Songfacts®:

• This Rock ballad is a different sound for Skillet, with elements of Bruce Springsteen and John Cougar Mellencamp. Vocalist John Cooper told Digital Journal that it feels like a soundtrack to his life story. He explained: "It reminds me of growing up and not having anybody to talk to and the hard things I went through such as my mom dying when I was fourteen. It also reminded me of the fighting at home and going in my room and putting my headphones on and listening to Metallica and trying to survive."
• Rise is the closest Skillet have ever come to releasing a concept album. The record traces the journey of someone coming to faith. Cooper explained to New Release Today: "In 'American Noise,' which is track six, the character in the album finally decides that he's not going to be good enough to make himself happy. He realizes that no matter how much he tries to change his surroundings, in his own heart it doesn't feel right, and there's no hope. That is when he reaches out to Christ."
• In an interview with WJTL FM, a Christian radio station in Lancaster, Pennsylvania, Cooper spoke about how the song is about hearing God amid all the noise: "There's so much information and so much noise out there, so many people tell you who to be and how to act and how to fit in. I've got a 10-year-old daughter, and she's already saying, 'Daddy, do I need to lose weight? Is it okay if I wear this, or does it make me look this way?' And she's a really great, naïve, innocent little girl, and girls are told so much who they have to be to fit in. Guys are told how they have to act to be tough. There's so much information out there, and 'American Noise' is about, number one, shutting all of that information out. Number two, it's about hearing the voice of God amongst all these other voices, which is difficult. And number three, it's about asking God how you can have a voice. How can I be a voice of the Lord, if you will, amongst all this other noise? Can I be the voice of truth and inspiration to other people in a dark world?"