Rage Against The Machine - Self Titled Debut
Listen to an audio version of this review by Greg
I want you to try and recall a time when you went to a concert to see one band and were mystified by either the opening act or another band on the bill to the point where you feel this other act dominated the show and upstaged everyone else.
Some of the most exciting moments in a concert experience is when you become stupefied by a band you weren’t expecting to like or knew nothing about.
This is what happened to me in July 1993 when I saw Rage Against The Machine at the Lollapalooza fest. On my previous episode, I discuss an album by Alice in Chains, and mention I saw them on the same day as Rage. And even though Alice blew my mind, Rage had a different effect on me, because I had never heard of them before.
I have been in a heavy jazz phase for the last several years. Jazz just really relaxes me. But what I also love is when listening to Rage Against The Machine, which is the farthest thing from jazz, I begin to channel my inner, “let’s break stuff” mode. LOOK OUT!
And to all you readers and listeners out there, what’s great about Rage is how they mesh Hip-Hop, Rap, Rock, Funk, and Metal together. Lead singer Zach De La Rocha (Like “Roache- A” like the bug roache”) is hard to ignore, and a true force in getting you to notice this band.
Formed in Los Angeles in 1991, Zach De La Rocha and bass player Tim Commerford were friends with a North Carolina born Christian Rock drummer named John Knox. Knox also moonlighted in traditional, non – Christian Rock bands, one of them being a Heavy Metal/Glam band named Lock Up. Lock Up was active from 1987 to 1990, disbanding after releasing one album on Geffen Records. Upon their breakup, John Knox and Lock Up’s guitar player, Tom Morello remained friends, continued to stay in touch and jam together from time to time.
When, NOT IF, Rage makes it into the Rock and Roll Hall Of Fame, Knox should be up there on stage with them accepting recognition. For it was Knox that remembered a drummer Lock Up had previously auditioned named Brad Wilk and had turned down. Knox recommended to his friend and former bandmate, Morello, to check out Wilk’s drumming and consider jamming with Brad, as Morello was clear he was moving forward to start a new band. Out of this communication, also came a recommendation from John Knox to Morello, to check out local singer Zach De La Rocha and bassist, Tim Commerford. Morello contacted Zach, Tim, and Brad and the four planned to jam together. With Morello’s unique guitar style, sounding like a DJ scratching a record, Commerford’s thumping bass that could be the lead instrument in any song, Wilk’s jazz and metal influenced drumming and De La Rocha’s aggressive yell, the group realized very quickly they had a distinctive sound.
As the four continued to jam, they worked on developing their first demo tape. They later named their band Rage Against the Machine, which was the name of a song Zach wrote for his former band, Inside Out. Based on their matching revolutionary and political views, the name was a perfect fit, giving their listeners an unadulterated description of what type of music they were going to hear.
Rage’s first public performance was on Oct 23rd, 1991. Less than two years later they would be crushing the Lollapalooza tour. I watched a recording of their first ever show on YouTube and just like at the show I attended, you notice at the beginning, the audience is preoccupied walking around, going for a concession break and chatting with their friends.
Then a few minutes in…..it’s like there is a magnet on the stage and people on the Cal State, North Ridge College Campus are being pulled in. You see every audience member just stop and watch. Even though it was their first ever live performance, if you watch, you can see how much of a powerful presentation it was.
Not long after their first performance, the band had multiple offers from recording companies and elected to go with Epic Records. Epic agreed to everything the band asked and enabled them to retain creative control.
In April and May 1992, the band entered Sound City Studios in Van Nuys, CA to record their very first album, simply titled, Rage Against The Machine.
They ended up re-recording 7 of the 12 songs that were on their original demo they used to sell at shows on cassette tapes for $5 a pop. With musical influences such as Fugazi, Minor Threat, Bad Brains, Van Halen (mostly Eddie’s influence on Tom), The Dead Kennedy’s and Faith No More, again Rage was on to something. They had a sound that was unique to the times.
Sound City was a famed studio in Van Nuys. You may have seen Dave Grohl’s 2013 documentary about Sound City which covered the history and all the incredible albums recorded there over the years. Other albums recorded at Sound City include Fleetwood Mac’s self-titled debut, “Fleetwood Mac”, Nirvana’s Nevermind, Tool’s Undertow, Tom Petty & the Heartbreakers’ “Damn the Torpedoes” AND “Wildflowers” (arguably my favorite album of all time, at least in my top 20), Neil Young’s “After the Gold Rush” and hundreds more.
Produced by Garth Richardson or “GG Garth” as most called him, Rage’s self – titled debut album was released on November 3rd, 1992, by Epic Records. In what would later be deemed as “in typical Rage Against the Machine fashion”, the album’s cover featured the famous photograph of Buddhist Monk, Thích Quảng Đức (pronounced “Thitch Con See”) setting himself on fire in Saigon in 1963 in protest of the oppression of Buddhism by the Presidential administration in Vietnam at the time.
