Rise Against on playing Lollapalooza: It's been a crazy ride'

It's curious, sometimes, how tastes change. When Joe Principe was first working to put together the band that would become Rise Against, about 10 years ago, there weren't many groups that mixed fast-paced hard rock with just a tinge of melody, not in the Northwest suburbs of Chicago. Instead, the music scene tended to be dominated either by melodic metal bands comfortable with the status quo or uncompromising thrash-metal or industrial bands with a nihilistic agenda.

"When we started, there really wasn't a lot of music that sounded like our nod to Minor Threat," he recalled. Yet, Ian MacKaye's seminal hardcore band, like the Clash before them, has since been picked up as a touchstone by a new generation, and Rise Against has ridden those shifting tastes to the top of the charts.

It's one of rock's persistent ironies that an uncompromising approach to the past frequently finds a vast new audience in the future - it's something Nirvana's Kurt Cobain never came to grips with - and that's certainly how it worked out with Principe after he teamed up with lead singer, lyricist and rhythm guitarist Tim McIlrath, who was playing with a group called Baxter while Principe was in 88 Fingers Louie.

"I saw his old band at a VFW hall in Arlington Heights. That's the scene we grew up in. And I remember thinking, 'My God,'" Principe said, on the road from a recent tour stop in Buffalo, N.Y. "When we started, I was looking for a singer who could sing and scream. I wanted melody in the vocals. And when I saw Baxter play I thought, 'He sounds a lot like Ian from Minor Threat.' Ian would scream, but he always had a pitch to his scream. So I thought this would be good, it'd be perfect, and it worked out."

Did it ever. Soon augmented by drummer Brandon Barnes and a series of other players leading to lead guitarist Zach Blair, the band took an approach that not only fit the group's uncompromising, confrontational, straightedge subject matter - although Principe likes to say it's not a political band, but a committed one - but enabled them to glide to a wider audience.

Rise Against is one of the rare anti-establishment bands to thrive as a major-label act. Their most recent studio albums have all gone gold, including last year's "Appeal to Reason," and their audience has reached the point where they're the top local act among the 100-plus playing Lollapalooza this weekend.

"It's a real honor to be asked to play one of the biggest festivals - in the world, really," Principe said. "It's definitely the biggest thing we've done in Chicago."

It's a fitting homecoming. McIlrath grew up in Arlington Heights and has now settled in Chicago, while Principe grew up in Melrose Park and still lives in Woodridge.

Along the way, while creating their own musical mix of anti-militarism, anti-drugs, animal rights and vegetarianism, over relentless hard rock, they've paid homage to the groups that led the way, for instance just touring with Rancid.

"It's been a crazy ride," Principe said. "I've met every one of my influences that I grew up listening to, and it's been a real honor. ... It's pretty surreal, you know?"

Now they find themselves using their hard-core punk to hold down the penultimate slot on one of the top Lollapalooza stages Saturday night. "There's not a whole lot of punk-rock bands at Lollapalooza, to be honest. So I think we're going to stand out for sure. But we're ready," he insisted. "Hopefully, the Tool fans don't kill us."

Rise Against at Lollapalooza

When: 6:30 p.m., Saturday, Aug. 8

Where: Chicago 2016 stage, Grant Park, Chicago

Tickets: $80 a day, available at lollapalooza.com