#365 - Rage Against the Machine - Rage Against the Machine (1992)

MUSIC HISTORY WRITTEN BY HEAD WRITER DJ MORTY COYLE:

Released on November 3rd 1992 on Epic Records and produced by Garth Richardson and the group this is the debut album from the Los Angeles-based Alternative, Metal, Rap, Rock, band.

In 1991, after guitarist Tom Morello’s Metal band Lock Up broke up after one album his drummer suggested he and drummer Brad Wilk who had unsuccessfully auditioned for Lock Up jam with bassist Tim Commerford and vocalist/rapper Zach de la Rocha to possibly form a new group.

The band gelled sonically as well as in their desire to express their shared revolutionary ultra-left wing political views.

Morello’s inventive guitar playing included emulating the sounds he heard on Hip-Hop records and in addition to Wilk’s and Commerford’s solid and thundering rhythm section De la Rocha’s vocals were a dynamic blend of whispered spoken word, machine gun rapping, and brutal screams.

As Morello described them, “We were melding Hard Rock, Punk and Hip-Hop, and I was the DJ.”

With the band completed they needed a name.

De la Rocha had previously been in the Hardcore band Inside Out who were potentially going to name their unrecorded next album after one of his songs, “Rage Against the Machine.”

The name perfectly fit their sound and mission statement. According to Tom Morello, "The machine can be anything from the police in LA that can tear motorists from their cars and beat them to a pulp and get away with it, to the state capitalist machine that tried to make you just a mindless cog and sort of 'behave' and never confront the system and just look forward to the weekend and the next six pack of beer."

Within 2 months they had written most of this album, were playing local shows and self-released a 12-song demo cassette.

After a huge bidding war they eventually signed with Epic Records who offered them complete creative control and didn’t ruffle any of their ideological feathers.

While this debut didn't get much airtime on MTV or radio apart from the heavily-censored single it still went triple-platinum and set Rage as pioneers of the nascent Rap/Rock hybrid.

However by 2000, 8 years, three more albums, countless political statements, protests, and headline-grabbing controversial events later the band effectively broke up when Zack left due to creative differences.

While his solo career hadn’t really taken off the rest of the band joined with former Soundgarden vocalist Chris Cornell to form Audioslave.

They had three successful albums and tours before breaking up in 2007, the same year Rage reformed.
By 2011 Rage took another break and all members pursued their own careers until 2016, when Tom, Brad, and Tim put together Prophets of Rage with legendary rappers Chuck D of Public Enemy, B-Real of Cyprus Hill, and DJ Lord.

They disbanded in 2019, the same year Rage announced that they again would be reuniting for a world tour… only to get postponed by Covid until 2022.