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Joey Krebs is a renowned graffiti artist from LA; also knows as The Street Phantom, The Phantom Street Artist or Joel Jaramillo, his work has been exhibited at numerous galleries across the United States. One regular feature of his pieces the outline of a human, on which text is overlaid – sound familiar? It should, because it’s his craft – and an original commission – that appears on the cover of The Battle Of Los Angeles by RAGE AGAINST THE MACHINE, which celebrated its 25th anniversary last month.
By the end of the 1990s, RAGE AGAINST THE MACHINE (often shortened to RATM) were one of the biggest bands on the planet. Sophomore release Evil Empire had built on the success of 1992’s self-titled debut impressively – it debuted at #1 on the US Billboard 200, featured Tire Me which won the 1996 Grammy for ‘Best Metal Performance’ and would see their highest position in the UK Singles Chart for 13 years, Bulls on Parade reaching #8. The band spent much of 1996 and 1997 touring the record – which included a run opening for rock giants U2 – and then took 1998 off from touring to begin working on the next studio album. Recording took place between September and October across various studios in Hollywood, California and Atlanta, with Brendan O’Brien once again in the producer’s chair.
The first performance of new material came three weeks into January, when RAGE AGAINST THE MACHINE performed a secret show at the famous Troubadour in Hollywood. Mic Check, Maria and Testify were all premieres alongside No Shelter, which would be included on the Australian and Japanese editions of the record. The rest of the year prior to the albums release saw festival appearances – including one at the infamous Woodstock 1999 – and other shows around the US and UK. First single Guerilla Radio was released on October 12th, prior to the album’s release on November 2nd, 1999; like Evil Empire, it debuted at #1 on the Billboard 200 and sold 420,000 copies in its first week; at the end of the year, both Time and Rolling Stone magazines named it their Album of the year. By comparison, Kerrang! placed it at #4, while Metal Hammer didn’t include it at all.
The band’s second single, Sleep Now In The Fire, was initially released two days after the album on November 4th, however the true impact of the song wouldn’t be felt until the beginning of the following year and its incendiary music video. It was shot on 26th January 2000 on Wall Street in New York and directed by Michael Moore, known for his social, political and economic commentaries in filmmaking. It caused a major disruption, with several hundred people attracted to the goings on, and caused the doors of the world-famous New York Stock Exchange to be closed. “Michael basically gave us one directorial instruction, ‘no matter what happens, don’t stop playing’,” recalled RAGE AGAINST THE MACHINE guitarist Tom Morello, who later said he and ‘about two hundred’ others ran into the Stock Exchange following the end of the shoot; Moore was apprehended by police and yelled ‘Take the New York Stock Exchange!’ as he was being led away, spending an hour in custody before his release.
Two days after the video shoot, RAGE AGAINST THE MACHINE began a short European tour in support of the record beginning at Wembley Arena in London; they would then return to the stage in the summer and early autumn of that year playing festivals and finishing with two shows at the Grand Olympic Auditorium in LA, which would be recorded for the subsequent live album of the same name; they would also, as it turns out, be RATM’s last shows for nearly seven years. A month later, singer Zack de la Rocha announced he was leaving the band, with Morello, bassist Tim Commerford and drummer Brad Wilk joining forces with the late Chris Cornell to form AUDIOSLAVE.
Given the vitriol in RATM’s self-titled and the huge commercial appeal of Evil Empire, The Battle Of Los Angeles can fly a bit under the radar, yet it remains a stellar record with an excellent arsenal of songs. War Within A Breath is an excellent coda on a series of songs about The Zapatistas, a movement that rose up in Mexico following NAFTA, the North American Free Trade Agreement. Calm Like A Bomb is the perfect blend of RAGE AGAINST THE MACHINE’s main styles – rap, funk and rock – with de la Rocha seamlessly shifting his lyrics to match each one. And then, there’s Born Of A Broken Man, possibly RAGE AGAINST THE MACHINE‘s best sleeper hit and the only time the band ever drew on personal life. Written about de la Rocha’s father, it simmers with charged anger, the words delivered through clenched teeth before exploding at well-timed moments for maximum impact.
The Battle Of Los Angeles might be the most polished and, indeed, mature of RAGE AGAINST THE MACHINE’s trio of original albums, but there’s no denying that the fire inside all four members burned just as brightly as it had on the other two. The fact that, a quarter of a century later, the songs still ring as true in a potentially even MORE dysfunctional world than the end of the millennium probably says more about the state of society, but it’s also an indication of how timeless the music is, a force to be reckoned with and a call to arms on social injustice wherever it may be found.
The Battle Of Los Angeles was originally released on November 2nd, 1999 via Epic Records.
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The post HEAVY MUSIC HISTORY: The Battle Of Los Angeles – Rage Against the Machine appeared first on Distorted Sound Magazine.
