[1992] Self-produced 12-song cassette released. Includes "Bullet In The Head"--this original version is later included on Epic debut album. Through fan club and at live shows, tape sells over 5,000 copies.

07/13/92 Rage supports Porno For Pyros on the latter's debut performance in Los Angeles.

09/11/92 First of two shows on the second stage of Lollapalooza II, Los Angeles, California.

10/01/92 Rage begins first European tour, supporting Suicidal Tendencies through 10/24/92.

11/06/92 Rage Against The Machine released on Epic Records. The album remains on the Billboard Top 200 Albums chart for 89 weeks, peaking at #45 in February, 1994.

12/26/92 "On the strength of the album, they must be viewed as one of the most original and virtuosic new rock bands in the nation..."-- Timothy White, Billboard.

01/23/93 Rage headlines "Rock For Choice" benefit at The Palladium, Hollywood, CA. Also appearing: Screaming Trees, Eddie Vedder, Mary's Danish, 7 Year Bitch, Exene Cervenka, Green Apple Quick Step.

03/08/93 Rage begins US tour with House Of Pain.

07/18/93 Appearing at Lollapalooza III in Philadelphia, Rage creates silent protest against censorship by standing naked on stage for 25 minutes without singing or playing a note. Each band member has duct tape across his mouth and a letter scrawled on his chest, spelling out "P-M-R-C" (for Parents Music Resource Center).

09/11/93 Rage headlines sold-out Anti-Nazi League benefit, Brixton Academy, London, England. Supporting acts include Lush, Senser, Headswim and Green Apple Quickstep. Show raises money for League activities and publicizes 10/16/93 anti-Nazi march in London.

10/14/93 Rage begins headlining US tour with "Rock For Choice" benefit at The Palladium, Hollywood, California.

11/04/93 Sold-out headlining show, Roseland, New York City.

11/17/93 Rage begins US tour with Cypress Hill in De nver, Colorado.

12/19/93 MTV "120 Minutes" premier of "Freedom" video, directed by Peter Christopherson. Combines live performance footage with scenes from 1992 documentary Incident At Oglala and text from Peter Matthiessen's In The Spirit Of Crazy Horse.

02/01/94 "Freedom" is the #1 video in the USA, according to CVC Broadcast & Cable Top 50 chart.

04/28/94 Rage organize benefit concert "For The Freedom Of Leonard Peltier," California State University, Dominguez Hills, California. Rage headlines bill including Cypress Hill, Quicksand, Mother Tongue, X and Stanford Prison Experiment, with guest appearance by the Beastie Boys. A check for $75,235.91 is later presented to the Leonard Peltier Defense Fund.

10/22/94 Rage plays "Latinpalooza," a joint benefit for Leonard Peltier Defense Fund, United Farm Workers, and Para Los Ni?os, at Grand Olympic Grounds, Los Angeles, CA. Cypress Hill, Ligher Shade Of Brown, Fobia, Little Joe Y La Familia, and Thee Midnighters share the bill.

12/30/94 Higher Learning, music from film directed by John Singleton, is released on Epic Soundtrax. Includes new Rage track, "Year Of Tha Boomerang."

08/17/94 Rage Against The Machine certified US platinum for sales of one million copies. Album also certified platinum in Australia, Canada, UK, France, Belgium, and Chile; double platinum in New Zealand; and gold in Germany, Denmark, Holland, Norway, Sweden, and Switzerland.

08/13/95 Rage organize and headline benefit concert, Capitol Ballroom, Washington, D.C. Show raises more than $8,000 for the International Concerned Friends And Family Of Mumia Abu-Jamal. Also appearing: Handsome, Sullivan Brothers, Girls Against Boys, Chuck D. of Public Enemy, and Kathleen Hanna of Bikini Kill.

04/13/96 Rage appears on NBC's "Saturday Night Live." Their scheduled two-song performance is cut to one song by the show's producers when the band's crew attempt to hang inverted American flags from Rage's amplifiers.

04/14/96 Rage video for "Bulls On Parade," directed by Peter Christopherson, premiers on MTV's "120 Minutes."

04/16/96 Evil Empire released on Epic Records.

04/20/96 Rage plays free concert, the Velodrome at California State University, Dominguez Hills, California.

05/03/96 Rage begins headlining European tour in Madrid.

05/04/96 Evil Empire enters Billboard Top 200 Albums chart at #1*.

As captured on their self-titled debut album (Epic Associated), the music of Rage Against The Machine is a fierce and uncompromising meld of punk-inspired hard rock and politically-charged rap. Less than two years from the time of their first public performance in an Orange County living room party, the Los Angeles-based band has created a growing storm of both controversy and fan support. Rage's influences range (in their words) "from Bad Brains to Malcolm X, from Led Zeppelin to Che Guevara, from Minor Threat to Martin Luther King Jr., from Public Enemy to the Clash."

