Why Did Fox News Pin Rage Against the Machine In The Corner
Shortly after forming, Rage Against The Machine gave their first public performance in Orange County, California, where a friend of Commerford’s was holding a house party. The blueprint for the group’s major-label debut album was laid on a twelve-song self-released cassette, the cover image of which was the stock-market with a single match taped to the inlay card. Not all 12 songs made it onto the final album—two were eventually included as B-sides, with the remaining three songs never seeing an official release.
Zack de la Rocha
The event led to a media furor. A clip of Zack’s speech found its way to the Fox News program “Hannity & Colmes.” An on-screen headline read, “Rock group Rage Against the Machine says Bush admin should be shot.” Ann Coulter (a guest on the show) stated, “They’re losers, their fans are losers, and there’s a lot of violence coming from the left wing.” On July 28th and 29th, Rage co-headlined the hip hop festival Rock the Bells. On July 28, they made a speech during Wake Up just as they had done at Coachella. During this, De La Rocha made another statement, defending the band from Fox News, who he alleged misquoted his speech at Coachella:
A couple of months ago, Fox News Network attempted to pin this band into a corner by suggesting that we said that the president should be assassinated. Nah, what we said was that he should be brought to trial as war criminal and hung and shot. THAT’S what we said. And we don’t back away from the position because the real assassinator is Bush and Cheney and the whole administration for the lives they have destroyed here and in Iraq. They’re the ones. And what they refused to air which was far more provocative in my mind and in the minds of my bandmates is this: this system has become so brutal and vicious and cruel that it needs to start wars and profit from the destruction around the world in order to survive as a world power.
Rage Against the Machine released their debut album Rage Against the Machine in 1992, which became a commercial success. Following a slot on the 1993 Lollapalooza, Rage Against the Machine did not release a follow-up record until Evil Empire in 1996. The band’s third album The Battle of Los Angeles was released in 1999. During their initial nine year run, they became one of the most popular and influential political bands in music history.
The band released their fourth studio album Renegades in 2000 and broke up shortly afterwards. Zack de la Rocha started a low-key solo career; the rest of the band formed the rock supergroup Audioslave with former Soundgarden frontman Chris Cornell. In April 2007 Rage Against the Machine performed together for the first time in seven years at the Coachella Valley Music and Arts Festival. The band has continued to perform at multiple live venues since.
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