Chicago punk quartet Rise Against just dropped two new tracks, “Katy Bar The Door” and “Living Undercover”.More than 25 years into the band’s run, both songs carry the same restless energy that’s defined its catalog from the start.
“Katy Bar The Door” borrows its title from an old-fashioned phrase warning that trouble’s on the way and there’s no stopping what comes next.
“I don’t know where I came across this expression, but I immediately was taken with it,” says Rise Against vocalist Tim McIlrath. “While an obscure reference now… I liked the idea of resurrecting it for this song, and that it sort of fits what it feels like to be alive in 2026.”
McIlrath wrote the track in the wake of some of the harshest ICE raids to hit Minneapolis, framing the moment as one chapter in a much longer pattern of unchecked power.
“This is not the first time in history we have reckoned with abuses of power,” McIlrath says. “Bearing witness to the fragility of democracy is a scary thing, and it demands a response.”
“Living Undercover,” meanwhile, digs into the stuff people hide out in the open.
“Sometimes it’s because we’re building something beautiful behind the curtain, other times we’re hiding some kind of darkness,” McIlrath adds. “I like the cloak and dagger feel of the song that ties into its central theme.”
Both tracks came together at The Blasting Room, a studio the band has leaned on for years.
“The studio there is a home away from home, and we know those rooms like the back of our hands,” McIlrath adds. “It’d been a while since we worked at the studio, and it was good to be under their roof again.”
The new music lands right on the heels of Rise Against‘s newly announced headlining fall tour of the U.S., with Alkaline Trio along for support. The run kicks off Sept. 22 in Dallas at South Side Ballroom, with stops planned in New York City, Philadelphia, Raleigh, N.C., Phoenix, Milwaukee, Las Vegas, Salt Lake City, San Francisco and more. Right now, though, the band is overseas, opening for Jimmy Eat World on a U.K. run.
Photo credit: Mynxii White
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