The year 2000 represented a difficult time for the band Rage Against the Machine.
On the verge of breaking up, the band would make one of their final appearances together
at the MTV video music awards. They were nominated for best rock video,
but things didn’t exactly go as planned and what happened that night only further
alienated the members of the group. That’s what were going to explore in today’s video .
On September 7th 2000, Rage Against The Machine would attend the MTV video music awards as they
were nominated for their video for Sleep now in the fire, which was directed by filmmaker
Michael Moore. The song was found on the group’s 1999 album The Battle of Los Angeles. The band’s
video intercut footage of them playing in front of wall street in new york city interspersed with
a parody of Who Wants to Be a Millionaire. The video would end up shutting down wallstreet.
Going up against Rage Against the Machine was Limp Bizkit who was nominated for their video
for Break Stuff. The video showed fans and some other musicians mouthing the words to the song.
At the time, Limp Bizkit were labeled as the face of nu-metal & they were also the pariahs
of the music industry despite their massive following. Rage Against the Machine bassist
Tim Commerford who looked back at that night would tell the Dan Lebatard show the following
“We were up against Limp Bizkit, one of the dumbest bands in the history of music.
We’re up against them and their singer made the video. So it was Limp Bizkit vs. Rage,
Fred Durst-directed video vs. Michael Moore. And I’m sitting there with Michael and I’m like,
‘Hey man, if that camera doesn’t come over here, I’m climbing up that structure and I’m
gonna sit there like a f—ing gargoyle and throw a wrench in this show.’ And he’s like, ‘Tim,
follow your heart.'” Meanwhile frontman Zach De La Rocha and guitarist tom morello urged the bassist
to stay put and not disrupt the award ceremony. Probably not helping things was that according
to drummer Brad Wilk the people at MTV gave the band members bottles of champagne & by
the members of Rage’s own admission, they were expecting to win the award that night.
Limp Bizkit winning the award for best rock video and here’s what happened. Rage Against the Machine
bassist Tim Commerford was arrested after he disrupted the show by climbing part of the set.
A madman. This guy is rock n' roll, he should be getting the award.
I thought Eminem was chanting my name, but i was wrong he was chanting
to jump. I am going to kick his ass.they were embarassed, frustrated and humiliated trying to
get the cat out of the tree. MTV would jump to the next award with the
night’s host the Wayans brothers making jokes about what happened. Rolling Stone who report
the next day that the bassist was arrested & charged with assault and resisting arrest,
while his bodyguard,, who jumped to his defense was changed with obstructing justice.
Drummer Brad Wilk would recall the event during an interview with the Dean Deleray podcast
There’s an undercover cop who went on a ladder to try to get Timmy. The guy tries to grab at
Tim – he’s an undercover cop so he’s in regular clothes – Tim literally grabs the guy’s white
fucking mustache and kind of pulls on it. I’m dying, I’m like, ‘This is fing incredible!'”
“They finally got him down, and we were all thrown outside. MTV hated us,”. “I remember the head guy
at MTV was there as we were being ushered out, he said ‘Thank you very much, don’t come back.’
That type of thing. I just remember laughing my ass off in the van back to the hotel.”
Despite the fact that limp bizkit were inspired by rage against the machine
and even covered the group's song killing in the name, that love wasn't reciprocated
with Wilk telling Dean Delray “To be honest, we weren’t fans of Limp Bizkit. The only thing we
were fans of is that they were actually getting it together to write music and play, and do things.”
Commerford meanwhile would tell Rolling Stone years later "I do apologize for Limp Bizkit," . "I
really do. I feel really bad that we inspired such bulls--t." But the story doesn't end there.
According to commerford he would claim people still bring up the incident at the VMA’s revealing
to Rolling Stone “It’s aged like wine,” I get more people that come up to me now. Back in 2000, it
was like, ‘Dude, I saw you do that. What was that all about?’ Now, it’s like, ‘Dude, I saw you do
that. That was so fuckin’ awesome! I love that.’ It feels more comfortable now to talk about.”
But the bassist would reveal he did have one regret that night telling the magazine
“I wish I would’ve swung on that thing and brought it to the ground and just destroyed
it,” he says. “If I could do it all over again, I would’ve ripped that thing to the ground and
shredded it" he'd claim. A month after the MTV award show frontman Zach Del La Rocha announced
he was leaving the band, but the band would reunite in 2007, and perform together until 2011
and announced as recently as 2019 they'd be playing shows in 2020, but we all know what
happened in 2020.That does it for today's video guys thanks for watching. Be sure to hit the like
button and subscribe and we'll see you again on rock n' roll true stories. Take care.