That radio signal was no sample – it was played!” I always like to say there are no samples on any of our records, and this is a good example. We had the signal running through the entire song, it was a little annoying, so we decided just to stick it at the very end. “In earlier mixes of Sleep Now In The Fire, that radio thing was featured more prominently. “While using an old, vintage distortion pedal called a Tone Bender, I found out that when I turned on the pedal but didn’t play anything, I picked up a crystal clear signal from a Korean radio station,” he told Guitar World. They also had a happy accident that gave the song a nice little cherry on top when Tom discovered one of his guitar pedals could pick up some very interesting interference. This focused, more unified Rage now had an anthem for their new album. The finished track was one of the finest songs in Rage’s catalogue – skyscraper huge and capturing the anger, the punk energy, the skilful musicianship and the ingenuity of the four men.
“In the end it was a healthier, more fulfilling process than past times.” “This time the guys took the musical reins and I came in to do the lyrics,” Zack said.
Like much of his work, it was a scathing takedown of society’s very worst traits, but it was written in a far more stress-free manner than previous records. With the music for Sleep Now In The Fire coming together nicely, Zack added his lyrical flair, seething against capitalist greed, namechecking the conquest of the native American people, slavery, US forces bombing Hiroshima in the Second World War and the use of Agent Orange during the Vietnam war. I couldn’t help but envision a huge festival audience jumping up and down to this one.” The song really took shape when we married the main guitar riff to a very 70s, rolling bassline. The song had the working title ‘MC5’, because it has that raw feel of The Stooges or The MC5 mixed with Rage’s thunderous rhythm section. “We finally put all the pieces together working on the album. “The main guitar riff had been bouncing around in my head for a while,” Tom told Guitar World in 2000 about the genesis of Sleep Now In The Fire. Famously, the band would jam ideas out in the studio, and a riff that guitarist Tom Morello had been playing around with for some time would end up being the catalyst for the new album’s most notorious track. In 1998, Rage returned to the studio to create what would become their third album, The Battle Of Los Angeles. (Image credit: Lindsay Brice/Getty Images)
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