[On the first tour] we wanted to make our own music without using our old bands, mixing the past with our present, ... Now we are drawing on 10, 11, 12 records, which is amazing. It doesn't sound weird, it doesn't sound bad. It just fucking rocks.

Music is not some stuffy college lecture, ... On a good day, Rage Against the Machine is not able to just rock you like a hurricane, but also to fuel the engine with indignation and the band's activist convictions.

A musician's or artist's responsibility is a simple one, and that is, through your music to tell the truth,

Music and the arts feed our souls, but a decent wage puts food on the table. Musicians, fans of music, and grassroots political organizations are a potent force to fight for social justice.

Music, I think, is best when it honestly explores personal demons, and it stirs around in the silt of the psyche to find out what's really there.

Then about 12 years ago it dawned on me that folk music - the music of Woody Guthrie and Phil Ochs, early Bob Dylan, Johnny Cash, Pete Seeger - could be as heavy as anything that comes through a Marshall stack. The combination of three chords and the right lyrical couplet can be as heavy as anything in the Metallica catalogue.