This picture was seen all around the world and was picked up by television stations everywhere, helping to persuade President John F. Kennedy to finally withdraw support for the Vietnamese regime.
When I was re-listening to this album to prepare for this review, I was having a slow day. Just a “blah” day. You know what I mean? That’s when “old faithful” comes to the rescue. Like a giant cup of coffee, after 1 minute listening to this album, I am 16 and am BANGING my head. My brain fluid is not as stable as it was in 1993. Let me be clear, I had NEVER heard of this band before seeing them in July 1993 at Lollapalooza and was never the same after.
The album kicks off with Bombtrack, one of MANY protest songs that will have you looking for a place to mosh.
The music was composed by bassist Tim Commerford and lyrics by De La Rocha. Zach’s aggressive lyrics “Burn, Burn, yes you’re gonna Burn” are in reference to landlords, power hungry people and the “suits”. Yes, these guys open right up with, “HI, WE ARE ANGRY!”
If we can focus on the music for a second, the riff in this song is spectacular. The Fender Precision Bass just bleeds into your ears. Zach’s lyrics are outstanding. Not only that but listen to the way he delivers them; pausing in certain parts of each sentence, only to finish and catch up as the beat changes or turns over. To gain full appreciation, read his lyrics as you listen to the track, you’ll see what I mean.
The madness continues on track two with Killing In The Name. I would argue this is the album’s best but that might be just too difficult to argue. That is why this album is among the top 50 in my entire collection. But seriously this song is shocking. This song just…..ahhhh.
The intro to Killing in The Name just fries you! The song contains the F word 17 times, and was their first released single, which boggles my mind. But now that I remember, radio stations would just bleep the F word softly so the listening experienced wasn’t terribly damaged. Hearing Zach say, “Now you do what they told ya”, over and over and over again will make you fall in line and quickly become a part of the Kool-Aid drinkers chanting the words over and over.
This is where we first get to hear Morello’s record scratching sound on his fender electric guitar. Something I don’t recall hearing anyone do before him. This song is just beyond special. The story goes that Tom was in the middle of teaching a guitar lesson. He was teaching his student how to play in a Drop “D” tuning, which essentially is when you just tune your fattest string, the “E” string down to a D tuning, and he accidentally played this riff. Morello paused the lesson so he could go in the other room and record it to play for his bandmates at the next practice. The lyrics were later written in inspiration of the Rodney King beating by LA police in 1991. As EVERYONE who was living then knows, that one evening was the buildup and later led to the explosion of anger by the African American Community in LA, as four police officers were acquitted of beating King for 15 straight minutes which very quickly leading to massive LA riot in April of 1992.
Track 3 may be better than 1 and 2. As a bass player, I love Tim Commerford’s opening bass in Take the Power Back and how it drops into the beat. Just addictive.
Bassist Tim Commerford just electrocutes you with his instrument. I wanted to sound EXACTLY like Tim when I heard his bass and I did everything I could with my Fender Precision Bass (well it was a knockoff – Seiwa) to sound like him with my cheap, buzzing CRATE amplifier.
This track has elements of funk mixed with it. The metal and rap are there and perhaps some blues with Morello’s guitar, which again gives you a sense of his range. When you hear Tom Morello speak, like De La Rocha, he is also very articulate, intelligent, and VERY passionate about his beliefs, and he’ll throw blows to support them. Many don’t know Tom is a graduate of Harvard and before his professional music career, he worked for California Senator, Alan Cranston, which is not a job one can get if they are a typical stoner in the high school parking lot.
Bullet in the Head follows the album’s trend, another strong track that is a mix of rap, rock, funk, ya know…the Rage formula! The song’s meaning is not about going around shooting people, no, quite the contrary. Many who hear their lyrics may think they are promoting violence. Some may take it that way, but it’s more of an invitation to “wake up” – also hence that song name on the album.
Bullet in the Head is an encouragement, a recommendation to people not to blindly accept all those around you. De La Rocha is saying, “the people who walk complacently through life accepting all that is put in front of them, might as well have bullets in their heads”. They criticize US Television as well – saying it is a “weapon used to pacify those who watch it into the living dead”. De La Rocha also felt that “until people take control of their lives, they are mindless components of the entire machine”.
The song was written in 1991, originally in reaction to the first Iraq War that year, when Iraq invaded Kuwait and the US went over there to push the Iraqi’s out. Rage was frustrated that the US media was pinning this war as a US victory and never mentioning the innocent Iraqi civilians who were killed during the war.
Wake Up is another brilliantly written track and…well, you know what I’m going to say here. Just read these lyrics...!
“Black Nationalism, he may be a brave contender for this position
But should he abandon his supposed obedience to the white liberal
Doctrine of non-violence.
