break-up of guitarist Tom Morello’s former band Lock Up

In 1991, following the break-up of guitarist Tom Morello’s former band Lock Up , former Lock Up drummer Jon Knox encouraged Tim Commerford and Zack de la Rocha to jam with Morello as he was looking to start a new group. Morello soon contacted Brad Wilk, who had unsuccessfully auditioned for both Lock Up and the band that would later become Pearl Jam . This lineup named themselves Rage Against the Machine, after a song De la Rocha had written for his former underground hardcore punk band Inside Out (also to be the title of the unrecorded Inside Out full-length album). Record label owner and zine publisher Kent McClard , with whom Inside Out was associated, used the phrase “rage against the machine” in a 1989 article in his zine No Answers .