Rage Against The Machine had such a productive 1999-2000 that their fans might have thought the LA rap-rock trailblazers were about to enter an uncharacteristic productive phase after their breakthrough decade yielded just three albums. Reality was soon about to bite, though, even if things looked initially promising when the quartet followed up their 1999 third album The Battle Of Los Angeles with a world tour and the news that they were working on both a covers album and a live release.
“What began as a couple of bonus tracks has blossomed into one of the most powerful records of our career,” guitarist Tom Morello said in a statement when that covers collection, to be titled Renegades, was announced. “There has never been another album like this where a band like Rage Against The Machine has recorded an entire CD of revolutionary versions of classic hip-hop and rock songs. We attack these songs with the same irreverence for convention with which they were written.”
Renegades turns 30 next week and it remains Rage’s final studio album, with scant chance that it will ever be followed up. Even by the time it arrived, on 5 December, 2000, they were no more. Six weeks away from release, the band’s totemic frontman Zack de la Rocha had departed, declaring that the group’s “decision-making process” had failed. “It is no longer meeting the aspirations of all four of us collectively, as a band, and from my perspective has undermined our artistic and political ideal,” he stated.
Quite how the period of Renegades’ creation led to the demise of one of the 90s’ most essential rock bands is up for debate. It has been suggested in some quarters that the notoriously interview-shy de la Rocha was against the idea of a covers album in the first place, but his performances across the album’s 12 tracks, songs that see Rage cover Bruce Springsteen, Afrika Bambaataa, MC5, Cypress Hill and more, fly in the face of that notion. He’s never less than his trademark compelling self on these fierce, groove-laden re-interpretations – and it’s hard to imagine him going along with any idea even if even had the slightest resistance to the project.
Producer Rick Rubin backed that up in an interview not long after the album’s release. “Everybody worked together, laughing and making music, and it was pretty positive,” recalled Rubin, although he did concede that they were some visible cracks. “I would say the only time there was any friction had nothing to do with making music,” he continued. “It had to do with meetings with managers, and kind of business decisions, and scheduling decisions.”
In the wake of de la Rocha’s departure, Tom Morello alluded to the intra-band turmoil Rubin refers to. “We’ve spent too much time raging against each other and not enough time raging against the machine,” he said pithily, describing any squabbling as “nothing you haven’t seen on VH1 Storytellers hundreds of times”.
But Morello also agreed with Rubin’s description of the vibe in the studio as one of relative harmony when they were working on the actual songs. “It was done with spontaneity and light-heartedness,” he told Louder’s Simon Young. “Actually it was done with the same spontaneity as we had experienced on the first record. We were having a great time, and I think Rick Rubin had a great time producing the record. He pushed us when we were in the studio. It works because we were able to let go of some of our conventions, and we pushed ourselves musically.”
It all meant that, by the time Renegades was released, the focus was more on their turbulent split than what is a record that might not reach the heights of their game-changing debut but is certainly up there with the rest of their output. It’s for that reason, perhaps, that it sold dramatically less than what The Battle Of Los Angeles had shifted just 12 months prior.
With de la Rocha jumping ship right as the record was due to hit shelves, Morello felt compelled to clear things up. “We parted company on good terms and we wish him well,” he said. “There’s been some confusion over this record since it coincides with Zack’s departure. It’s a studio album, with Zack as the vocalist. For Timmy [Commerford, bassist], Brad [Wilk, drummer] and myself, we’re really proud of this record and want everyone to know about it.”
Or maybe people thought this would be something below-par – which, let’s face it, most covers albums are. But Renegades isn’t like other covers albums. When Morello claimed, “What we’ve done is taken lyrics of some of our favourite music renegades and written brand new Rage Against The Machine music to accompany them, so it is very much a brand-new Rage Against The Machine record,” he wasn’t just spinning a line. With very few exceptions (a fairly faithful and super-charged version of MC5’s Kick Out The Jams apart), these renditions turn the originals on their head. Springsteen’s The Ghost Of Tom Joad morphs from a folky lament into an explosive, riff-heavy rocker, whilst Afrika Bambaataa’s Renegades Of Funk is stripped of its disco beats and synth lines and turned into a furious funk-metal blast. They took a different tact on their version of Devo’s Beautiful World, its new wave pop groove becoming a haunting, raw ballad.
“I hesitate to call them cover songs,” Morello elaborated in an interview with Allstar at the time of release. “We’re taking lyrics from Easy-E to Dylan to Devo to Erik B and Rakin and we’re Rage Against The Machine-ising them.”
Picking out some of his highlights in his Simon Young interview, Morello said that the idea for Street Fighting Man was to “play like The Prodigy”, whilst the approach on Maggie’s Farm was to do “a Sabbath-esque rendering of the Dylan classic”. In essence, Renegades is Rage saluting every artist they’ve ever been influenced by.
It also turned out to be a fitting tribute to their own career, something that dawned on Morello as he listened to it for the first time. “It had a poignancy,” he revealed. “I was at my mom’s house in Illinois and Rick sent me this CD. I sat down and listened to it all the way through. It struck me as being a really positive album amid the whole drama.”
Those tensions have kept Rage out of the studio ever since, despite the fact they have reunited twice since. They might have made magic when they were in there but that thrilling alchemy came at a cost. “Let’s just say Rage Against The Machine’s forces made us burn brightly and burn quickly,” was Morello’s verdict. What they left behind should be cherished.
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