moving to the Theatre at Ace Hotel in Los Angeles Saturday. The French Baroque styled Chicago Theatre, a landmark, opened in 1921. We can’t just go out there and jump around the stage and scream into a microphone - those things won’t work. “It’s something really different for us after almost twenty years of touring and doing what we do. It’s a sit down place where a guy that’s dressed up pretty fancy sells you popcorn and wine, you know what I mean?” said McIlrath with a chuckle.
“Growing up here in Chicago, the Chicago Theatre is the type of place that’s reserved for more refined events. (Left to right) Joshua Bows (violin), Samantha Sidwell (cello) and John Grigsby (bass) on stage with. “The guys we were twenty years ago, I don’t think ever anticipated that the song we were writing was going to ever be played at the Chicago Theatre on a ukelele. We’ve always kind of been resistant of being a nostalgia act playing an old record or doing a themed record,” said McIlrath. Ghost Note Symphonies functioned as a way to begin a bit of a look back while still pushing the music forward. Last spring, Rise Against rejoined longtime producers Bill Stevenson (Descendents, Black Flag) and Jason Livermore, who helmed five Rise Against albums, in the studio in Colorado in an effort to rework tracks from their back catalog acoustically and with alternate instrumentation. I think this was a unique way to look back without trying to just kind of go over those well worn roads but instead add a new approach,” McIlrath said of the group’s latest release The Ghost Note Symphonies, Volume 1. “When you don’t look back, you kind of fail to grasp how long your band has been around. “I think I’m only grappling with how long we’ve been a band very recently in my life,” said Rise Against singer, songwriter and rhythm guitarist Tim McIlrath. While the desire to push things forward has been a constant for the group, staring down twenty years was reason for a rare moment of reflection.
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