Make It Stop (September's Children)

On September 22, 2010 Tyler Clementi jumped to his death from the George Washington Bridge. An 18-year-old student at Rutgers University in Piscataway Township, New Jersey, he was provoked into his tragic act after his sexual encounter with a man in his dorm room was video streamed by his roommate and a fellow hallmate over the Internet. The same month, Asher Brown, 13, Billy Lucas, 15, Raymond Chase, 19, and Seth Walsh, 13, all committed suicide, in each case allegedly due to being taunted about their homosexuality. The series of suicides made national news, bringing to light the subject of bullying and the plight of gay teenagers in the US. Seeing that none of his rock music contemporaries were saying anything about the troubling issue, Rise Against frontman Tim McIlrath knew he had to speak up. He told MTV News: "When the month of September rolled around, and the wave of gay-teen suicides happened, I realized there needed to be a song about this, and also because the rock scene in general kind of fails to comment about this stuff - it sort of doesn't comment about this stuff; it largely ignores this kind of thing. And rock being a male-dominated, testosterone-driven place that I've been in the eye of the hurricane now for several years, I realized that it can be a place that can perpetuate homophobic behavior unless it's addressed by bands like us." This song, which takes stabs at homophobia for its link to teen suicide was the result with a message of hope. Said McIlrath: "The message is: It can get better, it does get better, give it a chance to get better, don't end your life prematurely. And don't give credence to all these bullies that would give you all this crap and try to make your adolescence something that's hard to deal with."

Endgame was Rise Against's sixth studio album. The band stuck with longtime collaborators Bill Stevenson and Jason Livermore to produce the record in their favorite studio - Fort Collins, Colorado's Blasting Room. "It's so unpretentious and low-key," said McIlrath to Spin magazine of the space. "It's just a big grey building that says 'Furniture and Rentals' on it, and there's a box truck parked out front that the Descendents used to tour. It's been sitting there for a million years."