Rise Against released the live EP Nowhere Sessions on November 12, 2021, through Loma Vista Recordings. The six-song collection revisited material from Nowhere Generation in a live studio setting, adding two covers and an older Rise Against song. “Talking To Ourselves” opened the EP and had introduced it as the first preview in October.
Singer and guitarist Tim McIlrath wanted to capture the changes that happened when the band returned to its songs. “In some ways, every time we play it is different,” he said in Universal Music Canada’s announcement. He described the session as a chance to document one version of music that kept evolving through performance.
That made “Talking To Ourselves” a pointed opener. In a June 2021 interview with Kerrang!, McIlrath connected the song to his frustration when a band’s message becomes background entertainment. Playing to people who noticed the anger but ignored its purpose could leave him questioning what the performance was accomplishing. “This is supposed to be something more,” he said. The concern was about reaching people, especially when Rise Against found themselves the lone punk band on a large festival bill.
“Nowhere Generation” began with an audience in mind, too. McIlrath imagined fans singing it together and wanted to speak for people struggling against circumstances stacked against them. Some of its music dated to the Wolves period. “Broken Dreams, Inc.,” the third song from the studio album included on the EP, had been harder to finish vocally. McIlrath recalled that an image of a barricade helped him find its direction; the song was written before the protests of 2020.
The covers gave the compact set room to move beyond the band’s own writing. Rise Against tackled Creedence Clearwater Revival’s “Fortunate Son” and Misfits’ “Hybrid Moments,” with both performances running under two minutes. Those were the EP’s shortest tracks, set among songs from the band’s ninth studio album. The closing “Savior” reached further back into their catalog, revisiting a song first released in 2008. At just over four minutes, it was the longest performance on the release.
The Nowhere Generation material continued to emerge in another form in 2022, when Rise Against released Nowhere Generation II. That five-song EP contained studio recordings made alongside the original album. McIlrath explained in Concord’s release announcement that the band had written 16 songs and divided them so listeners could spend time with the first group before taking on the rest. Nowhere Sessions had revisited the songs through performance; Nowhere Generation II released the five additional songs held back from those album sessions.
