Always embraced by Australian crowds, Chicago punks Rise Against will once again sweat it out here this summer. FasterLouder caught up with bassist and co-founding member Joe Principe to talk Big Day Out and not “fitting in”.
Being Chicago locals, you’ve probably seen a bit of a rise in the city’s profile over the past few months, one of the most notable being the election of a local into the White House. Has this caused any strange situations amongst yourself and the fans you meet?
One of the first questions we get from anyone is, “were we at the election victory speech at Grant Park?” And we were not there. It’s cool though, and it’s a bit of a shock as well.
Funnily enough, when we had our bid for the [2016] Olympics and they were playing these videos to showcase each city, one of the quick scenes of the ‘Chicago Olympic Bid’ video was us playing at Lollapalooza. And I was getting emails from my family members saying, “You guys gotta check out the video online cause you can check out Zack onstage!”
I think that officially makes you the musical ambassadors of Chicago.
Most definitely.
Another area you endorse strongly is both animal and human rights. How important is delivering this message when you both tour and record?
I guess we’ve really worked hard at making sure that everything that we do is animal-safe and sweatshop free. Even with Vans, because we’re going to have a new Vans shoe out next year, we wanted to make sure that the production for some of these was all on the level. So we had to acquire all these certificates from all these companies and then, you have to read all the rules and individually look into it to make sure they’re following the rules they’re meant to be following.
It’s difficult. But as a band, we wanted to see it through, because it would seem very hypocritical if we found out that our shirts were being made in a sweatshop. It’s important, like, we all became vegetarians for the same reason, yet we all did it at different times. We don’t want to foresee that on anyone but it’s important for people to hear what we’re saying on-stage.
We always want people to make up their own minds. But we seem to get a lot of emails of kids saying they went vegetarian because of us and have turned them to a lot of the issues. I think it’s great that people are listening. It’s more than we ever hoped for when we started the band.
There are sections of the punk community who believe that playing places like the Big Day Out and Sydney’s Hordern Pavilion, which you have sold out in the past, are not the haunts of a – œtrue’ punk band. What say you to the calls of keeping things small and sweaty?
I think that when any band grows, you go through growing pains. It’s difficult to, as a band, to accept a band getting more popular. When I was growing up I wanted Bad Religion all to myself. But they obviously have more fans than me. When they played big venues, I’d be bummed. But I’d also be stoked that this many people had great taste in music.
It has its pros and cons. It’s tough for us, because we love the atmosphere of a small punk rock show. We’re having our tenth anniversary show in Chicago in two weeks and we purposely chose a smaller venue, just to get back that feeling of intimacy. But at the same time, we couldn’t tour like that, y’know, four months straight, playing small venues multiple times. It’s bittersweet.
Would you extend that same bittersweet emotional response to being signed to a major label, Geffen, a subsidiary of Universal, a move some would call traditionally “selling out”?
I mean, there will always be those kids talking shit. But what people don’t realise is that we will always be this strange punk rock band submerged in the mainstream music world which we don’t belong, but somehow we manage to be successful.
What those kids don’t realise is that the songs we’re writing: no-one’s telling us what kind of songs to write. We’ve never demoed for a label. The records would have been the same had we been on Fat Records, Geffen, Interscope, whatever. It’s 100% Rise Against. Where they should really take notice is that we are utilising the label’s money to make videos like Prayer of the Refugee and Ready to Fall and do some good, expose some issues that need to be fixed. I really do hope the naysayers take a look at that. I think we do put our money where our mouth is.
Well, certainly, especially in comparison to – yet again not to name names – one certain band who endorses the fight against human struggles worldwide, only to later spend millions on their stadium-sized stages.
[Laughs] I do know who you’re talking about!
It’s kind of like, does a person who fronts a band like that, are they doing it because it’s making themselves this kind of icon or are they doing it for sincere reasons? I know he’s done some good but he’s losing sight, maybe, and kind of taken the high road, if you will.
It’s all a fine line though.
The bigger we get, the more we have to stay grounded, somehow. Whether that’s listening to our influences like Minor Threat and realising we come from this place, let’s never lose sight of that. Or to look out at our audience and go, “This is why we’re here. Let’s not ever be insincere to them.” We give this 100% or we break up.
On the brighter side of being in the mainstream world is playing at festivals like the Big Day Out, where you are touring with the likes of Muse, Groove Armada and Lily Allen [Joe breaks out a short, shocked laugh at this news]. How do you feel bringing your music into such a varied environment?
I think it’s amazing! Bills like that where we probably don’t have a place on a bill like that. But the fact that we can do that, and be ourselves, be Rise Against on a bill with Lily Allen. I think that’s just amazing. It feels like a personal win for us the fact that we can infiltrate this festival and be like, “Alright, fuck you guys, we’re here, and we’re doing our own thing and we’re not going to conform to this mainstream music world.”
And that’s not slagging the Big Day Out festival, but just slagging music in today’s society as a whole, where we just don’t really fit in.
Rise Against play the Big Day Out circuit around the country, plus sideshows in Sydney and Melbourne.
Sunday January 17th – Gold Coast Parklands
Tuesday January 19th – The Enmore Theatre, Sydney
Friday January 22nd – Sydney Showground
Sunday January 24th – The Hi-Fi, Melbourne
Tuesday January 26th – Melbourne Flemington Racecourse
Friday January 29th – Adelaide Showground
Sunday January 31st – Perth Claremont Showground
to listen to their music now on 