Back in the early 2000’s Rage Against The Machine the Beastie Boys were supposed to
head out on tour. It was tumultuous time for Rage who were on the brink of collapse
and it very well could have been a great farewell until their subsequent reunions,
but it wasn’t meant to be. Let’s explore what happened in today’s video.
Rage Against the Machine at the time had what would be their final studio album
a collection of cover tunes called Renegades coming out in late 2000.
Ahead of the album’s release the band announced a joint tour with the Beastie Boys. It was announced
in June of 2000 that both acts would be teaming up for the “Rhyme and Reason 2000” tour that would
happen August through September of the same year across the east coast, the south and the midwest.
Tickets even went up for sale and additional dates were added to the tour
In fact the demand for tickets was so great that the servers actually crashed.
MTV would sit down with the members of the Beastie Boys who discussed their upcoming tour with
rage against the machine at the time with Mike D revealing the origin behind the name the rhyme and
reason tour saying "Well we struggled to find a name. You know, I think we were much more excited
with the idea of the tour than with coming up with a name for it. You know, you've got rhyme, I think
we constitute rhyme. Zack does some rhyme. I'd like to think that we're all reasonable people."
MTV initially reported a revolving cast of supporting acts joining
the tour including No Doubt, Stone Temple Pilots, rapper Busta Rhymes as well as the Roots
Both Rage and the Beastie boys would even announce that some of the proceeds from the
tour would be donated to charity a tradition both bands already did on their own independent tours.
MTV would report at the time that both bands would take $1 from each take sale and give it to charity
with the Beastie Boys donating to the Milarepa Fund, which they helped co-found in 1994. That
organization helps fight for non-violent social change. Meanwhile Rage Against the
Machine would donate their proceeds to foods banks and homeless shelters across the country.
By late July of 2000 it would be announced that the tour dates would be postponed by 2-3 months
after Beastie Boys member Mike D injured his shoulder while bicycling in New York City. The
tour was set to start on August 2nd in toronto. A publicist for the beastie boys would issue a
statement that Mike D was riding home from a rehearsal for the tour when he rode over
a pothole and fell off his bike injuring several shoulder muscles, tendons and ligaments and his
doctors and physical therapists recommended he be sidelined for 2-3 months to recover.
By early September there was no update on the tour and the beastie boys Adam Yauch would reveal to
MTV that plans for the tour were still up in the air while also admitting the trek had been hastily
put together revealing. "We're sort of supposed to be on vacation, but then somehow we wound up
where we were going to do this tour in the middle of our vacation. I don't know why ]. So I don't
know exactly when we'll start working again [on the next album]" he'd say.
A few weeks later the tour was cancelled with a statement citing & I quote "insurmountable
logistical, scheduling, and health problems." Another factor that MTV reported that may have
contributed to the cancellations was that Rage’s frontman Zach De La Rocha who was planning on
going into the studio to record a solo record. The rest of the year would be full of turmoil for
rage against the machine. While the band would release a new covers album. and play some shows
in addition to recording a live album. There was also speculation that the band was done.
Then the news dropped on wednesday october 18 2000 that frontman zach de la rocha was done with the
group announcing “I feel that it is now necessary to leave Rage, because our decision making process
has completely failed. It is no longer meeting the aspirations of all four of us collectively,
as a band, and from my perspective has undermined our artistic and political ideal.
Rage against the machine formed 9 years earlier in 1991 channeling a wide spectrum of influences
including led zeppelin, bob dylan and even Devo. And the band would establish itself as
one of the most groundbreaking, incendiary and politically-driven bands of the 90’s,
going on to sell almost 20 million albums. And for years rumors of in-fighting plagued the band.
And the news that De La Rocha was leaving didn’t come as a shock to guitarist Tom Morello who would
reveal that he was amazed that the band lasted as long as it did telling interviewer simon young
“Rage Against The Machine has been a tremendously volatile rock rollercoaster for nine whole years,.
