Rage Against the Machine

Rage Against the Machine —also known as RATM— starts from a curious fact: the name comes from a song that Zack de la Rocha had written for his previous band of hardcore punk, Inside Out. And before that, the phrase 'rage against the machine' had already appeared in 1989, in an article from the zine No Answers, written by Kent McClard. The name had its own history before the band existed.The lineup came together in 1991 almost by accident. When the band of Tom Morello, Lock Up, disbanded, the former drummer of that group, Jon Knox, pushed Tim Commerford and De la Rocha to play with Morello.

The guitarist completed the quartet with Brad Wilk, who had failed auditions for both Lock Up and the band that would later become Pearl Jam. These four —De la Rocha on vocals, Commerford on bass, Morello on guitar and Wilk on drums— would be RATM. Their sound mixes heavy metal, rap, punk rock and funk, with a left-wing political discourse that runs through all their work. Their debut album of the same name was released in 1992, and it was their appearance at the Lollapalooza festival in 1993 that catapulted them to a massive audience. Years later, in 2003, that first album entered the 368th position in the list of the 500 best albums of Rolling Stone.