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I've been a huge fan of RATM since the early 90s, but I don't think that "A brand new band mixing metal and hip hop like no one had done before" is quite true.

I've been a huge fan of RATM since the early 90s, but I don't think that "A brand new band mixing metal and hip hop like no one had done before" is quite true. My understanding is that the music scene in LA had a lot of bands like this. I believe the band Downset pre-dates them, and they had a big hit called "Anger". I only wish they had a bigger impact in politics. For all of their incredible songs, almost nothing came of it, besides the famous protest of the DNC conference in LA. I wish they had more impact especially during the Bush years, when we really needed an anti-government voice, but it never came to be, unfortunately.

vondur 4y ago
Downset was heavily influenced by Zach’s old band Inside Out. I was in an old hardcore band from that era and know Ray and played with shows with Inside Out. Updated for autocorrected error.
- konfusinomicon 4y ago
  anger, hostility toward the opposition!
- lawgimenez 4y ago
  I'm getting old but I am still straight-edge right now because of bands like Inside Out and Minor Threat. Also I wish Tom would still write his op-ed on NYTimes, I really enjoyed his history and writing.
  - at-fates-hands 4y ago
    He's really articulate. I listen to his show "Comandante" on XM just for the history stuff he brings up. Tonight he was talking about being in a legit spandex, hair metal band WHILE he was still attending classes at Harvard. It was such a funny, yet totally Tom Morello thing to do, right? If you get a chance, have a listen, he has a lot of fascinating things to talk about - would love to see him get a regular spot in the Times just as a culture writer. Would be really interesting to see what he's write about.
    - lawgimenez 4y ago
      Thanks for the recommendation, I will take a listen. I think he wrote about that in his op-ed about being in a band in Harvard. https://www.nytimes.com/column/tom-morello https://www.nytimes.com/column/tom-morello
- apaprocki 4y ago
  Don’t get many opportunities in 2022 to tell the global Internet reading HN to go listen to Burning Fight and No Spiritual Surrender! What was your band?
  - vondur 4y ago
    We were called One Step Ahead.
    - blindriver 4y ago
      Very awesome!!
- BirAdam 4y ago
  And in turn, much of the diversity in metal and alt-rock of the late 80s and thereafter throughout the 90s owes quite a bit to Mr Bungle.
- itqwertz 4y ago
  Don’t forget about Urban Dance Squad. I feel like RwTM stole a lot of their style and packaged it for MTV consumption. RwTM has always sounded a bit watered-down, appealing to aimless teenage angst and class struggle fantasy. In reality , Zach de La Rocha has activism royalty in his lineage and Morello is a limo liberal.
- noman-land 4y ago
  Inside Out were so good. So cool you got to play with them.
ThePinion 4y ago
These days they're doing what a lot of those 90s bands ended up doing: raging with the machine.
- wombat-man 4y ago
  gotta sell tickets. Don't forget the merch!
- djbusby 4y ago
  Rage long enough and you become the machine.
  - deleted 4y ago
    [deleted]
- bnralt 4y ago
  I mean, they never seemed to be particularly deep thinkers. Like many, it felt like they just adopted whatever positions were popular with those around them at the time, so the way they act now shouldn't come as a surprise. RATM acting like Mumia Abu-Jamal was some sort of political prisoner was a good example of this. The guy saw his brother in an altercation with a police officer, ran over and shot the police officer dead. Rage praises him by name in at least two songs, calling him a rebel and talking about setting him free. It was a common sentiment in those circles at the time (Democracy Now! were big fans of Mumia, and you would hear "Free Mumia!" chants at marches against the Iraq war), and a lot of people just kind of mindlessly went along with it. If you've ever watched Community, the character of Britta is similar. These people are "political," but it's mostly an aesthetic. And for all the talk of them being "radical," the positions are usually extremely safe ones to take for the circles they travel in. People put on a lot of bravado when they're going against the nameless "Machine," but most are too terrified to even entertain a stance that might alienate them from their peers.
Thlom 4y ago
They had a tremendous effect on many young peoples politics at the time. At least on my politics. That is much more than most political bands by a wide margin. Anyway, I don’t really think music can have a big effect on politics per se, but music can be important for political movements.