It actually comes as something as a surprise that the original line-up has remained intact all
this time. It’s important to emphasise that Rage Against The Machine have not broken up. Zack has
left the band. Tim, Brad and myself will continue to make groundbreaking music he would say.
And The news of Zack’s departure wasn’t well timed given that almost a month after he left the group,
they were set to release their covers album titled Renegades Guitarist Tom Morello would
act diplomatically in the same interview stating “we parted company on good terms and we wish
him well,” There’s been some confusion over this record,
since it coincides with Zack’s departure. It’s a studio album, with Zack as the vocalist.
For Timmy, Brad and myself, we’re really proud of this record and want everyone to know about it.”
And According to morello, Zack wanted to take up to 2 years off until they began
work on their next record with 2003 being the next planned album from the group. So what happened?
Some point to an incident at the MTV Video Music Awards where bassist Tim Commerford
crashed Limp Bizkit’s acceptance speech. And the bassist’s actions actions reportedly angered De
La Rocha who left the awards early telling reporters he felt and i quote “humiliated”.
And i've done a whole video on this story the link is down below!
Othere’s point to the fact that it was deeper than
that. It was around this time that Zack would tell the press
“It’s not unique among rock bands to find the occasional dissension,”
“But compared to the music we make and the causes we pursue, it’s not so interesting.”
And Morello was more evasive saying. “Let’s just say Rage Against The Machine’s forces made us burn
brightly and burn quickly. That’s been a constant tension that’s been an enormous challenge for us
all over the years. Zack did what he had to do.” Now at the time of De La Rocha’s departure the
remaining members of the band vowed to continue to make music together, but it wasn’t immediately
clear as to whether it would be done under the RATM monicker or as part of a new side project.
New frontman were rumored to be working with the musicians including B-Real from Cypress Hill.
And it wouldn’t be until years later that the remaining other members of the band
were little more open as to what happened behind the scenes. During an appearance
on Lars Ulrich’s interview show ‘It’s Electric’ on Beats 1 morello would state
I’ll put myself first and foremost,” “It was a lack of emotional maturity in being able to deal
with each other as people. We had political vision and the shows never suffered, but we just couldn’t
agree on stuff and that sort of unearthed feelings that made it hard to make records. I think there
were competing visions of what Rage was supposed to be and competing feelings about what it was
like to be in a band that we didn't deal with. My version of the band was lets make a band every
six months lets be the politican led zeppelin and overthrow the government and lets make the
best records anyone ever did by wednesday go go and morello would say in retrospect he wasn't
necessarily understanding of the feelings of his bandmates in the years that followed rage's
demise. The remaining members minus de la rocha would form the supergroup audioslave with former
soundgarden frontman Chris Cornell. The band would last half a decade until their breakup
in 2007. Side note guys i've done a whole video on the career of audioslave, the link is down below.
The same year that audiosalve would break up, rage would reunite to headline coachella with morello
revealing during an interview why that was the case saying we got together in 2007 and we had
a great time we had fun onstage off stage it felt like there was a lot of commardare but one of the
things that helped that we took off the table was everything that was controversial before writing
music doing interviews, having a manager, we're just not going to do that stuff. we're just going
to play shows and have a nice time and be able to look at each other in the eye and not do anything
that stirred controversy in the past.it was in 2008 that de la rocha formed his own band one
day as a lion which blended together rock and rap together and featured John Theodore former drummer
of the mars volta. Rage against the machine would continue to perform until 2011 when they took a
break and no new music was ever released. In the years that followed different members gave
differing accounts whether we'd see new music. in 2016 the members of rage minus de la rocha formed
the supergroup prophets of rage with chuck d or public enemy b reel of cypress hilll. They would
put out original music, while also covering the msuic of their respective bands during live shows.
they would disband by 2019 setting up the stage for another rage against the machine reunion.
the band was scheduled to tour in 2020 but tthen everything changed as well all know. hat does it
for today's video guys thanks for watching be sure to hit the like and subscribe button. if
you guys have suggestions for future topics fill out the google form in the description box below.