Rage Against The Machine was co-produced by the band with engineer Garth Richardson, who has worked with Red Hot Chili Peppers and Ozzy Osbourne. All sounds are the product of guitars, bass, and drums; no samples, keyboards or synthesizers were used to create this music. What was used was the raw musical power and highly charged language of such key Rage songs as "Settle For Nothing," "Killing In The Name," and "Bullet In The Head." This last-named track is also the first video by Rage Against The Machine, even though FCC regulations preclude airplay.

Before signing with Epic Associated, Rage Against The Machine recorded a 12-song cassette which sold over 5,000 copies at the band's live shows and through its fan club. In fact, the present album version of "Bullet In The Head" is taken directly from that self-released tape. In its first year of existence, Rage Against The Machine opened shows for Ice-T's Body Count, Public Enemy, and Pearl Jam. The band supported Perry Farrell's Porno For Pyros on the latter's July 13, 1992 debut performance; toured Europe with Suicidal Tendencies; and appeared September 11-12, 1992 on the second stage of Lollapalooza II in Los Angeles dates.

"On the strength of the album," wrote Timothy White in Billboard, "they must be viewed as one of the most original and virtuosic new rock bands in the nation...Rage Against The Machine generates the most beautifully articulated torrent of hardcore bedlam that one could imagine. And the hopes invested in these humming murals of urban din are equally visionary."

Following are quotes from Rage Against The Machine about their lives and music:

Tom Morello was born in New York City in 1964 and grew up in Libertyville, Illinois. His father was a member of the Mau Mau guerilla army which freed Kenya from British colonial rule; his mother is a founder of Parents For Rock Rap, an anti-censorship organization. Tom entered Harvard University in 1982, was active in the campaign for university divestment from South Africa, and graduated with honors in 1986.

"I lived in Libertyville for 18 years, and in the whole town there were maybe three or four other blacks and an equal number of Asians. My mom used to play the Temptations, War, and James Brown at home. I got a guitar when I was 13 or 14, and I was determined to become Jimmy Page or Ace Frehley of KISS. But I got disenchanted with taking lessons and stopped playing for four years. I didn't pick it up again until I heard the Sex Pistols album. Seeing the Clash in Chicago was a life-changing experience. They were more powerful than any band I'd ever seen because of the conviction, the realness behind it."

"My Harvard friends went on to become professors, doctors, lawyers, bankers. They had a difficult time understanding why I wanted to be a socialist rock musician. My musician friends had the opposite problem...In `86, I moved to Los Angeles. The glam scene was in full effect--I was appalled! In `88 I joined Lock Up. We made a n album for Geffen, toured, eventually broke up. I met Brad Wilk when he auditioned for Lock Up, and he and I had a great playing chemistry together. He was the first guy I called when I left the band. We started auditioning a lot of people, looking for the right chemistry, while I taught guitar to support myself."

"Rage heightens the contradictions: in the intensity of the live show, in the brutality of the music, in the content of the lyrics. It's a political assault which might force you to consider the ideas that are put forward."

Brad Wilk was born in Portland, Oregon and lived in Chicago before settling in Southern California.

"In grade school I listened to Led Zep, the Who. John Bonham had a unique feel, not straight time and not quite swing but somewhere in-between--just amazing. Then I heard the Sex Pistols, and that changed me. In high school I started getting into George Clinton, James Brown, and the Meters."

Timmy C. plays bass, listens to Inside Out and the Bad Brains, and is happy to be alive.

Zack de la Rocha was born in Long Beach, California in 1970 and raised by his mother in Irvine, California. "In junior high I got into the Sex Pistols, Bad Religion, Social Distortion. Then I got into hardcore at sixteen, seventeen. Hardcore was the whole expression of my being: Minor Threat, Bad Brains, Teen Idles, State Of Alert with Henry Rollins."

"I lived [in Irvine], but I never felt totally accepted as one of these rich white suburban kids. I wasn't economically deprived like so many of my Chicano brothers and sisters, but I felt the tension and the rejection--and that's when I started getting into hip-hop, started break-dancing. `The Message,' `Rapper's Delight,' Run-DMC...that was what was happening around that time."

"Inside Out was the first band I ever fronted. I channeled all my pain through that band. It was about completely detaching ourselves from society to see ourselves as...as spirits, and not bowing down to a syste m that sees you as just another pebble on a beach. But Inside Out went through were a ton of lineup changes."

"You can't ignore what some bands have done. I know that from my own experience, from the way my life was changed by Fuck Armageddon, This Is Hell by Bad Religion. I know our record will be in a bin next to Lionel Richie--but so are John Coltrane, KRS-1 and Boogie Down Productions, and Public Enemy."

Biography written by Epic.