- jvanderbot 4y ago
  I do think music's effects are underappreciated. You can hear about plenty of artists uniting or representing a movement in the USA esp 60s. The story of Rodriguez is one of my favorites. He literally had no idea he had been the root of music for social change in Apartheid South Africa. https://www.npr.org/2012/07/28/157478577/rodriguez-forgotten-in-america-exalted-in-africa https://www.npr.org/2012/07/28/157478577/rodriguez-forgotten... "The first white anti-Apartheid movement derived [inspiration] from a few rock bands," Bendjelloul explains. "Rodriguez was the first artist that actually had political content that was anti-establishment that got heard. ... By remote control, Rodriguez was actually changing a society."
  - nyokodo 4y ago
    > artists uniting or representing a movement in the USA esp 60s. They sold music to the huge boomer population when they were young, by the 1980s those same Boomers voted for Reagan in considerable numbers and were buying Debbie Gibson and Rod Stewart albums. RATM sold music to pissed off GenXers when they were young, by 2020 they were voting for Biden. It’s not revolution, it’s youthful angst that gives way to responsibility and lower testosterone levels.
    - sdenton4 4y ago
      I really don't think gen-xers voting for Biden is in any way analysis to boomers voting for Reagan. I think this is the dominant sentiment on Biden: https://youtu.be/KGmXGkIr7w0 https://youtu.be/KGmXGkIr7w0 He's a stop gap against fascism.
      - 4y ago
anigbrowl 4y ago
> I only wish they had a bigger impact in politics. Gushing cliches like '_____ has changed everything' often unintentionally dissipate the very energy that seeks to bring about change by reducing everything to bathos. When the language of drama is applied to soap opera plots it's ceased to have any utility. Gil Scott Heron rapped about this in his famous record 'The Revolution Will Not Be Televised', which of course was quickly repurposed into a meaningless cliche and printed on t-shirts that could be sold at Hot Topic. Edit: this is a hyperbolic dig at marketing and commodification. I don't think GSH himself ever tried to make money from merchandise, but the original language is unclear.
- deleted 4y ago
  [deleted]
nailer 4y ago
NOFX had their politically awakening during the Bush years and produced their best work with War on Errrorism during this time.
- soulofmischief 4y ago
  One of the sharpest punk records ever cut. This album was a wake-up call.
- lawgimenez 4y ago
  I still know the lyrics to Franco-Unamerican song. There was a huge Rock against Bush movement back then from concerts to album compilations.
- flobosg 4y ago
  I prefer their earlier stuff but “The Separation of Church and Skate” is such a banger.
tomxor 4y ago
In a way that means it hasn't dated much at all when you listen to the lyrics.
sosborn 4y ago
Body Count was ahead of them: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Body_Count_(band) https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Body_Count_(band)
- at-fates-hands 4y ago
  When that first Body Count album came out, it was like a nuke going off across the country and huge wake up call for anybody who didn't know what was going on routinely in South Central and surrounding areas with the LAPD and the black community. Weirder still was when Rodney King happened you had a whole bunch of suburban white parents who were shocked at what happened. I remember myself and all my friends were like, "Welcome to the party, Ice T, NWA and other groups have been talking about this for years!" We already knew about police brutality as teenagers well before our parents did. It was an odd juxtaposition.
  - ninjin 4y ago
    Body Count really was and is something special. I discovered them far later than I discovered Rage, but they really are putting out gems even now with “No Lives Matters” [1] in 2017 and their take on Ice-T’s “Colors” in 2020 [2]. Apparently there is a new album in the works and I certainly hope they will continue putting out excellent music and social commentary of a kind you otherwise would only see coming out of hip hop. [1]: https://yewtu.be/watch?v=ww3VAh-aPds https://yewtu.be/watch?v=ww3VAh-aPds [2]: https://yewtu.be/watch?v=Mlj-I7Ak-YM https://yewtu.be/watch?v=Mlj-I7Ak-YM
    - acomjean 4y ago
      I discovered rage because they gave out tapes at a body count concert and a friend picked one up. Rage was the opening band. I have the original body count cd, I got on release day. They had one and they had to go looking for it in the back. I believe it was the same day as Bruce Springsteens double album. We saw Rage at UMass student Union ballroom and Body Count later that year at a club in Amherst. Those 90s had some good shows.
