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This is more than you ever wanted to know about the incident, from
Rock Out Censorship's official statement, by Kenny Moore. I have
altered it slightly, as the call to action in the official statement
isn't really necessary three years later.
On April 10th, 1996 Rage was scheduled to perform two songs on the
NBC comedy variety show "Saturday Night Live." The show was hosted
that night by ex-Republican presidential candidate and billionaire
Steve Forbes. According to RATM guitarist Tom Morello, "RATM wanted
to stand in sharp juxtaposition to a billionaire telling jokes and
promoting his flat tax...by making our own statement."
To make that statement, RATM hung two upside-down American flags
from their amps. Seconds before they took the stage to perform
"Bulls on Parade", SNL and NBC sent stagehands in to pull the flags
down. The inverted flags, says Morello, represented "our
contention that American democracy is inverted when what passes
for democracy is an electoral choice between two representatives of
the privileged class. America's freedom of expression is inverted
when you're free to say anything you want to say until it upsets a
corporate sponsor. Finally, this was our way of expressing our
opinion of the show's host, Steve Forbes."
RATM first attempted to hang the flags during a pre-telecast
rehearsal on Thursday, SNL's producers "demanded that we take the
flags down," says Morello. "They said the sponsors would be upset,
and that because Steve Forbes was on, they had to run a 'tighter'
show." SNL also told the band it would mute objectionable lyrics in
"Bullet In The Head" (which was supposed to be RATM's second song).
SNL even insisted that the song be bleeped in the studio because
Forbes had friends and family there.
On show night, following the first performance, and the flags being
torn down, RATM were approached by SNL and NBC officials and ordered
to immediately leave the building. Upon hearing this, RATM bassist
Tim Bob reportedly stormed Forbes' dressing room, throwing shreds
from one of the torn down flags.
"SNL censored Rage, period. They could not have sucked up to the
billionaire more," said Morello. "The thing that's ironic is SNL is
supposedly this cutting edge show, but they proved they're
bootlickers to their corporate masters when it comes down to it.
They're cowards. It should come to no surprise that GE, which owns
NBC, would find 'Bullet' particularly offensive. GE is a major
manufacturer of US planes used to commit war crimes in the Gulf War,
and bombs from those jets destroyed hydroelectric dams which killed
thousands of civilians in Iraq." Morello noted that members of the
Saturday Night Live cast and crew, whom he declined to name,
"expressed solidarity with our actions, and a sense of shame that
their show had censored the performance."
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