Rage Against The Machine consists of Brad Wilk (drums), Tim Commerford (bass), Tom Morello (guitar).
Rage Against the Machine, also known as Rage or RATM, was an American rock / rapcore band noted both for their diligent political conscience and for their pioneering blend of rock- and rap music which over time would come to be known variously as Rock, Rap Rock or Rap Metal (Both known under Rapcore), Hard Rock, Funk Metal and Alternative Rock or Alternative Metal — as well as their vocal militant leftist beliefs. At the point of their break-up in 2000, Rage Against the Machine had been one of the most popular political hard rock bands of all time, and certainly of the 1990s. Three-fourths of the band are now members of Audioslave, featuring former Soundgarden singer Chris Cornell.
Widely regarded as the definitive originators of their genre, Rage drew inspiration from early metallic instrumentation to create an almost totally new style of music. The coalescence of rhyming styles and vocals along with their sound, especially Tom Morello's guitar techniques, made RATM difficult to confine to any one particular musical genre, compelling a new classification.
The duo of Zack de la Rocha and Tim Commerford teamed up in 1990 with Tom Morello and Brad Wilk to form a band. Their name was derived from the unreleased album "Rage Against the Machine" by de la Rocha's former group, Inside Out. Shortly after forming, they gave their first public performance in a living room in Orange County, California and self-produced a 12-song cassette which already included songs like "Bullet in the Head" . Several record labels expressed interest and they eventually signed with Epic Records. Morello said, "Epic agreed to everything we asked--and they've followed through... we never saw a [ideological] conflict as long as we maintained creative control."