Rock band Rage Against the Machine is no longer interested in touring and performing live, its drummer said in a social media post on Wednesday.
The band previously canceled the remaining performances of a reunion tour of Europe and North America that had been delayed by the pandemic and was scheduled for 2022 and 2023. They will not be made up for.
“Although there have been indications that this could happen in the future,” drummer Brad Wilk wrote in an Instagram post, “I want to let you know that RATM (Tim, Zack, Tom and I) will not happen again.” Go on tour or play live.”
“I’m sorry to those of you who were waiting for this to happen,” he continued. “I really wish it was like that.” He added in the caption: “Thank you to every person who has ever supported us.”
The band, which was inducted into the Rock & Roll Hall of Fame in November, did not immediately respond to a request for comment overnight.
Mr. Wilk and his bandmates, singer Zack de la Rocha, bassist Tim Commerford and guitarist Tom Morello, founded the group in 1991. Their first public performance took place in “some living room” in Orange County, California, according to their website.
Rage – with its fusion of metal, punk rock, funk and hip-hop – rose to fame in the 1990s as one of the best-known rock bands promoting a left-wing political message. The band denounced “compromise, conformity, assimilation, submission, ignorance, hypocrisy, brutality, the elite,” as sung in their 1992 song “Know Your Enemy.”
In 1996, while promoting their second album, Evil Empire, the band attempted to hang upside down from their amplifiers during a two-song set on Saturday Night Live, an appearance that was cut short. At the Woodstock 99 festival, Commerford burned the flag during a performance of “Killing in the Name.”
The band has split up before, including in 2000, at the height of their success.
“I feel that it is now necessary to leave Rage because our decision-making process has completely failed,” de la Rocha wrote in a statement at the time. “It no longer meets the demands of all four of us as a band and, in my opinion, has undermined our artistic and political ideal.”
The band's members did not perform together again until 2007, when they headlined the final day of the Coachella music festival. They later toured the United States, Europe and South America.
Rage took another break in 2011. Wilk later told Pulse Radio in an interview that the band's appearance at the LA Rising Festival that year was “our last show.”
During the pandemic, Morello wrote a newsletter for The New York Times about music and his life.
In July 2022, the band played their first concert in 11 years in Wisconsin. This marked the start of the “Public Service Announcement” tour, which was originally planned for 2020 but was delayed by the pandemic.
Rage canceled their remaining tour dates in North America and Europe months after announcing ticket sales. Their frontman, de la Rocha, said the reason was because he tore his left Achilles tendon.
“I'm still looking at my leg in disbelief,” he said in a statement in October 2022. “Two years of waiting during the pandemic, hoping that we would have a chance to be a band again and continue the work, which we started about 30 years ago.” Years ago.”