nverno 4y ago
How prophetic is this Trump sign in the Sleep Now in the Fire music video from 1999[1]. I had tickets to the ill-fated Beasties/RATM tour, so bummed that never happened. They've had an impact though, their music is immortal. 1. https://youtu.be/kl4wkIPiTcY?t=64 https://youtu.be/kl4wkIPiTcY?t=64
- pmarreck 4y ago
  ha, wow. I was there then and completely forgot that he even bothered running then
8bitsrule 4y ago
I'm sure that the band's impact was underreported in the US, where the debut album only charted at #45 (much higher in the UK and AU). 2nd album 'Evil Empire' debuted at US#1,, and did equally well internationally. Its song 'Tire Me', sez Wikipedia, "never had a music video, was never released on any media formats, and had no radio airplay" (odd, no?), yet it won a Grammy in 1997. (This was 1996 ... little internet ... and yet word got around.) I don't expect music to have much widespread political impact ... the impact is in deeper regions less open to media manipulation.
pdonis 4y ago
> I only wish they had a bigger impact in politics. They have--just not the impact I suspect you are thinking of. The political impact of RATM and similar bands is to make "protesting against the system" into a brand. That means that people who feel that they should be protesting against the system don't think they have to do the hard work of figuring out what is actually wrong with the system and how to fix it. They just think, oh, if I want to protest against the system, all I need to do is listen to this band! And buy their T-shirts, promote them on social media, etc., etc. In other words, it satisfies people's felt need to "protest against the system" without actually leading to any meaningful change.
- ls15 4y ago
  > They just think, oh, if I want to protest against the system, all I need to do is listen to this band! I am not sure if people who this would protest under any circumstances.
- hulitu 4y ago
  > don't think they have to do the hard work of figuring out what is actually wrong with the system Yes, I know my enemies! They're the teachers who taught me to fight me! Compromise! Conformity! Assimilation! Submission! Ignorance! Hypocrisy! Brutality! The elite! > how to fix it. All of which are American dreams! All of which are American dreams!
agotterer 4y ago
If you’re interested in Tom Morello’s version of how it all started for him, I recommend this nearly 2 hr show hosted by Tom. He tells stories of his upbringing and beliefs and plays a couple of songs for a live audience. https://www.audible.com/pd?asin=B08DVCMY4Y&source_code=ASSORAP0511160006&share_location=library_overflow https://www.audible.com/pd?asin=B08DVCMY4Y&source_code=ASSOR...
wefarrell 4y ago
Have you ever seen the music video for Testify? The gist is that Bush and Gore were identical candidates with essentially the same positions and it ends with a tacit endorsement of Nader. In hindsight Bush and Gore were not the same and the candidacy of Nader was harmful. Their politics would have been more effective had they urged young people to rage within the system, but the rebellious message is clearly more appealing. https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=Q3dvbM6Pias https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=Q3dvbM6Pias
- hulitu 4y ago
  > Bush and Gore were not the same It's funny how, after those people come to power, you don't see any difference. At least from abroad.
  - wefarrell 4y ago
    Gore wouldn’t have invaded Iraq and would have made a much bigger push towards reducing carbon emissions.
    - pictureofabear 4y ago
      You truly cannot prove that with any level of certainty.
- scruple 4y ago
  Harmful how? Are we still blaming people who voted for Nader for the fact that Bush won?
- blindriver 4y ago
  I remember when Bush vs Kerry, they did a comparison between their policies and there was about a 3% difference between them. The Democrats and the Republicans force a false dichotomy. In reality they are the same side of the coin, and we are all on the other side. Yes, Bush had a military hard-on for Iraq that killed a million and ruined the Middle East. Fuck that war criminal. Yes, Gore probably wouldn't have invaded Iraq, but then again Trump wouldn't have fought the proxy war against Russia right now. Obama authorized the incursions in Honduras that have caused the humanitarian crisis at our borders these days. All US presidents love feeding the military industrial complex.

