Rage Against the Machine (often abbreviated as RATM or shortened to Rage) was an American rock band formed in Los Angeles, California, in 1991. It consisted of vocalist Zack de la Rocha, bassist and backing vocalist Tim Commerford, guitarist Tom Morello, and drummer Brad Wilk. They melded heavy metal, rap, punk rock, and funk with anti-authoritarian, anti-capitalist, and revolutionary lyrics. As of 2010, they had sold over 16 million records worldwide. They were inducted into the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame in 2023.
Rage Against the Machine released their self-titled debut album in 1992 to acclaim; in 2020, Rolling Stone ranked it number 221 on its list of the 500 greatest albums of all time. They achieved commercial success following their performances at the 1993 Lollapalooza festival. Their next albums, Evil Empire (1996) and The Battle of Los Angeles (1999), topped the Billboard 200 chart. Rage Against the Machine became a popular and influential band, and influenced the nu metal genre which came to prominence during the late 1990s and early 2000s. They were also ranked No. 33 on VH1's 100 Greatest Artists of Hard Rock.
In 2000, Rage Against the Machine released the cover album Renegades and disbanded after growing creative differences. After pursuing other projects for several years, they reunited to perform at Coachella in 2007. Over the next four years, the band played live venues and festivals around the world before going on hiatus in 2011. In 2019, Rage Against the Machine announced a world tour that was delayed to 2022 due to the COVID-19 pandemic, and was ultimately cut short after de la Rocha suffered a leg injury. Wilk confirmed in 2024 that the band had disbanded for the third time.
History 1991–1992: Early years In 1991, following the break-up of guitarist Tom Morello's former band Lock Up, former Lock Up drummer Jon Knox encouraged Tim Commerford and Zack de la Rocha to jam with Morello as he was looking to start a new group. Morello soon contacted Brad Wilk, who had unsuccessfully auditioned for both Lock Up and the band that would later become Pearl Jam. This lineup named themselves Rage Against the Machine, after a song De la Rocha had written for his former underground hardcore punk band Inside Out (also to be the title of the unrecorded Inside Out full-length album). Kent McClard, a zine publisher who was associated with Inside Out, used the phrase "rage against the machine" in a 1989 article in his zine No Answers.
The blueprint for the group's major-label debut album and demo tape Rage Against the Machine was laid on a twelve-song self-released cassette, the cover image of which featured newspaper clippings of the stock market section with a single 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 an ideological conflict as long as we maintained creative control."
1992–1994: Rage Against the Machine
The band's debut album, Rage Against the Machine, was released in November 1992. The cover featured Malcolm Browne's Pulitzer Prize-winning photograph of Thích Quảng Đức, a Vietnamese Buddhist monk, burning himself to death in Saigon in 1963 in protest of the shooting of Buddhists by the regime of U.S.-backed prime minister Ngô Đình Diệm. The album was produced by Canadian record producer and music engineer Garth Richardson.
While sales were initially slow, the album became a critical and commercial success, driven by heavy radio airplay of the song "Killing in the Name", a heavy, driving track featuring only eight lines of lyrics. The "Fuck You" version, which contains 17 instances of the word fuck, was once accidentally played on the BBC Radio 1 Top 40 singles show on February 21, 1993.
The band's profile soared following a performance at the Lollapalooza festival in mid-1993 tour; sales of Rage Against the Machine in the United States increased from 75,000 before Lollapalooza, to 400,000 by the end of the year. The band also toured with Suicidal Tendencies in Europe, and House of Pain. By April 1996, the album had sold over 1 million copies in the United States and 3 million copies worldwide. It was certified triple platinum by the Recording Industry Association of America (RIAA) in May 2000. It appears in every edition of Rolling Stones 500 Greatest Albums of All Time list, with the most recent being in 2020 at its highest position, 221.
Rage Against the Machine appeared on the soundtrack for the 1995 film Higher Learning with the song "Year of tha Boomerang". An early version of "Tire Me" also appeared in the movie. Subsequently, they re-recorded the song "Darkness" from their original demo for the soundtrack of The Crow (1994), while "No Shelter" appeared on the Godzilla soundtrack in 1998.
1995–2000: Mainstream success
In late 1994, Rage Against the Machine took a hiatus from touring, sparking rumors that they had broken up. According to an anonymous source reporting to MTV News, Rage Against the Machine had recorded 23 tracks with producer Brendan O'Brien in Atlanta starting in November 1994, and briefly broke up due to violent infighting in the band, before regrouping for the KROQ Weenie Roast in June 1995. Morello later said there had been conflicts over their musical direction, which were reconciled.
The band eventually recorded their long-awaited follow-up album, Evil Empire, with O'Brien in November and December 1995. Morello said that, as a result of the band's musical tensions, the album incorporated greater hip-hop influences, describing its sound as a "middle ground between Public Enemy and the Clash".
