Raging Music

By: Valerie Milano

Rage Against the Machine, an innovative and socially active American band from Los Angeles, is known for their combination of punk and alternative rock, heavy metal, hip hop and funk and their political lyrics.

RATM, consisting of vocalist Zack de la Rocha, guitarist Tom Morello, bassist Tim Commerford and drummer Brad Wilk debuted their self-titled album to triple platinum status, with the song “Killing in the Name”, which  includes word “fuck” 17 times during the 8 lines of lyrics. Their following albums were wildly successful and the band found this to be their primary outlet for social activism and a way to voice their revolutionary viewpoints.

In December 2009, RATM and others began waging a war on Facebook to rebel against commercialization of the music industry in the UK. The campaign focus is to take the track “Killing in the Name” to the elite Christmas Number One slot on the UK Singles Chart while bringing attention and fundraising for homelessness. Since 2005 this slot has been dominated by winners of the X Factor, Simon Cowell’s British version of American Idol, and therein lies the rub.

Zack de la Rocha told NME News that Simon Cowel “seems to have profited greatly off humiliating people on television and has a unique position of capturing attention of people on television, but also the airwaves. We see this as necessary to break that control”

On the morning of December 17th, Daniel Catullo III of DC3 Music Group LLC of was called to a secret soundstage to record a one-night reunion of Rage Against The Machine. With the Facebook war waging, Steve Kidd, road manager for the band, placed a call to Catullo, acclaimed live-concert producer and director, with the foresight to preserve the moment. RATM played a somewhat censored version of Killing In The Name also being aired live on Radio 5 Live, but the song was pulled after a few choruses of “fuck you I won’t do what you tell me”. (The BBC was forced to apologize repeatedly soon afterwards). Just as the Doors performance on The Ed Sullivan Show when Jim Morrison sang “girl we couldn’t get much higher”, the words were silenced and we see that freedom of speech is often just limited to the confines of what others feel is acceptable.