vondur 4y ago

Downset was heavily influenced by Zach’s old band Inside Out. I was in an old hardcore band from that era and know Ray and played with shows with Inside Out. Updated for autocorrected error.

konfusinomicon 4y ago
anger, hostility toward the opposition!
lawgimenez 4y ago
I'm getting old but I am still straight-edge right now because of bands like Inside Out and Minor Threat. Also I wish Tom would still write his op-ed on NYTimes, I really enjoyed his history and writing.
- at-fates-hands 4y ago
  He's really articulate. I listen to his show "Comandante" on XM just for the history stuff he brings up. Tonight he was talking about being in a legit spandex, hair metal band WHILE he was still attending classes at Harvard. It was such a funny, yet totally Tom Morello thing to do, right? If you get a chance, have a listen, he has a lot of fascinating things to talk about - would love to see him get a regular spot in the Times just as a culture writer. Would be really interesting to see what he's write about.
  - lawgimenez 4y ago
    Thanks for the recommendation, I will take a listen. I think he wrote about that in his op-ed about being in a band in Harvard. https://www.nytimes.com/column/tom-morello https://www.nytimes.com/column/tom-morello
apaprocki 4y ago
Don’t get many opportunities in 2022 to tell the global Internet reading HN to go listen to Burning Fight and No Spiritual Surrender! What was your band?
- vondur 4y ago
  We were called One Step Ahead.
  - blindriver 4y ago
    Very awesome!!
BirAdam 4y ago
And in turn, much of the diversity in metal and alt-rock of the late 80s and thereafter throughout the 90s owes quite a bit to Mr Bungle.
itqwertz 4y ago
Don’t forget about Urban Dance Squad. I feel like RwTM stole a lot of their style and packaged it for MTV consumption. RwTM has always sounded a bit watered-down, appealing to aimless teenage angst and class struggle fantasy. In reality , Zach de La Rocha has activism royalty in his lineage and Morello is a limo liberal.
noman-land 4y ago
Inside Out were so good. So cool you got to play with them.

ThePinion 4y ago

These days they're doing what a lot of those 90s bands ended up doing: raging with the machine.

wombat-man 4y ago
gotta sell tickets. Don't forget the merch!
djbusby 4y ago
Rage long enough and you become the machine.
- deleted 4y ago
  [deleted]
bnralt 4y ago
I mean, they never seemed to be particularly deep thinkers. Like many, it felt like they just adopted whatever positions were popular with those around them at the time, so the way they act now shouldn't come as a surprise. RATM acting like Mumia Abu-Jamal was some sort of political prisoner was a good example of this. The guy saw his brother in an altercation with a police officer, ran over and shot the police officer dead. Rage praises him by name in at least two songs, calling him a rebel and talking about setting him free. It was a common sentiment in those circles at the time (Democracy Now! were big fans of Mumia, and you would hear "Free Mumia!" chants at marches against the Iraq war), and a lot of people just kind of mindlessly went along with it. If you've ever watched Community, the character of Britta is similar. These people are "political," but it's mostly an aesthetic. And for all the talk of them being "radical," the positions are usually extremely safe ones to take for the circles they travel in. People put on a lot of bravado when they're going against the nameless "Machine," but most are too terrified to even entertain a stance that might alienate them from their peers.