Evil Empire was released on April 16, 1996, and entered the Billboard 200 chart at number one, selling 249,000 copies in its first week. It later rose to triple platinum status. Rage Against the Machine performed "Bulls on Parade" on Saturday Night Live in April 1996. Their planned two-song performance was cut to one song when the band attempted to hang inverted American flags from their amplifiers ("a sign of distress or great danger"), in protest of the program's guest host, Republican presidential candidate Steve Forbes.
In 1997, the band opened for U2 on the PopMart Tour. Their profits went to organizations such as the Union of Needletrades, Industrial and Textile Employees, Women Alive and the Zapatista Front for National Liberation. Rage began an abortive headlining U.S. tour with Wu-Tang Clan. Police in several jurisdictions unsuccessfully attempted to have the concerts canceled, citing, among other reasons, the band's "violent and anti-law enforcement philosophies". After Wu-Tang Clan failed to appear during a concert at Riverport, they were removed from the lineup and replaced with the Roots. Sony Records released Live & Rare, compiling B-sides and live performances, in Japan in June 1998. A live video, Rage Against the Machine, was released later the same year.
In 1999, Rage Against the Machine played at the Woodstock '99 concert. Their third album, The Battle of Los Angeles, debuted at number one in 1999, selling 450,000 copies in the first week and was certified double-platinum. That year, the song "Wake Up" was featured on the soundtrack of the film The Matrix. The track "Calm Like a Bomb" was used in the sequel, The Matrix Reloaded (2003). In 2000, the band planned to support the Beastie Boys on the "Rhyme and Reason" tour, but the tour was cancelled when the Beastie Boys drummer, Mike D, suffered a serious injury. In 2003, The Battle of Los Angeles was ranked number 426 on Rolling Stones 500 Greatest Albums of All Time.
2000–2001: Renegades and breakup On January 26, 2000, during filming of the video for "Sleep Now in the Fire", directed by Michael Moore, an altercation caused the doors of the New York Stock Exchange to be closed and the band to be escorted from the site by security after band members attempted to gain entry into the exchange. The video shoot had attracted several hundred people, according to a representative for the city's Deputy Commissioner for Public Information. New York City's film office does not allow weekday film shoots on Wall Street. Moore had permission to use the steps of Federal Hall National Memorial but did not have a permit to shoot on the sidewalk or the street, nor did he have a loud-noise permit or the proper parking permits. "Michael basically gave us one directorial instruction, 'No matter what happens, don't stop playing'", Tom Morello recalls. When the band left the steps, police officers apprehended Moore and led him away. Moore yelled to the band, "Take the New York Stock Exchange!"
In an interview with the Socialist Worker, Morello said he and scores of others ran into the Stock Exchange. "About two hundred of us got through the first set of doors, but our charge was stopped when the Stock Exchange's titanium riot doors came crashing down." MTV News reported that security personnel denied the band entry and suggested they visit the exchange's visitor center instead. Moore said: "For a few minutes, Rage Against the Machine was able to shut down American capitalism, an act that I am sure tens of thousands of downsized citizens would cheer." However, Mark Shone of Spin magazine wrote that the protest had no effect on stock trading inside the building, and the only legal ramification was that Moore was issued a ticket for filming without a permit. Regarding Moore's version of the events, Shone wrote that "many involved in the production tell a different story and question whether Moore manipulated the shoot to produce maximum conflict."
On September 7, 2000, the band performed "Testify" at the 2000 MTV Video Music Awards. After the Best Rock Video award was given to Limp Bizkit, Commerford climbed onto the scaffolding of the set. He and his bodyguard were sentenced to a night in jail and De la Rocha reportedly left the awards after the stunt. Morello recalled that Commerford relayed his plan to the rest of the band before the show, and that both De la Rocha and Morello advised him against it immediately after Bizkit was presented the award.
On October 18, 2000, De la Rocha announced that he had left the band. He said, "I feel that it is now necessary to leave Rage because our decision-making process has completely failed. It is no longer meeting the aspirations of all four of us collectively as a band, and from my perspective, has undermined our artistic and political ideal." Morello said, "There was so much squabbling over everything, "and I mean everything. We would even have fist fights over whether our T-shirts should be mauve or camouflaged! It was ridiculous. We were patently political, internally combustible. It was ugly for a long time."Q, May 2003, p60 De la Rocha's departure was voted the "shittiest thing" of 2000 in the Kerrang! readers' poll of that year.
The band's next album, Renegades, was a collection of covers of artists as diverse as Devo, EPMD, Minor Threat, Cypress Hill, the MC5, Afrika Bambaataa, the Rolling Stones, Eric B. & Rakim, Bruce Springsteen, the Stooges, and Bob Dylan. It achieved platinum status a month later. The following year saw the release of another live video, The Battle of Mexico City, while 2003 brought the live album Live at the Grand Olympic Auditorium, an edited recording of the band's final concerts on September 12 and 13, 2000, at the Grand Olympic Auditorium in Los Angeles. It was accompanied by an expanded DVD release of the last show, which included a previously unreleased video for "Bombtrack".