ZACK DE LA ROCHA

Zack De La Rocha is the vocalist and frontperson of Rage Against the Machine. He is from Long Beach, CA. Learning more about him and the history of Rage led to an inspiration for me to write more politcally motivated content. His whole thing is politically conscious lyrics and he puts an emphasis on defying censorship. They once were slotted to play a 15 minute set at Lollapalooza in 1993, and instead came out completely naked with their mouths taped shut. They had painted each letter of PMRC across their chests to protest against the inclusion of Parental Advisory stickers on vinyl records and CDs, which had never been a practice until this point. More now than ever is it important for me to implore similar practices and lyrical subject matter into my work; as the more voices, the more disruption; in effort to promote change. I give credit to the development of my delivery over rock instrumentals to covering this guys music. Percussive vocal inflections let you hear the tactility of the vocalist operating the microphone. We even used a Sennheiser 441, the same mic Rage used for their debut, on our EP. My favorite Rage Against the Machine album is their self-titled debut. I would argue that it stands the test of time as one of the best debuts ever released. Although all of their records are amazing, and some of my favorite tracks come from their second LP, Evil Empire.