Zack was
born in Long Beach, CA in 1970, and is Chicano in descent. His
parents separated when he was a child. His father was an artist
who had a breakdown in 1983 and destroyed half of his work. He
grew up with hi s mother in Irvine, CA. Before Rage, Zack sang in
band called Inside Out and played guitar in a band called
Hardstance. Inside Out is available on CD and Hardstance was on
Conversion Records. Zack writes and performs the lyrics for Rage
Against The Machine.
"I lived [in Irvine], but I never felt totally accepted as one of these rich white suburban kids. I wasn't economically deprived like so many of my Chicano brothers and sisters, but I felt the tension and the rejection--and that's when I started getting into hip-hop, started break-dancing. `The Message,' `Rapper's Delight,' Run-DMC...that was what was happening around that time."
"Inside Out was the first band I ever fronted. I channeled all my pain through that band. It was about completely detaching ourselves from society to see ourselves as...as spirits, and not bowing down to a system that sees you as just another pebble on a beach. But what Inside Out went through were a ton of lineup changes."
"You can't ignore what some bands have done. I know that from my own experience, from the way my life was changed by Fuck Armageddon, This Is Hell by Bad Religion. I know our record will be in a bin next to Lionel Richie--but so are John Coltrane, KRS-1 and Boogie Down Productions, and Public Enemy."
