What’s going on my fellow rock n’ rollers. Don’t forget to hit the bell notification icon to be
notified every time i put out a new video on my channel. I want to thank one of my subscribers
for recommending this story to me as i hadn’t previously heard it. Back in the early 90’s,
two bands who seemed to shake things up were Rage Against the Machine and the Suicidal Tendencies.
They even toured together in the 90’s and more recently as well, but something set
Suicidal Tendencies vocalist Mike Muir off to the point that he not only slammed Rage Against
The Machine in the press, but also wrote a diss track What happened? Stay tuned to find out!
Back in 1992 both Rage Against the Machine and the Suicidal Tendencies toured in Europe together.
First Rage opened for Mike Muir’s band in late 1992 and then a year later Rage
headlined their own shows in which both of Mike Muir’s bands including the suicidal tendencies
and the infectious grooves opened for them. And there seemed to be a few things that set
Mike Muir off against Rage. It seemed to mostly stem from an interview that Rage against the
machine guitarist Tom Morello gave disparaging the Suicidal Tendenceis referring to them as and quote
an “old” band. The other was a stunt the band pulled against the parents resource music council
or PMRC protesting censorship. And in 1993 Rage Against the Machine was out on the lollapalooza
tour. At one stop, the band stood naked on stage for 15 minutes to protest the PMRC who wanted to
censor music and their largely responsible for the advisory stickers you see on albums.
Now Muir was upset at Morello’s comments and what he saw as hypocrisy and would use two methods to
slam Rage’s actions. One involved going to the press to slam the band when he gave an
interview toSpin Magazine in 1993 saying “There’s a fine line between making a political statement
and trying to add to your financial statement. He would also slam the band for going after the PMRC
because by 1993 they were largely inactive. And a year later Muir would use his
band Infectious Grooves as an avenue to slam Rage once again.
He would pen a diss track for the group’s 1994 album titled Groove Family Cyco,
which was released on April Fools Day. It featured asong “Do What I Tell Ya,” which
took its inspiration from a Rage against the machine’s song killing in the name. The song
doesn’t specifically call out rage a or any of it's members by name, but it leaves little to the
imagination. The song would feature the lyrics Now you’re making your political statement
Or are you trying to add to you financial statement
And let’s not forget evil corporations Then why is Sony the sponsor of your presentation?
Now Muir would speak to the LA times in 1994 ahead of the album’s release
clarifying the message of the song saying “Here’s a band talking about how evil
corporations are , and they’re their signed to one of the biggest corporations of the world.
If they want to be independent why didn't they just put their records out on an indie label?"
Muir would go on to say "don't try and make a political statement because you're in a band,
run for office, change the world if you think you can" he'd say.
The article would also go on to point out that the Infectious Grooves were also signed to Sony
through their label Epic Records. And Muir for his part would claim he wasn't criticizing the company
and said he's happy to be on their roster, but rather he wanted to point out how Rage's highly
touted political views become questionable when it's spoken from a corporate setting.
So how did the record label see this feud between two of their artists? Well the LA Times reached
out to Epic Records with the company's west coast president putting out a statement saying
“I believe in peace, love and understanding as much as the next guy,
but I’m not writing the lyrics. I don’t think there are any Sony
problems with this, and we don’t censor our artists" the statement would read.
Now "Groove Family Cyco" did not receive the same commercial success as the Infectious
Grooves previous albums and for their part Rage never really addressed the feud.
And Muir as recently as 2008 was still slamming the band telling the Cleveland Scene
I just think Rage said something about us talking about the beginning of the feud
So I said what I thought. I think a lot of times, little nerdy kids get an audience,
and they like the fact that they can say things, and they think people really care. And to me,
that's just totally fake. Like, dude, are they really a groundbreaking political band if Sony's
throwing all kinds of money at it?" he'd say. A couple years later it seemed like it was water
under the bridge as suicidal tendencies opened for Rage in South America as Suicidal Tendencies
guitarist Dean Pleasants would tell an interviewer , “Rage’s manager was like, ‘Well, I don’t know
if they want you guys to come,’ but he asked them and it had been long forgotten. And the Brazilian
people said they wanted Suicidal to come, so we went. We got there and saw Tom, and Zack,
and said hi and everything was cool.” he'd say That does it for today’s video. Thanks for
watching guys be sure to hit the like button and subscribe and if you have
suggestions for future topics let me know in the comments section below. Take care.