Remembering Rage Against the Machine’s Ballsy 1993 Protest

On July 18, 1993, 1000’s of followers turned out to see rock’s hottest new act, the highly effective Los Angeles quartet Rage Against the Machine. What they acquired as a substitute was full-frontal nudity.

At the time, Rage had been on mainstream music followers’ radar for about six months. The band launched its self-titled debut album in November 1992, and although it wasn’t an on the spot success, phrase of mouth steadily helped the LP construct momentum. By the time Rage Against the Machine set out with the Lollapalooza touring competition the following summer time, rock followers throughout the nation have been stirring with pleasure concerning the politically charged rockers.

The trek kicked off on June 18 in Vancouver. A month later, Lollapalooza was scheduled to cease in Philadelphia. Two main components would affect Rage Against the Machine’s efficiency in the City of Brotherly Love. The first was mechanical. After a month of power-packed exhibits, singer Zack de la Rocha’s voice was shot, leaving the singer uncertain he’d even have the ability to carry out.

The second loomed a lot larger. Led by Tipper Gore, the Parents Music Resource Center (PMRC) was launched in 1985. The committee’s focus was to “protect” American youth from influences in music that it deemed as morally dangerous. Sexually charged lyrics and the use of profanity have been simply a few of the points the PMRC bristled with. Their efforts led to the now well-known Parental Advisory sticker positioned on albums.

Watch Rage Against the Machine Perform ‘Take the Power Back’ at Lollapalooza 1993

Even although the Parental Advisory sticker was not new by 1993, it was nonetheless controversial. As upstart musicians with the propensity to drop f-bombs, Rage Against the Machine knew all too properly how the sticker might restrict an artist’s skill to get their music to the plenty. The band seen the PMRC’s efforts as censorship of free speech. So, on July 18, they determined to make a press release.

When Rage Against the Machine took to the Lollapalooza stage, they did so utterly bare. Initially, the musicians held their devices, however they quickly put them down, purposely inflicting suggestions from the audio system. Each of the males had tape throughout their mouth, with the letters P-M-R-C painted on their chests. Without a phrase stated, Rage Against the Machine stood there, bare to the world for greater than quarter-hour.

The preliminary response from the crowd was constructive, with Tom Morello recalling to Uncut that there “was an outpouring of excitement among the crowd for the first five minutes.”

“When we walked out onstage people loved it, they were cheering,” bassist Tim Commerford remembered throughout a dialog with ESPN’s Dan Le Batard. “But little did they know, we weren’t planning on playing a note.” After the viewers realized that no music could be carried out, the response shifted.

“Then there was an interesting standoff as it was clear this was not just some sort of quick stunt,” Morello recalled. “Then for the last five minutes, there was outright hostility – booing and giving us the finger and quarter coins being thrown at our dicks.”

Watch an Interview With Rage Against the Machine During Lollapalooza 1993

Asked years later by Modern Drummer what he was pondering as he stood onstage in the nude, Brad Wilk confessed, “I was thinking about how the wind felt underneath my scrotum, what the people in the front were thinking, and all the cameras flashing and what they were going to be thinking as they developed their film. Actually, doing that was no big deal. It didn’t freak me out. That’s how we all came into the world. It’s a liberating thing.”

Police ultimately escorted Rage Against the Machine off the stage that day. No expenses for indecent publicity have been filed. The stunt stays one in all the most notorious in the political rockers’ historical past.

“Hopefully in some way, we made the point that controversial music is not something you can take for granted, you have to fight for it,” Morello famous. “Although people just remember us standing there naked.”