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'Zacarías Manuel "Zack" de la Rocha' (born January 12, 1970 in Long Beach, California) is a heavy metal vocalist, rapper, musician, poet and activist, best known as the lead singer and lyricist of Rage Against the Machine.
Early life, Father's Breakdown
In 1983, de la Rocha's father Roberto (known as Beto)—a member of Los Four, the first Chicano art collective to be exhibited at a major museum (LACMA, 1974)—suffered a nervous breakdown and took his religious ideals to extremes. He destroyed his art, and, when de la Rocha visited him on the weekends, he was forced to fast, sit in a room with the curtains closed and the door locked, and help destroy his father's paintings.
After a while, he was unable to cope with this lifestyle and stayed with his mother in Irvine. For elementary school, he attended the UC Irvine Farm School, a laboratory school housed in ranch hands' bungalows associated with a slaughterhouse operation that was formerly on the site - houses that are among the very few still in existence from the Irvine Ranch. Among the people he met there was Tim Commerford.
Musical career
Early career
The kind of life Beto gave to de la Rocha brought a culture shock upon him as well as an identity crisis. He was alienated from the Chicano community and was an outsider in the California suburbs where Chicanos were typically only seen doing menial work. In high school he became involved in the punk rock and hardcore punk scene and played guitar and sang for various bands, including a punk band called Juvenile Expression with Commerford. His interest in bands like the The Clash and Bad Religion turned into an appreciation for other bands like Minor Threat, Bad Brains, and The Teen Idles, and he joined the straight edge band Hardstance.
De la Rocha eventually formed Inside Out, which gained a large following in Huntington Beach and Irvine. They released a single record, ''No Spiritual Surrender'', on Revelation Records in 1990 before breaking up. In de la Rocha's words, Inside Out was "about completely detaching ourselves from society to see ourselves as...as spirits, and not bowing down to a system that sees you as just another pebble on a beach. I channeled all my anger out through that band."
De la Rocha felt that his Chicano heritage separated him from his immediate environment. Although he was never as economically deprived as his fellow Chicanos, he felt the same tension and rejection as they did. An incident with a particular influence on de la Rocha was a teacher's offhand remark about a "wetback station." He found himself relating to hip-hop acts such as Public Enemy, KRS-One, and Run-DMC. After Inside Out broke up, he embraced hip-hop and began freestyling at local clubs, where he met Tom Morello and Brad Wilk. Eventually de la Rocha's Juvenile Expression bandmate Commerford joined them and Rage Against the Machine was formed.
Rage Against the Machine
Before long, Rage Against the Machine was on the main stage at Lollapalooza, in 1993, and was one of the most politically charged bands ever to receive extensive airplay from radio and MTV. De la Rocha became one of the most visible champions of individual human rights around the world fighting for the causes of Leonard Peltier and Mumia Abu-Jamal, and supporting the Zapatista movement in Mexico. He even spoke on the floor of the UN, testifying against the United States and their treatment of Abu-Jamal. The music and the message were so intertwined for him that he did not consider any of Rage's albums a success unless they provoked tangible political change.
Rage's second and third albums peaked at number one in the United States, but did not result in the political action de la Rocha had hoped for. He became increasingly restless and undertook collaborations with artists like KRS-One, Chuck D, and Public Enemy.
Zack's Speech
On September 13, 2000, Rage Against the Machine performed their last show before breaking up, during which de la Rocha gave a notable speech before playing Killing in the Name:
"Creative differences"
In October 2000, de la Rocha left Rage Against the Machine, due to "creative differences." It is rumored that Tim Commerford's stunt at the 2000 MTV Video Music Awards, where he climbed on one of the fixtures on stage because RATM had lost the award for Best Rock Video to Limp Bizkit, may have contributed to de la Rocha's decision to leave the band.
The other members of the band sought out separate management and managed to secure the immediate release of the album Renegades. This may have prompted De La Rocha to quit. On October 18, 2000, he released the following statement:
After searching for a replacement for de la Rocha, the other members of Rage joined up with Chris Cornell of Soundgarden to form Audioslave.
Post-Rage work
After RATM's breakup, de la Rocha worked on a solo album he had been recording since before RATM's dissolution, working with DJ Shadow, Company Flow, and The Roots' ?uestlove. The album never saw fruition, and de la Rocha started a new collaboration with Trent Reznor of Nine Inch Nails, in which around 20 tracks were produced.[1] Reznor thought the work was "excellent," but said the songs will likely never be released as de la Rocha was not "ready to make a record" at that time.[2]
In 2000, de la Rocha appeared on the song "Centre of the Storm", from the Roni Size/Reprazent album ''In The Mode'',[3] while in 2002, he appeared in a minor role in the first part of the Blackalicious song "Release" on the album ''Blazing Arrow''.[4] A new collaboration between de la Rocha and DJ Shadow, the song "March of Death" was released for free online in 2003 in protest against the imminent invasion of Iraq. De la Rocha released a statement along with his song:
The 2004 soundtrack ''Songs and Artists that Inspired Fahrenheit 9/11'' included one of the collaborations with Reznor, "We Want It All". This album also contained the debut recording by Tom Morello as The Nightwatchman, "No One Left".
