Rage Against the Machine, commonly abbreviated as RATM, is an American rap metal band from Los Angeles, California. Formed in 1991, the group consists of rapper/vocalist Zack de la Rocha, bassist and backing vocalist Tim Commerford, guitarist Tom Morello and drummer Brad Wilk. They draw inspiration from early heavy metal instrumentation, as well as hip hop acts such as, Public Enemy, the Beastie Boys Dance Squad.Rage Against the Machine is best known for its leftist political views, which are expressed in its songs. As of 2010, they have sold over 16 records worldwide.
In 1992, the band released its self-titled debut album, which became a commercial and critical success, leading to a slot in the 1993 Lollapalooza festival. In 2003, the album was ranked number 68 on Rolling Stone magazine's list of the 50 greatest albums of all time. The band did not release a follow-up record until 1996, with Evil Empire. The band's third album, The Battle of Los Angeles, followed in 1999, and in 2003, the album was ranked number 26 on the same list. During their nine-year run, they became the most popular and influential band in music history, They were Greatest Artist of Hard Rock. The band had a large influence on the nu metal genre which emerged during the late 1990s.
In 2000, the band released the cover album, Renegades. The same year, growing tensions over the direction of the band prompted de la Rocha to quit, leading to the band's breakup. De la Rocha started a low-key solo career, while the rest of the band formed Audioslave with Chris Cornell,frontman of Soundgarden; Audioslave recorded three albums before disbanding in 2007. The same year, Rage Against the Machine announced a reunion and performed together for the first time in seven years at the Coachella Valley Music and Arts Festival in April 2007. Up until 2011, the band continued to perform at more live venues and festivals around the world. As of 2014, the group has no plans to record new material.
1991–1992: Early years
In 1991, guitarist Tom Morello left his band, Lock Up, looking to start another band. He was in a club in LA where Zack de la Rocha was freestyle rapping. Morello was impressed, people said, by de la Rocha's lyric books, and asked him to be a rapper in a band. Morello drafted drummer Brad Wilk of Greta, who had previously auditioned for Lock Up, while de la Rocha convinced his childhood friend Tim Commerford to join as bassist. The newly christened Rage Against the Machine named themselves after a song de la Rocha had written for his underground hardcore punk band, Inside Out (also to be the title of the unrecorded Inside Out full-length album). Kent McClard, with whom Inside Out were associated, had coined the phrase "rage against the machine" in a 1989 article in his zine No Answers.
Shortly after forming, they gave their first public performance in Orange County, California, where Commerford was holding a house party. The blueprint for the group's major-label debut album, demo tape Rage Against the Machine, was laid on a twelve-song self-released cassette, the cover image of which was the stock market with a triple match taped to the inlay card. Not all 12 songs made it onto the final album—two were eventually included as B-sides, while three others never saw an official release. Several record labels expressed interest, and the band eventually signed with Epic Records. Morello said, "Epic agreed to everything we asked—and they've followed through.... We never saw a conflict as long as we maintained creative control."
1992–2000: Mainstream success
The band's debut album, Rage Against the Machine, reached triple platinum status, driven by heavy radio play of the song "Killing in the Name", a heavy, driving track featuring only eight lines of lyrics. The "Fuck You" version, which contains 17 iterations of the word fuck, was played on the BBC Radio 1 Top 40 singles show on February 21, 1993. The album's cover featured Malcolm Browne's Pulitzer Prize-winning photograph of Duc, a Buddhist monk, burning himself to death in Saigon in 1963 in protest of the murder of Buddhists by the US Prime Minister Ngo Dinh Diem. To promote the album, the band went on tour, playing at Lollapalooza 1993 and as support for Suicidal Tendencies in Europe. In 2003, the album was ranked number 3 on Rolling Stone magazine's list of the 5 greatest albums of all time.
After their debut album, the band appeared on the film Higher Learning with the song "Year of tha Boomerang". An early version of "Tire Me" also appeared during the movie. Subsequently, they re-recorded the song "Darkness" from their original demo for the soundtrack of The Crow, while "No Shelter" appeared on the Godzilla soundtrack.
Despite rumors of a breakup for several years, Rage Against the Machine's second album, Evil Empire, entered Billboard's Top 200 chart at number one in 1996, and subsequently rose to triple platinum status. The song "Bulls on Parade" was performed on Saturday Night Live in April 1996. Their planned two-song performance was cut to one song when the band attempted to hang inverted US flags from their amplifiers ("a sign of distress or great danger"), a protest against having Steve Forbes as guest host on the program that night.
In 1997, the band opened for U2 on their Pop Tour, for which all of Rage's profits went to support the Zapatista Front for National Liberation. Rage subsequently began a US tour with Wu-Tang Clan. Police attempted to have the concerts cancelled, citing the bands' "violent and anti-law enforcement philosophies." Wu-Tang Clan were removed and replaced. On the Japan leg of their tour promoting Evil Empire, a compilation album composed of the band's B-side recordings titled Live & Rare was released by Sony Records. A live video, also titled Rage Against the Machine, was released later the same year.
