A new documentary titled Ladies & Gentlemen … 50 Years of SNL Music is set to premiere Monday night (January 27th) on NBC. One of the key revelations from the film is that Rage Against the Machine were locked down by the US Secret Service following their performance of “Bulls on Parade” on the late-night sketch show.
RATM were the musical guest on Saturday Night Live on April 13th, 1996, an episode hosted by billionaire Steve Forbes, who was then a recent Republican presidential candidate.
As the story’s been told, Rage Against the Machine had their crew hang upside down American flags on their amps, but the flags were removed by the SNL stage crew right before the band launched into the song. RATM never got to play their second song, “Bullet in the Head,” and have since never been invited back to play on the show.
In the new documentary, RATM guitarist Tom Morello offers more insight into the incident, revealing a new tidbit about the Secret Service locking the band in its dressing room.
“One thing I think is very important is to weave your convictions into your vocation, whatever it is, whether you’re directing a film or running a camera or playing guitar in a rock ‘n’ roll band,” begins Morello in Ladies & Gentlemen … 50 Years of SNL Music. “And for a band like Rage, SNL was a perfect opportunity to do that. Being on SNL was something that was valued. It was a part of the DNA of American culture and entertainment. So, when the offer came to be on it, we were like, ‘We’d be happy to.’ But Rage never did things in a normal way. So, we were thinking, like, ‘how do we make this into some sort of crazy performance art thing?’”
He continues, “We heard that Steve Forbes was going to be the host. He had just been a Republican candidate for president. He’s Forbes of Forbes magazine, one of the richest people in America, and one of the driest and most boring humans to ever walk the face of the earth… Let’s see how that works out.”