It’s been decades since Tim had his life transformed by punk, growing his hair long and skateboarding the streets to the strains of Black Flag. This image is still the source of great laugher in the McIlrath household.
“My kids are pretty intimately familiar with my adolescence, whether my wife has told them or my mom, they love poking fun at me about all the trouble I got into as a kid, and it was fun! I’ll just say that…”
How does someone who jumped in a tour van at a young age give his kids practical advice on what to grow up to be? It’s not a question K! asks, mind. It’s one Tim poses to himself.
“I don’t have a real foot to stand on,” he laughs. “There’s so many times I’m talking to my kids where it ends with, ‘Don’t make the same mistakes I did!’ And I wouldn’t have it any other way, but I didn’t take school very seriously, and I wish I had. I think it would have enhanced everything that I ever would have done, and I want them to take it seriously. And, I mean, shit, Rise Against was such a precarious bridge we were trying to cross with no safety net. The young men of Rise Against? Nobody in that van had a good back-up plan (laughs). We were all or nothing, and it was kind of beautiful and innocent in that way. Because we had no reason to believe that it would be successful. I get anxiety thinking about the shit that we did like, ‘How fucking irresponsible is it to think that I could do that!’ If I tell my kids anything, it’s like, ‘Whatever you’re into, follow it – trust that itch, because that itch you have at 16 years old might be the same itch you're scratching at 42.’”
The outcome of his own personal itch still astounds him to this day.
“We shouldn’t even be still be here, you know what I mean?” he says. “Culture should have already pushed us out the door – every record, they should have done that. And so the fact that we’re still here is beating the odds. There’s the new hot thing every year. I mean, why is the band assigned to Fat Wreck in 2001 still here? The hope is if you write good enough songs, and you stay true to yourself and protect your legacy, then you’re good.”
And this is how, as a 42-year-old, Tim McIlrath hopes to ensure that Nowhere Generation actually connects with the real Nowhere Generation and more beyond that. The plan is to stick to the plan…
“When I get done with this interview, I’m going to do the same thing today that I was doing when I was 16 years old.”
Which is?
“I’m going to walk into the next room, I’m going to pick up a guitar, turn it on and start playing it real loud until I get a song. And that’s my life at 42. And that was my life in my parents’ basement, too, getting home from school and doing the exact same thing.”
Tim McIlrath has everything he wants. He’s got his family, his dogs, his band, 17 college credits and, lest we forget, his very own version of a yacht.
Rise Against's Nowhere Generation is released on June 14 via Loma Vista. Pre-order/pre-save your copy now.
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