“What they were doing on guitars was just crazy. It was like a whole different language”: The guitarist that blows Rise Against’s Tim McIlrath away
Rise Against have revealed their favourite hardcore guitarists, and Tim McIlrath feels there’s one player in particular who broke the mould for punk guitarists to expand further than simply playing “a bunch of power chords”.
The band released a new single, titled Nod, back in January. It follows their 2021 record, Nowhere Generation, and is about “the solace we find in community”. With that in mind, McIlrath and bandmate Zach Blair recently sat down with Guitar.com to discuss their most-loved punk players, with McIlrath revealing his admiration of Ian Mackaye.
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“One of the first classic punk guitar players that I identified with would be Ian Mackaye, and not just his work in Minor Threat,” he says. “Minor Threat was important, but it was Ian’s work with Fugazi that was so adventurous and like, so crazy and cool. It took from his roots in punk, but then in interviews he said he was really into a lot of Jimi Hendrix and that kind of thing too.
“What they were doing on guitars was just crazy,” he adds. “It was like a whole different language, especially between him and Guy [Picciotto]. Even listening to this stuff today, what they were doing was so adventurous for a time when punk could be very dogmatic, and it was probably a little bit more rebellious to not just play a bunch of power chords from a guy who, like, started with a DC hardcore sound. His guitar playing is something that’s always kind of blown me away.”
Another guitarist highlighted by McIlrath is Jade Puget of AFI: “I was gonna switch to contemporary guitarists, people that we’ve toured with that have really impressed me as guitar players. We spent a lot of our early years with AFI and I think [with] Jade Puget, I don’t like to call him underrated, but I would like to see his name in more conversations about guitar players. He’s really an incredible player, and what he does in AFI, especially as a player in a one-guitar band, is pretty incredible, actually,” he explains.
You can catch Rise Against on tour this month with Papa Roach. Nod lands on 12 April.
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Source: www.guitar-bass.net
