"We've got to regain knowledge again, and we've got to regain an understanding again, of who we are. Not just those chosen to fuel systems, but individuals who have the power to criticize and analyze, and attack injustice when it becomes prevalent and apparent in front of our faces like it is in ours right now. We've been all put to sleep. Put to sleep to a system. A system that continues to perpetrate ignorance amongst our spirits and amongst our minds. One that wants you not to act. A system that would rather see all of you at that bar drinking beer filling your minds being put to sleep with beer or with drugs, rather than acting against it and fighting a system which has been perpetrating imperialist lies and other fucking bullshit for five hundred years.
So fucking drink up or fucking wake up. You're part of the solution or you're part of the fucking problem. I am sick and tired of my own complacence in my life and I know I'm fucking sick of yours. So wake up and stop fucking sleeping. Wake Up." --Zack De La Rocha
The music of Rage Against The Machine is a fierce and uncompromising meld of punk-inspired hard rock and politically-charged rap. Less than two years from the time of their first public performance in an Orange County living room party, the Los Angeles-based band has created a growing storm of both controversy and fan support. Rage's influences range (in their words) "from Bad Brains to Malcolm X, from Led Zeppelin to Che Guevara, from Minor Threat to Martin Luther King Jr., from Public Enemy to the Clash."
Rage Against The Machine was co-produced by the band with engineer Garth Richardson, who has worked with Red Hot Chili Peppers and Ozzy Osbourne. All sounds are the product of guitars, bass, and drums; no samples, keyboards or synthesizers were used to create this music. What was used was the raw musical power and highly charged language of such key Rage songs as "Settle For Nothing," "Killing In The Name," and "Bullet In The Head." This last-named track is also the first video by Rage Against The Machine, even though FCC regulations preclude airplay.
Before signing with Epic Associated, Rage Against The Machine recorded a 12-song cassette which sold over 5,000 copies at the band's live shows and through its fan club. In fact, the present album version of "Bullet In The Head" is taken directly from that self-released tape. In its first year of existence, Rage Against The Machine opened shows for Ice-T's Body Count, Public Enemy, and Pearl Jam. The band supported Perry Farrell's Porno For Pyros on the latter's July 13, 1992 debut performance; toured Europe with Suicidal Tendencies; and appeared September 11-12, 1992 on the second stage of Lollapalooza II in Los Angeles dates.
"On the strength of the album," wrote Timothy White in Billboard, "they must be viewed as one of the most original and virtuosic new rock bands in the nation...Rage Against The Machine generates the most beautifully articulated torrent of hardcore bedlam that one could imagine. And the hopes invested in these humming murals of urban din are equally visionary."
