Former Rage Against The Machine guitarist Tom Morello discussed how Public Enemy’s Chuck D was ‘reluctant’ to front RATM members in Prophets of Rage in a new interview on BBC’s The First Time With. Alternative Nation transcribed his comments.
“We called Chuck first. And he, Chuck’s a very busy man and he took a little- he was a reluctant bride a little bit and we, had to kind of [get] him but then he was in and then B-Real joined and we, you now, were on a mission.”
He also discussed the first Rage Against The Machine show.
“I remember it very clearly. It was a house party at Huntington Beach and when we, when that band formed there was no- it’s hard to explain like how there was zero commercial ambition. I had been in a band before that had been on a label and was dropped from that label and we were jut making music we loved. It was an inter-racial Neo-Marxist punk, you know, hip-hop heavy metal band. There were none of those on the radio.
There was not a record made by any band like that. There were no bands playing the L.A clubs like that. So we didn’t have any ambition of ever playing a show so we’re playing a living room party in Huntington Beach, like a friend’s parents were out of town but I gotta tell ya, from when the beat -the first song we ever played was ‘Take the Power Back’ and Tim begins that one and he was nervous so he played it at about twice the speed of the song and the living room exploded. Like when the beat dropped, there was a huge mosh pit destroying the living room.
At the time we only knew five songs we just played them, like we played the five songs and then played the five songs again. And it was a visceral reaction and connection like I’ve never been around anywhere in my life and I thought well, this is something different.”
