1991–2000, 2007–2011, 2019–2024Zack de La RochaVocals1991-
Tom MorelloGuitar1991-
Tim CommerfordBass1991-
Brad WilkDrums1991-
Rage Against The Machine are known for their politics, which are imbued in their music. Their mission statement: "Fierce opposition to the US war machine, white supremacy and exploitation."
Bass player Tim Commerford climbed on top of a 15-foot set at the 2000 MTV Video music awards and stayed there while Limp Bizkit accepted an award. He pled guilty to disorderly conduct.
At the Philadelphia stop on Lollapalooza '93, Rage stood naked with duct tape across their mouths and the letters P-M-R-C written across their chests. This lasted for 25 minutes with no sound feedback. They were protesting the censorship of the Parents Music Resource Center. This was inspired by de la Rocha blowing out his voice earlier in the day, rendering him unable to sing.
Their incendiary songs and pointed critiques of crooked cops made them many enemies in law enforcement. In 1999, they ordered donuts for 300 police officers who protested them outside a show in Massachusetts.
At Woodstock '99, Tim Commerford draped the American flag over his bass amp and lit it on fire. He says he celebrating his right to free speech.
Lead singer Zack de La Rocha has traveled to Chiapas, Mexico to work with rebel group the Zapatistas. There, he picked up smoking cigarettes as a way to initiate conversation.
On Rage's first album, the only additional musicians are Jane's Addiction drummer Stephen Perkins and Tool/Perfect Circle vocalist Maynard James Keenan.
Tom Morello enrolled at Harvard University as a political science student in 1982. He graduated four years later with a Bachelor of Arts degree in Social Studies. When Loudwire asked him what's the most important takeaway from his Ivy League Schooling, he replied:
"Well, I gotta tell you the most important takeaway was when you're in a cover band at Harvard and your practice - I was doing an honors major in Political Science and practicing guitar four hours every day and playing kegger gigs wearing spandex and shirts with zippers on it like I was in Dokken. So it was an interesting experience on a daily basis sort of balancing the two worlds. One of revolutionary politics and two of shredding Ozzy Osbourne guitar solos."
De la Rocha is a Mexican-American; Morello is an African-American. Both their sets of parents are divorced and both faced lots of prejudice as children. Morello calls de la Rocha his "ideological brother."
De la Rocha cites his biggest influence as Uruguayan journalist Eduardo Galeano.
Here's the story of their band name: "Rage Against The Machine" is the title of a song by De La Rocha's pre-rage hardcore band, Inside Out. When they broke up, he formed RATM with Tom Morello. "Rage Against the Machine" was the working title for Inside Out's second album, but since they split, it seemed the most suitable name to sum up the band's sound, politics, and mission.
The common question is, then, "What machine are they raging against?" 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."
The machine has come to mean any form of illegitimate authority that dehumanizes and degrades.
Without much radio play, Rage Against The Machine earned a lot of fans through word-of-mouth. They benefited from the internet, whose early adopters in the '90s were often fans anxious to spread the word.
De la Rocha's father, Beto, was a member of the Los Angeles collective of painters known as Los Four. He was also the art editor at several Chicano publications in the 1970's.
Morello's father, Ngethe Njoroge, was a Mau Mau guerilla and Kenya's first representative to the United Nations. His mother, who is white, worked with the NAACP and founded Parents for Rock and Rap. Morello's great-uncle, Jomo Kenyatta, was the first elected president of Kenya.
Morello spent two years as a scheduling secretary for California Senator Alan Cranston, a Democrat.
The members of Rage rarely socialized together outside of making music.
Commerford has used many pseudonyms, including Timmy C, Tim Bob Commerford, and Y.tim.k. His most clever pseudonym was TIM.COM.
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Stefano, Old Bridge, NJ
Drummer Brad Wilk is the son of a jewelry salesman from Oregon. He used to play in a band called Bad Radio with Pearl Jam's Eddie Vedder.
They won two Grammys: "Tire Me" for Best Metal Performance in 1997, and "Guerrilla Radio" for Best Hard Rock Performance in 2001.
Zach De La Rocha's father had a midlife crisis during which he became a born again Christian. When Zach would visit his divorced father on weekends, he and Zach would lock themselves in a completely dark room for the entire weekend to pray and repent for their sins. Zach would sometimes not eat until he left for his mother's house again on Monday. This is a big part of his anti-Chritianity lyrics.
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Noah - Boston, MA
Wilk is a Buddhist. He is generally seen as the most laid-back member of the band.
Commerford is descended from a Norman warlord called Fulco de Commerforte, who settled in Ireland in 1169.
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Tom - Trowbridge, England
Rage got together in 1991, wrote the majority of the songs on their first (self-titled) album in a manner of two months, made a 12-song demo tape, played a few shows in the Los Angeles area, and were signed onto Epic among hundreds of record labels requesting a contract. The album didn't get much airplay on MTV or radio when it was released in 1992, but it sold well as word got out.
This album most effectively demonstrates Rage's "rap meets metal" combination, a formula they got right. This is the album most responsible for the entire "rock-hop" revolution that made a huge impact in the '90s. The album also established Rage as a political threat, not just a musical one.
Their first album took a while to find a following, but the next two Rage Against The Machine albums, Evil Empire in 1996 and The Battle of Los Angeles in 1999, both debuted at #1, a testament to the loyal fanbase they built. Each of those releases bumped sales of their debut album, which sold a million copies by 1994, 2 million by 1997, and 3 million by 2000.
On Rage Against The Machine's first album, the cover is a Pulitzer Prize winning photo of a burning monk. The Vietnamese Buddhist monk is Thich Quang Duc, who burned himself to death. This act of self-immolation was protesting against the Prime Minister Ngo Dih Diem who was oppressing the Buddhist religion.
In high school, Tom Morello made up a name and started campaigning for the fictitious person for class president. His "candidate" came in third place in the election.
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David - Saugerties, NY
Rage broke up after a September 13, 2000 show in Los Angeles. De La Rocha was at odds with the other three members, who teamed up to form Audioslave with Chris Cornell as lead singer. That band had a surprisingly similar trajectory, releasing three successful albums before squabbles with Cornell broke up the group. In 2007 Rage Against The Machine re-formed, heralding their return with a performance at the Coachella festival.
On August 27, 2008, they played to about 9,000 people at the Denver Coliseum during the Democratic National Convention, which was being held nearby. The group was protesting the Iraq War, and joined an antiwar march lead by Iraq Veterans Against the War.
When the band broke up in 2000, Zack De La Rocha released a statement saying: "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."
In their 2008 tour rider Rage required promoters to provide socks and cotton underwear before each performance.
Morello named his son Rhodes, after the guitarist Randy Rhodes, who was his favorite musician growing up.
After wrapping up their reunion tour in 2010, Rage planned another tour for 2020 that was derailed by the pandemic. When it finally got underway, Zack de la Rocha tore his left Achilles tendon during just the second show, July 11, 2022 at the United Center in Chicago. They finished the North American portion of the tour but had to call off the rest of it, which was supposed to go into 2023, as the injury proved severe. De la Rocha reported that just 8% of his tendon was left intact.
Hopes for a Rage return were dashed on January 3, 2024, when drummer Brad Wilk announced on social media that the band "will not be touring or playing live again."
No member of the band has ever endorsed a candidate from either the Republican or Democratic party. In a 2025 Tweet, Tom Morello made the point that their first album was released during the Clinton administration. "Then, as now, that music critiqued a capitalist/white supremacist power structure that was and is still in full effect," he wrote. "Currently more so than ever. Listen more closely. Like really listen and it’s quite clear."
