Interview: Brandon Barnes of Rise Against - Page 3

No, I missed that - Rise against are not huge fans of Sarah Palin, but it doesn't suprise me that she would do that. She doesn't seem to be in control of a lot the things she does, she's had a lot of slips here and there.

So then you guys are probably excited about the change and the election of Obama as our new President?

Yeah, you know I'm excited about it. Obviously it's cool to elect a president who's just not a rich old white guy. That says a lot for America that we can vote for someone like Obama. I think we're showing a lot of the world that's disgusted by the Afghanistan/Iraq war that we're trying to at least go into a new direction, and try to change some of the things we did wrong in the last eight years. From that standpoint I think it's great. Makes me feel good to be an American again.

And I think Barack Obama seems like a real sharp guy, he seems like he has great ideas - but he has a huge challenge ahead of him. And when he becomes President, we'll still be in Iraq. I hope that he really does some of the things he said he was going to do with healthcare, I hope he tries to end this war, I hope he really does what he said he is gonna do. We don't know if he is going to, but we'll see. But I have hope.

That is what's important, he brought hope to a lot of people. We have hope instead of the hell we've been through the past eight years.

Exactly.

Let's talk about the new album, Appeal to Reason. This is the highest charting album for Rise Against, it debuted #3 on Billboard - How to you feel about that?

Overwhelming, pretty much for all of us. We were all surprised. None of us really expect to have results like that. I mean we just started out as a punk band in a van. So, the fact that we've toured all these years and it's come to this, I think we're all pretty overwhelmed and happy.

What was it like rising to fame?

It's been such a slow process, because we didn't just get a record deal and hope into a bus like a lot of these bands today. Yeah, it was really gradual and I think we've done it the right way. We're not trying to get too big, we're not trying to be this huge arena rock band. We still play shows that are intimate and fun where we can still involve the crowd and have fun. We're still not changing our music, so many bands comprimise their message or music - We've worked really hard to do what we do and do it right. It's been comfortable, over eight years we've gotten bigger and bigger.

Article Author: Zaldor

Visit Zaldor's author page — Zaldor's Blog