Thlom 4y ago

They had a tremendous effect on many young peoples politics at the time. At least on my politics. That is much more than most political bands by a wide margin. Anyway, I don’t really think music can have a big effect on politics per se, but music can be important for political movements.

jvanderbot 4y ago
I do think music's effects are underappreciated. You can hear about plenty of artists uniting or representing a movement in the USA esp 60s. The story of Rodriguez is one of my favorites. He literally had no idea he had been the root of music for social change in Apartheid South Africa. https://www.npr.org/2012/07/28/157478577/rodriguez-forgotten-in-america-exalted-in-africa https://www.npr.org/2012/07/28/157478577/rodriguez-forgotten... "The first white anti-Apartheid movement derived [inspiration] from a few rock bands," Bendjelloul explains. "Rodriguez was the first artist that actually had political content that was anti-establishment that got heard. ... By remote control, Rodriguez was actually changing a society."
- nyokodo 4y ago
  > artists uniting or representing a movement in the USA esp 60s. They sold music to the huge boomer population when they were young, by the 1980s those same Boomers voted for Reagan in considerable numbers and were buying Debbie Gibson and Rod Stewart albums. RATM sold music to pissed off GenXers when they were young, by 2020 they were voting for Biden. It’s not revolution, it’s youthful angst that gives way to responsibility and lower testosterone levels.
  - sdenton4 4y ago
    I really don't think gen-xers voting for Biden is in any way analysis to boomers voting for Reagan. I think this is the dominant sentiment on Biden: https://youtu.be/KGmXGkIr7w0 https://youtu.be/KGmXGkIr7w0 He's a stop gap against fascism.
    - 4y ago

anigbrowl 4y ago

> I only wish they had a bigger impact in politics. Gushing cliches like '_____ has changed everything' often unintentionally dissipate the very energy that seeks to bring about change by reducing everything to bathos. When the language of drama is applied to soap opera plots it's ceased to have any utility. Gil Scott Heron rapped about this in his famous record 'The Revolution Will Not Be Televised', which of course was quickly repurposed into a meaningless cliche and printed on t-shirts that could be sold at Hot Topic. Edit: this is a hyperbolic dig at marketing and commodification. I don't think GSH himself ever tried to make money from merchandise, but the original language is unclear.

deleted 4y ago
[deleted]

nailer 4y ago

NOFX had their politically awakening during the Bush years and produced their best work with War on Errrorism during this time.

soulofmischief 4y ago
One of the sharpest punk records ever cut. This album was a wake-up call.
lawgimenez 4y ago
I still know the lyrics to Franco-Unamerican song. There was a huge Rock against Bush movement back then from concerts to album compilations.
flobosg 4y ago
I prefer their earlier stuff but “The Separation of Church and Skate” is such a banger.

tomxor 4y ago

In a way that means it hasn't dated much at all when you listen to the lyrics.

sosborn 4y ago

Body Count was ahead of them: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Body_Count_(band) https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Body_Count_(band)

at-fates-hands 4y ago
When that first Body Count album came out, it was like a nuke going off across the country and huge wake up call for anybody who didn't know what was going on routinely in South Central and surrounding areas with the LAPD and the black community. Weirder still was when Rodney King happened you had a whole bunch of suburban white parents who were shocked at what happened. I remember myself and all my friends were like, "Welcome to the party, Ice T, NWA and other groups have been talking about this for years!" We already knew about police brutality as teenagers well before our parents did. It was an odd juxtaposition.
- ninjin 4y ago
  Body Count really was and is something special. I discovered them far later than I discovered Rage, but they really are putting out gems even now with “No Lives Matters” [1] in 2017 and their take on Ice-T’s “Colors” in 2020 [2]. Apparently there is a new album in the works and I certainly hope they will continue putting out excellent music and social commentary of a kind you otherwise would only see coming out of hip hop. [1]: https://yewtu.be/watch?v=ww3VAh-aPds https://yewtu.be/watch?v=ww3VAh-aPds [2]: https://yewtu.be/watch?v=Mlj-I7Ak-YM https://yewtu.be/watch?v=Mlj-I7Ak-YM
  - acomjean 4y ago
    I discovered rage because they gave out tapes at a body count concert and a friend picked one up. Rage was the opening band. I have the original body count cd, I got on release day. They had one and they had to go looking for it in the back. I believe it was the same day as Bruce Springsteens double album. We saw Rage at UMass student Union ballroom and Body Count later that year at a club in Amherst. Those 90s had some good shows.