On October 7, 2005, de la Rocha returned to the stage with new material, performing with Son Jarocho band Son de Madera. He later spoke as MC and again performed with Son de Madera at the November 22 Concert at the Farm, a benefit concert for the South Central Farmers. He sang and played the jarana with the band, and performed his own new original material, including the song "Sea of Dead Hands".[5]
Reunion of RATM
de la Rocha performing with Rage at Coachella 2007.
On April 14, 2007 Tom Morello and de la Rocha played together at The House of Blues in Chicago at the rally for fair food with the Coalition of Immokalee Workers (CIW.) At this performance Morello played acoustic guitar while de la Rocha was on the mic. They played a new song that de la Rocha claimed he just wrote about the victory for the farmworkers over McDonalds and Taco Bell and their quest in acquiring fair wages from Burger King (the next target.)[6]
Rage Against the Machine, as a full band, headlined the final day of the 2007 Coachella Valley Music and Arts Festival on Sunday, April 29.[7] The performance was initially thought to be a one-off,[8] but that was cast into doubt following Chris Cornell's exit from Audioslave.[9] Four more performances are planned as part of the Rock The Bells Festival with the Wu-Tang Clan.[10] [11] It was recently announced that Rage Against the Machine would play the Voodoo Music Experience in New Orleans this October.[12]
The reunion performance was said to be a vehicle to voice the band's opposition to the "right-wing purgatory" the United States has "slid into" under the George W. Bush administration since RATM's dissolution.[13]
At Rage's first reunion show, de la Rocha made a strong speech during "Wake Up" in which de la Rocha called members of the Bush administration to war criminals, citing a statement by Noam Chomsky regarding the Nuremberg Principles:[14]
Discography
Hardstance
★ ''Face Reality'' (1988 - 7" vinyl and re-issued in 1997 on Conversion Records)
Inside Out
★ ''No Spiritual Surrender'' (1990)
★ ''Benefit 7"'' (1991 - Bootleg live recording with Youth Of Today)
Rage Against the Machine
★ ''Rage Against the Machine'' (1992)
★ ''Evil Empire'' (1996)
★ ''Live & Rare'' (1998)
★ ''The Battle of Los Angeles'' (1999)
★ ''Renegades'' (2000)
★ ''Live at the Grand Olympic Auditorium'' (2003)
Solo and collaborations
★ "Mumia 911" from ''Mumia 911'' benefit album (1999) with dead prez, Afu-Ra, Black Thought, and the Last Emperor
★ "C.I.A. (Criminals In Action)" from ''Lyricist Lounge, Volume One'' (2000) with KRS-One and the Last Emperor
★ "Burned Hollywood Burned" from ''Bamboozled'' soundtrack (2000) with Chuck D and The Roots
★ "OmniAmerican" from "Amethyst Rock Star" Saul Williams (uncredited"
★ "Centre of the Storm" from ''In the Mode'', Roni Size/Reprazent (2000)
★ "Release" from ''Blazing Arrow'', Blackalicious (2002)
★ "March of Death" released free over the web (2003) with DJ Shadow
★ "We Want It All" from ''Songs and Artists That Inspired Fahrenheit 9/11'' (2004)
★ "Act III Scene 2 (Shakespeare)" from ''Saul Williams'', Saul Williams (2004)
Footnotes and citations
1. Reznor Says Collabos With De La Rocha, Keenan May Never Surface
2. Nine Inch Nails (interview)
3. ''In The Mode'' review
4. Zack De La Rocha Joining Blackalicious On Blazing Arrow
5. "Backstage Pass" (February 2006), ''Spin''. Retrieved February 17, 2007.
6. Truth Tour 2007
7. Rage On at Coachella
8. Rage, Bjork, Chili Peppers Sign On For Coachella
9. Chris Cornell Talks Audioslave Split, Nixes Rumors Of Soundgarden Reunion
10. First reported in the ''LA Times'': Rage Against the Machine adds more dates
11. Later confirmed on RATM's official website: Official website. Retrieved on February 27, 2007).
12. Voodoo Music Experience 2007 Line Up
13. Rage Against The Machine discuss reunion
14. Interview of Noam Chomsky by Tom Morello in 1996
References
Devenish, Colin (2001), ''Rage Against the Machine'': St. Martin's Griffin ISBN 0-312-27316-6
External links
★ Zack de la Rocha Network
★ www.marchofdeath.com
★ Zack de la Rocha Interviews Noam Chomsky (video)
★ Official Rage against the Machine-Website
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