RC: Enough with the politics. Let's talk about the music. How would you describe the new album? Is there an underlying message?
TM: There is a cause and effect theme to this record. There are songs talking about how what we do here right now and the choices we make affect someone on the other side of the planet. There is also a crisis of faith theme on this record. What do we do when everything becomes too overwhelming to handle? When it's so much easier to just give in, why should we continue to fight?
RC: And what's the meaning behind the album's title, The Sufferer & The Witness?
TM: This ties in to the cause and effect theme. In the information age we live in today, we are allowed to watch the events of the world unfold almost in real-time. Many of these events are examples of suffering. Things like war, poverty, famine, the destruction of our environment and the species that inhabit it. We are bearing witness to this suffering. We are not blind offenders. We can no longer pretend it doesn't exist, because the technology we've created is bringing images of Darfur, Baghdad, the riots in Paris, and the slaughtering of animals right to your living room. You are now a witness. You can't close your eyes to it. What will you decide to do about it?
RC: I've heard a few tracks from the album, and they range from some faster hard stuff on "Chamber The Cartridge" to more melodic hardcore on "Ready To Fall", but it all seems a bit on the dark side. Are these pretty indicative of the sound on the whole album?
TM: I think they are. Now that I have a little distance from the record I can see the darker side to our writing. I'm not sure why that is, but our music has always been a reflection of our surrounding, and the world is admittedly a pretty dark place right now, perhaps darker than it was during our previous recordings.
RC: "Ready To Fall" is an interesting song. What's it about?
TM: It's about getting to the top and having nowhere to go but down. It's about the price you pay to follow your dreams.
RC: You spent a relatively long time putting this album together, spending 12 weeks in Colorado putting it together. How was that experience?
TM: F***ing beautiful. Perfect. We had such a great time. I don't even look back on it as "recording" or working in a studio, I look back on it as hanging out with friends creating something that has a piece of each of us in it. It was a great chaotic and spontaneous process for all of us. Bill [Stevenson] is a genius and so is Jason Livermore. Those guys are at the top of their game right now and they poured their blood, sweat and tears into this record.
It's so rare to find what we have found at The Blasting Room, and it means a lot to us.
RC: Do you think it helped you produce the album you wanted to release?
TM: Without a doubt. This record could not have been done anywhere else. If anyone else did this record, it simply would just not be as good as it is. Bill and Jason were instrumental with what we did as a band. They lit a fire under our asses and got the best performance out of each of us.
RC: What can we expect from you guys on the Warped Tour this summer? What's a Rise Against show like?
TM: Clowns and fire-breathers and strippers on poles and...
All kidding aside, you can expect four dudes who put their hearts into every song and play every show like it's our last. We don't do any fancy s**t, we just rock out and do our thing.
RC: This isn't your first time on the Warped Tour. What's the whole Warped Tour experience like, hitting the road with that many bands and being part of such a huge travelling event?
TM: It's a good f***ing time. For me, I'm a 27-year-old kid who's been granted this extension of my adolescence. I haven't worked a job in like four years and I've been touring the last six years of my life. It's a weird life that not a lot of people can relate to. Warped is where we go to feel normal. We hang out with people who do the same s**t we do. We tell stories, we share new music with each other, you make friends with bands you end up taking on tour. We have bonfires, poker games, and BBQs and there's a lot of dialogue. We learn a lot from each other, and I love being a part of that community.
RC: Any closing thoughts?
TM: Check our new video. It's the most important video of our career. Kevin Kerslake did it, he's f***ing amazing. It's a video that transcends all the petty bulls**t behind the music world and bands and scenes and scenesters and drama and soundscans and BillBoard charts. It's a video that is bigger than this band or any band and I hope the message isn't exclusive to people that like Rise Against, but instead is a message that resonates long after our band is dead and buried, but the issues we sing about aren't.