nverno 4y ago

How prophetic is this Trump sign in the Sleep Now in the Fire music video from 1999[1]. I had tickets to the ill-fated Beasties/RATM tour, so bummed that never happened. They've had an impact though, their music is immortal. 1. https://youtu.be/kl4wkIPiTcY?t=64 https://youtu.be/kl4wkIPiTcY?t=64

pmarreck 4y ago
ha, wow. I was there then and completely forgot that he even bothered running then

8bitsrule 4y ago

I'm sure that the band's impact was underreported in the US, where the debut album only charted at #45 (much higher in the UK and AU). 2nd album 'Evil Empire' debuted at US#1,, and did equally well internationally. Its song 'Tire Me', sez Wikipedia, "never had a music video, was never released on any media formats, and had no radio airplay" (odd, no?), yet it won a Grammy in 1997. (This was 1996 ... little internet ... and yet word got around.) I don't expect music to have much widespread political impact ... the impact is in deeper regions less open to media manipulation.

pdonis 4y ago

> I only wish they had a bigger impact in politics. They have--just not the impact I suspect you are thinking of. The political impact of RATM and similar bands is to make "protesting against the system" into a brand. That means that people who feel that they should be protesting against the system don't think they have to do the hard work of figuring out what is actually wrong with the system and how to fix it. They just think, oh, if I want to protest against the system, all I need to do is listen to this band! And buy their T-shirts, promote them on social media, etc., etc. In other words, it satisfies people's felt need to "protest against the system" without actually leading to any meaningful change.

ls15 4y ago
> They just think, oh, if I want to protest against the system, all I need to do is listen to this band! I am not sure if people who this would protest under any circumstances.
hulitu 4y ago
> don't think they have to do the hard work of figuring out what is actually wrong with the system Yes, I know my enemies! They're the teachers who taught me to fight me! Compromise! Conformity! Assimilation! Submission! Ignorance! Hypocrisy! Brutality! The elite! > how to fix it. All of which are American dreams! All of which are American dreams!

agotterer 4y ago

If you’re interested in Tom Morello’s version of how it all started for him, I recommend this nearly 2 hr show hosted by Tom. He tells stories of his upbringing and beliefs and plays a couple of songs for a live audience. https://www.audible.com/pd?asin=B08DVCMY4Y&source_code=ASSORAP0511160006&share_location=library_overflow https://www.audible.com/pd?asin=B08DVCMY4Y&source_code=ASSOR...

wefarrell 4y ago

Have you ever seen the music video for Testify? The gist is that Bush and Gore were identical candidates with essentially the same positions and it ends with a tacit endorsement of Nader. In hindsight Bush and Gore were not the same and the candidacy of Nader was harmful. Their politics would have been more effective had they urged young people to rage within the system, but the rebellious message is clearly more appealing. https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=Q3dvbM6Pias https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=Q3dvbM6Pias

hulitu 4y ago
> Bush and Gore were not the same It's funny how, after those people come to power, you don't see any difference. At least from abroad.
- wefarrell 4y ago
  Gore wouldn’t have invaded Iraq and would have made a much bigger push towards reducing carbon emissions.
  - pictureofabear 4y ago
    You truly cannot prove that with any level of certainty.
scruple 4y ago
Harmful how? Are we still blaming people who voted for Nader for the fact that Bush won?
blindriver 4y ago
I remember when Bush vs Kerry, they did a comparison between their policies and there was about a 3% difference between them. The Democrats and the Republicans force a false dichotomy. In reality they are the same side of the coin, and we are all on the other side. Yes, Bush had a military hard-on for Iraq that killed a million and ruined the Middle East. Fuck that war criminal. Yes, Gore probably wouldn't have invaded Iraq, but then again Trump wouldn't have fought the proxy war against Russia right now. Obama authorized the incursions in Honduras that have caused the humanitarian crisis at our borders these days. All US presidents love feeding the military industrial complex.