“The song always stood out as a great jam,” says Rage bassist Tim Commerford, now part of hard rock supergroup Audioslave. “Like most songs on that first record, it started out as a really exciting instrumental track. That’s always been our rule of thumb—have the music stand alone before we add lyrics.

What’s In A Name

After dropping four bombastic whole-notes on D, Tim launches into a quarter-note triplet figure in Ex. 1, the song’s extended intro section. “I grew my fingernails out for ‘Killing in the Name’ and ‘Bullet in the Head’ because I wanted it to sound bright,” says Commerford, “like I was playing with a pick.” Rhythmic tension builds to a climax on beat three of the final bar, where vocalist Zach de la Rocha’s entrance sets up a new tempo for the song’s main riff, Ex. 2. The riff, doubled by Tim and guitarist Tom Morello, centers around subtleties in syncopation, ghost-notes, hammer-ons, and slides. “The bass-and-kick drum connection makes the song really exciting,” says Tim. “There’s no doubt the song is funky, but it also has a grunge-rock vibe to it. The shape of the riff reminds me of old Soundgarden.”

Intensity builds into the chorus (Ex. 3). The trick here is in contrasting those A-string ghost-notes with the accented eighth-notes that follow. Be sure to really dig in. Ex. 4, from the repeated “now you do what they told you” refrain, is pretty straightforward—just be sure to keep the rhythm tight. In bar 12, Tim ramps up to another killer riff with a string of 16th-note triplets on D. “That’s the sport in this song,” says Tim. “Live, it always felt really good when I was able to nail that part.” The triplets set up the driving, syncopated riff in bar 13. Here, keep the notes in beats one and two short, and let the notes in beats three and four ring for their full duration—that’s what gives the riff its gripping push-and-pull. Tim and Tom then return to the main riff shown in Ex. 2, but after a few bars they add the unison lick shown in Ex. 5. It’s essentially a D minor pentatonic run (a minor scale without the 2nd and 6th scale degrees) with chromatic passing tones.

“Killing in the Name” is a collection of undeniably powerful riffs. Blending funky note inflection with a mean rock backbeat, Rage Against The Machine gave us one of the most exciting songs of the ’90s. Learn from Tim’s example: If you play in a hard rock band, don’t be afraid to bring the funk. And you funkateers out there, don’t dismiss straight eighth-notes as the stuff of bone-headed rockers. Mix it up—you might end up with something great.