A new documentary titled ‘Ladies & Gentlemen… 50 Years of SNL Music’ aired on January 27th, revealing that Rage Against the Machine was locked in their dressing room by the US Secret Service after their 1996 Saturday Night Live performance.
On April 13th, 1996, the band performed ‘Bulls on Parade’ with upside-down American flags on their amps. The flags were later removed by the SNL crew before the performance. Rage never played their second song, ‘Bullet in the Head,’ and were never invited back to the show. Tom Morello shared more details about the incident in the documentary.
“Our dressing room is right across the hall from Steve Forbes,” he said. “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. Timmy [Commerford] doesn’t like things like that. And he expresses himself. So, what he did was 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. And he entered Steve Forbes’ dressing room across the way to attack him.”
However, Forbes was a presidential candidate at the time. “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. So… it flaps apart, hurting no one. Did I mention before that Steve Forbes had just been a presidential candidate? The hallway floods with Secret Service. We’re now locked in our room. They’re protecting Steve Forbes and his family.”
“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,” he added.
Rage Against The Machine was known for controversy during their 1991-2000 run. They filmed a music video on Wall Street, causing the New York Stock Exchange to shut its doors, and protested the PMRC naked at Lollapalooza in 1993.
In addition to Tom Morello, ‘Ladies & Gentlemen… 50 Years of SNL Music’ features interviews with musicians such as Dave Grohl, Mick Jagger, Olivia Rodrigo, Paul Simon, Justin Timberlake, Jack White, and many more. The documentary was co-directed by Questlove and Oz Rodriguez.
