Yahoo Lifestyle Tom Morello recalls Rage Against the Machine getting kicked off “SNL” after first song: 'I still went to the afterparty'
The Secret Service was involved.
Tim Mosenfelder/Getty
Rage Against the Machine performs in 1996Saturday Night Live creator Lorne Michaels has famously said that the show's never truly banned anyone, but Rage Against the Machine almost got there.
When they appeared on the iconic sketch show in April 1996, they caused chaos both on-air and backstage, according to the former band's guitarist, Tom Morello, who appears in the new documentary Ladies & Gentlemen... 50 Years of SNL Music.
"You might notice Rage is not in the farewells on that particular show," Morello quipped. "I still went to the afterparty."
The band's first wrong move, at least if they had hoped to stay on the NBC staple, happened long before Saturday.
"So the day of rehearsal, we had already had the upside down American flags — the Navy distress signal — on our amplifiers," Morello explained. "They asked us to please remove the flags from the amplifiers, because, one, advertisers would be upset and two, it was with Steve Forbes, and that might be a weird vibe."
The publisher had just concluded a run for the Republican nomination for president.
Sara Jaye/Getty
Tom Morello remembers Rage Against the Machine on 'SNL'"We were like, 'You invited Rage Against the Machine, the f----you-I-won't-do-what-you-tell-me band, and then said 'don't do the thing,'" Morello recounted. "'Just to be clear, that's what you're saying right now. Great.'"
The Rock & Roll Hall of Famer — Rage was inducted in 2023 — explained that the show felt like "the perfect opportunity" for them to do the important work of weaving "your convictions into your vocation, whatever it is." They knew SNL was "part of the DNA of American culture and entertainment."
On the night of the show, the Rage roadies put the upside-down flags back up, but they were instructed to take them down.
Sign up for Entertainment Weekly's free daily newsletter to get breaking TV news, exclusive first looks, recaps, reviews, interviews with your favorite stars, and more.
"Our roadies have been told to, like, defend the perimeter," Morello said. "There's 35 seconds till we're live. The stage manager sends the SNL crew. There's a quick scrum on stage. Unfortunately, the burly New York City union men are able to wrestle the flags off of the amplifiers with seven seconds to go before we go live."
But that wasn't all.
"It's a rockin' performance. We go back to the dressing room and it's tense," Morello recalled. "Our dressing room is right across the hall from Steve Forbes. Time goes by. A representative of SNL comes to the door and says, 'Looks like the show's running a little long and we're gonna cut your second number.' And then they leave us alone. That was their mistake."
The message didn't sit well with Morello's bandmate Tim Commerford, and he tore up one of the flags and knotted it into a ball, Morello said.
"You might call it a weapon," Morello said. "And he entered Steve Forbes' dressing room across the way to attack him. Steve Forbes was not in his dressing room, but his family was. So Timmy launches his American flag ball rocket at aunts, cousins, wives, children. Fortunately, the kind of solid integrity of it is not so great...it flaps apart, hurting no one."
Related: Rage Against the Machine 'will not be touring or playing live again,' drummer says
Still, there were consequences for attempting to assault the politician.
"The hallway floods with Secret Service. We're now locked in our room," Morello said. "They're protecting Steve Forbes and his family, and then we are escorted out and put on the sidewalk at 30 Rock there."
Ladies & Gentlemen... 50 Years of SNL Music is streaming on Peacock.
Read the original article on Entertainment Weekly