And embrace Black Nationalism through counterintelligence, it should be possible
To pinpoint potential troublemakers and neutralize them
And neutralize them, and neutralize them, and neutralize them, and neutralize them,
And neutralize them”…
Then Zach yells, “Wake Up” about sixteen thousand times as the main riff kicks back in.
Supposedly the quote from the song I just read was taken from an actual FBI Document written by then director J. Edgar Hoover to his counterparts suggesting how the FBI should target people who are what he noted as “a part of the movement fighting against the suppression of Black Nationalists”.
The song then ends with, “How long, not long because what you reap is what you sow”, which Martin Luther King Jr. said during his speech at the Selma to Montgomery, Alabama March in 1965. King was quoting a bible verse, “Galatians 6 7”.
Years later in 2007, during a performance at Rock The Bells in New York City, Zach De La Rocha spoke to the crowd, addressing the band’s overall message and the meaning behind the song, Wake Up. He also described the band’s disdain for the presidential administration and their view on the then second Iraq war that was going on:
“This system has become so brutal and vicious and cruel that it needs to start wars and profit from the destruction around the world in order to survive as a world power. And we refuse not to stand up, we refuse to back down from that position not only for the poor kids who are being left out in the desert to die, but for the Iraqi youth, the Iraqi people, their families and their friends, and their youth who are standing up and resisting the U.S. occupation every day. And if we truly want to end this miserable war, we have to stand up with the same force that the Iraqi youth are standing up with every day, and bring these bleepers to their knees. Wake up…”
WHOOOO was writing songs like this in 1992? Here’s an example of a VERY popular song from 1992 that ranked very high on the pop charts:
“Long as you know that I could have any man I want to
Baby that's actual and factual
But still I choose you to be with me
And work on me so you better not flake it up
Ohhhhhh”
Hmmmmmmmm…
Rage’s debut album broke in the UK first before the US, primarily because it was easier due to the size of the UK. Radio Stations were national instead of regional like in the US. Rolling Stone Magazine would later list it as #24 on the 100 greatest Metal albums of all time.
After killing it on the Lollapalooza tour in 1993, Rage Against the Machine’s first album would go on to reach Triple Platinum status, which means it sold at least 3 million copies in the US, 900,000 in the UK and over 300,000 in other parts of the world (each country has different certification threshholds).
So, 3 million is a ton!! This inspired me to investigate how the RIAA (Recording Industry Association of America) certifies sales and downloads in today’s music world. Obviously, the landscape is TOTALLY different today.
In most countries, going gold, or platinum no longer is specific how many physical copies an album sells (obviously). Starting in 2004, the RIAA began recognizing digital downloads including digital downloads for ringtones. Music that is streamed from Apple, Spotify and other major streaming services are now included. Starting in 2014, in the US and Germany, video streams from platforms like YouTube, with 100 streams, began to count as 1 download. I have no idea how they chose these numbers…but they did.
I still think this is so weird, vague, and unfortunate, but what can we do?!
Despite rumors of a breakup for several years, Rage Against the Machine did not release their second album, Evil Empire until 1996, four years later, which was an eternity for bands back then.
In October of 2000, Zach announced he was leaving the band he said primarily because “our decision-making process had completely failed and has undermined our artistic and political ideal”. The other band members would later admit they were a bit “emotionally immature” at the time of the breakup and fought many times over silly decisions, like what color to market their T-shirts in. The band however never felt these arguments affected their music.
The band’s 3rd album Battle of Los Angeles, released in 1999 would also debut at #1, which I believe all stemmed from the momentum their first album created.
Despite all their success, Rage never wanted to be characterized as a Funk/Metal Band, they preferred not to be tied to a genre and to be taken seriously as a revolutionary musical group with a political message – which was essentially not to believe everything you hear, and that corruption and misuse of power are everywhere. The band has been on and off for several years since, getting back together to play a show, then going on another hiatus. In fact, Rage was scheduled to play the Boston Calling Music Festival, they were the headliners actually, in May 2022 but pulled out in Jan 2022 for reasons not disclosed. Metallica ended up headlining in their place. Nine Inch Nails replaced Foo Fighters as co-headliners after the tragic death of Foo Fighters drummer Taylor Hawkins.
Either way, their first album not only catapulted their career, but it also propelled this genre and spawned new groups. I would argue many of the bands linked to the genre of Nu Metal that was born in the late 90s, came from Rage Against the Machine.
And whether you agree with their political message, you cannot argue with the power of their music. Go back and watch their first live performance on YouTube and watch the beginning of what soon would become a masterpiece and a game changer in the music world, forever.
I feel like this is a staple album, meaning like Frampton Comes Alive in the 1970s, everyone had a copy. Hell didn’t they give them out at McDonald’s when you ordered a Big Mac or a Slurpee at 7-11? But if you haven’t heard it….you’re in for a treat.
Put your helmet on…
