For over 20 years, Tim McIlrath has been the unflinching, compassionate voice behind Rise Against. It’s hard to overstate the Chicago punks’ importance as the torchbearers of politically-charged music – here is a band who’ve addressed everything from climate change to gay teenage suicide on record. Despite this rich legacy, Tim McIlrath was not born a firebrand. Raised in an Irish Catholic family, he grew up in the suburbs of Chicago. It was, in his words, “Pleasantville”. He wore a uniform to school until he was 14, his idyllic days punctuated with games. Today he is all too aware of the real Chicago he was shielded from. “The violence is sad, the segregation is sad,” he reflects. “There’s a disconnection. Something like the murder rates of Baghdad exi...