Rage Against The Machine were locked in a room by the Secret Service following controversial ‘Saturday Night Live’ performance
Rage Against The Machine were no strangers to controversy during their 1990s heyday. Now, guitarist Tom Morello has revealed that the band were once detained by Secret Service officials following a controversial performance on Saturday Night Live.
Appearing on the show in 1996, Rage Against The Machine’s performance coincided with billionaire Republican and then-presidential candidate Steve Forbes hosting the episode. Forbes and the band represented opposite ends of the political spectrum, which heightened tensions on the show.
Therefore, the pioneering rap-rock outfit took into their own hands to voice their disgust at the presence of Forbes. “One thing I think is very important is to weave your convictions into your vocation, whatever it is,” guitarist Morello explained in the new documentary Ladies & Gentlemen… 50 Years Of SNL Music, which aired on January 27th.
Moments before the band were due to perform their first song, ‘Bulls On Parade’, upside-down US flags were draped over the amplifiers, leading to a scuffle between Rage and the SNL crew. Morello recalled, “The stage manager is barking into his headset like, ‘Take those down right now!’”
Following ‘Bulls On Parade’, Morello and the group were told that their scheduled performance of ‘Bullet In The Head’ had been cancelled. Frustrated with this, bassist Tim Commerford chose to head across the hall into Steve Forbes’ dressing room.
“He took one of the American flags, and he tore it up, and he knotted it into a ball. You might call it a weapon,” Morello remembered. “And he entered Steve Forbes’ dressing room across the way to attack him.” Forbes himself was not in the room at the time–though multiple members of his family were–and the bassist’s makeshift projectile did not do any damage.
However, Forbes was a presidential candidate at the time. “The hallway floods with Secret Service. We’re now locked in our room. They’re protecting Steve Forbes and his family,” the guitarist shared. “We get escorted out and put on the sidewalk at 30 Rock. You might notice Rage is not in the farewells on that particular show. I still went to the after party [Laughs].”
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