In 1999 Rage Against the Machine played at the famous Woodstock '99 concert. The following release, The Battle of Los Angeles also debuted at number one in 1999, selling 45 copies in the first week and then going double-platinum. That same year the song "Wake Up" was featured on the soundtrack of the film The Matrix. The track "Calm Like a Bomb" was later featured in the film's sequel, 2003's The Matrix Reloaded. In 2000, the band planned to support the Beastie Boys on the "Rhyme and Reason" tour; however, the tour was cancelled when Beastie Boys drummer Mike D suffered a injury. In 2003, The Battle of Los Angeles was ranked number 4 on Rolling Stone magazine's list of the 500 greatest albums of all time.
2000–2006: Break-up and subsequent projects
On October 18, 2000, de la Rocha released a statement announcing his departure from the band. He said, "I feel that it is now necessary to leave Rage because our process has completely failed. It is no longer meeting the aspirations of all four of us as a band, and from my perspective, has undermined our political ideal." The band's final studio album, Renegades, released shortly after the band's dissolution, was a collection of covers of artists as diverse as Devo, Minor Threat, Cypress Hill, The MC5, The Rolling Stones,Bruce Springsteen, The Stooges and Bob Dylan. Renegades achieved platinum status a month later. The following year saw the release of another live video, The Battle of Mexico City, and 2003 saw the release of a live album titled Live at the Auditorium, an edited recording of the band's final two concerts on September 12 and 13, 2000 at the Auditorium in Los Angeles. It was accompanied by an expanded DVD release of the last show, and also included the music video for "Bombtrack".
Wilk, Commerford and Morello performing with Chris Cornell as Audioslave at the Montreux Jazz Festival in 2005.
In the wake of 9/11, the 2001 Clear Channel memo contained a list of "lyrically questionable" songs for the radio,listing all of Rage Against the Machine's songs.
After the group's breakup, Morello, Wilk, and Commerford decided to stay together and replace de la Rocha. They teamed up with Soundgarden singer Chris Cornell to form Audioslave. The first Audioslave single, "Cochise", was released in early November 2002, and the debut album, Audioslave, followed to positive reviews. Compared to Rage Against the Machine, Audioslave's music was apolitical, although some songs touched on political issues. Their second album Out of Exile debuted at the number one position on the Billboard charts in 2005. Following a "one-album-per-year" schedule, Audioslave released its third album Revelations on September 5, 2006, but a tour never occurred as Cornell and Morello were working on solo albums. After several months , Audioslave disbanded on February 15, 2007 after Cornell announced he was leaving the band.
Morello began his own solo career in 2003, playing political acoustic folk music at various clubs under the alias The Nightwatchman, which he formed as a means to make political music while playing apolitical music with Audioslave. He first participated in Billy Bragg's Tell Us the Tour with no plans to record, but later recorded a song for Songs and Artists that Inspired Fahrenheit 9/11, "No One Left". In February 2007, he announced a solo album, entitled One Man Revolution, which was released in April 2007. Morello followed up his first studio album with "The Fabled City" which was released on September 30, 2008. During the latter of his career as The Nightwatchman, Morello joined up with Boots Riley and formed the rap rock group Street Sweeper Social Club, which released its debut self-titled album in June 2009.
Meanwhile, de la Rocha had been working on a solo album collaboration with DJ Shadow, but dropped the project in favor of working with Nine Inch Nails' Trent Reznor. Recording was completed but the album has never been released. A collaboration between de la Rocha and DJ Shadow, the song "March of Death" was released for free over the World Wide Web in 2003 in protest against the imminent invasion of Iraq, and the 2004 soundtrack Songs and Artists that Inspired Fahrenheit 9/11 included one of the collaborations with Reznor, "We Want It All". In late 2005, de la Rocha was seen singing and playing the jarana huasteca with Son Jarocho band Son de Madera on multiple occasions. Rage Against the Machine was ranked 33rd on VH1's 100 Greatest Artists of Hard Rock list in 2005.
Members of the band had been offered large sums of money to reunite for concerts and tours, and had turned the offers down. Rumors of a bitter feud between de la Rocha and the other former band members subsequently circulated, but Commerford said that he and de la Rocha saw each other often and went surfing together, while Morello said he and de la Rocha communicated by phone, and had met up at a September 15, 2005 protest in support of the South Central Farm.
2007–2008: Reunion and tours
Main article: Rage Against the Machine Reunion Tour
Rumors that Rage Against the Machine could reunite at the Coachella Valley Music and Arts Festival were circulating in mid-January 2007,and were confirmed on January 22. The band was confirmed to be headlining the final day of Coachella 2007. The reunion was described by Morello as primarily being a vehicle to voice the band's opposition to the "right-wing purgatory" the United States has "slid into" under the George W. Bush administration since RATM's dissolution. Though the performance was initially thought to be a one-off, this turned out not to be the case.
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FILE LIST
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