2000 was a year full of turmoil for Rage Against the Machine. While the band would release a new covers album and record and play some shows, as well as record a live album, there was wild speculation that the band was done.
“I feel that it is now necessary to leave Rage because our decision-making process has completely failed.” – Zack De La Rocha
The news dropped on Wednesday, October 18th, from frontman Zack De La Rocha that he was done with the group, “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.”
Rage Against the Machine was formed in 1991, channelling a wide spectrum of influences including Led Zeppelin, Bob Dylan and Devo. The band established itself as one of the most groundbreaking, incendiary and politically-driven bands of the 90s, going on to sell almost 20 million albums.
“Rage Against The Machine has been a tremendously volatile rock rollercoaster for nine whole years.” – Tom Morello
For years, rumours of in-fighting plagued the band. The news of De La Rocha leaving didn’t come as a shock to guitarist Tom Morello who revealed that he was amazed the band lasted as long as it did.
Morello told interviewer Simon Young, “Rage Against The Machine has been a tremendously volatile rock rollercoaster for nine whole years. It actually comes as something of a surprise that the original line-up has remained intact all this time. It’s important to emphasize that Rage Against The Machine have not broken up. Zack has left the band. Tim, Brad and myself will continue to make groundbreaking music.”
The news of Zack’s departure wasn’t well timed as the group was set to release their new album titled Renegades which featured covers of artists including Devo, the MC5, Bruce Springsteen as well as The Rolling Stones. The band also had a live album coming out.
“We parted company on good terms and we wish him well.” – Tom Morello
Morello acted diplomatically in the same interview, “We parted company on good terms and we wish him well. There’s been some confusion over this record, since it coincides with Zack’s departure. It’s a studio album, with Zack as the vocalist. For Timmy, Brad and myself, we’re really proud of this record and want everyone to know about it.”
According to Morello, Zack wanted to take up to 2 years off until they began work on their next album but some point to an incident at the MTV Video Music Awards where bassist Tim Commerford crashed Limp Bizkit’s acceptance speech. The bassist’s actions reportedly angered De La Rocha, who left the awards show early, telling reporters he felt “humiliated”. Others say it was deeper than that.
Around this time Zack told the press, “It’s not unique among rock bands to find the occasional dissension but compared to the music we make and the causes we pursue, it’s not so interesting.”
“Let’s just say Rage Against The Machine’s forces made us burn brightly and burn quickly.” – Tom Morello
Morello was more evasive, saying, “Let’s just say Rage Against The Machine’s forces made us burn brightly and burn quickly. That’s been a constant tension that’s been an enormous challenge for us all over the years. Zack did what he had to do.”
At the time of De La Rocha’s departure, the remaining members of the band vowed to continue to make music together, but it wasn’t immediately clear as to whether it would be done under the Rage Against the Machine moniker or as part of a new side project.
New frontmen were rumoured to be working with the band including B-Real from Cypress Hill. It wouldn’t be until years later that the other members of the band were a little more open as to what happened behind the scenes.
“I think there were competing visions of what Rage was supposed to be and competing feelings about what it was like to be in the band that we didn’t deal with.” – Tom Morello
During an appearance on Lars Ulrich’s interview show, It’s Electric on Beats 1, Morello revealed, “I’ll put myself first and foremost. It was a lack of emotional maturity in being able to deal with each other as people. We had political vision and the shows never suffered, but we couldn’t agree on stuff and that sort of unearthed feelings that made it hard to make records. I think there were competing visions of what Rage was supposed to be and competing feelings about what it was like to be in the band that we didn’t deal with.
My version of the band was, ‘Let’s make a record every six months. Let’s be the political Led Zeppelin and let’s overthrow the government and make the best records anyone ever did, by Wednesday, go, go!”
Morello says in retrospect that he now sees he wasn’t necessarily understanding of the feelings of his bandmates.
Remaining Band Members Form Audioslave with Chris Cornell
In the years that followed Rage’s demise, the remaining members, minus De La Rocha, formed Audioslave with former Soundgarden frontman Chris Cornell. The band lasted until 2007 and the same year Rage reunited to headline Coachella, but new music was off the table.
Morello revealed during an interview why new music wasn’t happening, “We got together in 2007 and we had a great time. We had fun onstage, offstage, it felt like there was a lot of camaraderie, but one of the things we kind of helped with and took off the table was everything that had been controversial before — writing music, doing interviews, having a manager — we’re just not going to do that stuff. We’re just going to play some shows and have a nice time and be able to look each other in the eye and have a nice time and not be anything that had stirred controversy in the past.”
Zack De La Rocha Forms One Day As A Lion
In 2008 Zack formed his own band titled One Day As a Lion which blended rock and rap together and featured Jon Theodore, former drummer for The Mars Volta.
Rage continued to perform until 2011 when they took a break. No new music has been released and in the years that followed, different members of the band gave varying accounts as to whether we’d see new music.
In 2016, the members of Rage minus De La Rocha formed the supergroup Prophets of Rage with Chuck D of Public Enemy and B-Real of Cypress Hill. They put out original music while also covering music from their respective bands during live shows.
Prophets of Rage disbanded by 2019, setting up the stage for another Rage Against the Machine reunion. The band was scheduled to tour extensively in 2020 but then everything changed as we all well know.
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