Skip to main content
MusicRadar MusicRadar The No.1 website for musicians
Sign in
  • View Profile
  • Sign out
  • Artist news
  • Recording Week 25
  • Music Gear Reviews
  • Synths
  • Guitars
  • Controllers
  • Drums
  • Keyboards & Pianos
  • Guitar Amps
  • Software & Apps
  • More
    • Recording
    • DJ Gear
    • Acoustic Guitars
    • Bass Guitars
    • Tech
    • Tutorials
    • Reviews
    • Buying Guides
    • About Us
More
  • As It Was preset
  • Don't Give Up
  • Ron Wood's drum secret
  • 95k+ free music samples
Don't miss these
Frank Ferrer on stage in 2012
Artists How drummer Frank Ferrer powered Guns N’ Roses for 19 years
Josh Freese performs onstage with The Vandals during day 1 of Warped Tour at Shoreline Waterfront on July 26, 2025
Drummers “It wasn’t music that I really resonated with”: Josh Freese lifts the lid on his exit from the Foo Fighters
Colin Brittain of Linkin Park performs at the I-Days Festival at Ippodromo Snai La Maura on June 24, 2025 in Milan, Italy
Drummers “I love this band, I love the people and the music": Colin Brittain on life behind the kit with Linkin Park
Drummers Listen to 11 isolated drum tracks from rock's drumming legends
Ozzy Osbourne and Zak Starkey
Artists Zak Starkey reveals that he once turned down the chance to join Black Sabbath
Eloy Casagrande in Slipknot
Drummers Slipknot’s Eloy Casagrande reveals the secret lessons he gave his Sepultura replacement
Hal Blaine
Drummers Read our classic interview with Wrecking Crew legend Hal Blaine
Neil Peart performing with Rush in 2012
Artists “To those I inspired to start drumming, I apologise to your parents!”: A rare interview with Rush legend Neil Peart
Danny Carey
Drummers 6 of the most inspirational drummers of all time
Clem Burke, Ancienne Belgique (AB), Brussels, Belgium, November 1998
Drummers Clem Burke's 10 essential drum albums
Simon Dawson
Bands “We didn’t want a clone”: Bruce Dickinson on why Maiden chose a drummer with a different feel
Jeff Porcaro
Artists Exploring the genius of Jeff Porcaro's Rosanna Shuffle
Charlie Watts and Ronnie Wood of The Rolling Stones accept the award for Album Of The Year: Public Vote for their album 'Blue & Lonesome'
Guitarists “He tried it when he came in and he said ‘I can’t do it as good as you, Ronnie. You get back on the drums.’”: When Charlie Watts ceded the drums to Ronnie Wood on a Stones track
Ilan Rubin
Artists It’s a drummer swap! Ilan Rubin signs up as Foo Fighters' new beat supplier whilst Josh Freese rejoins Nine Inch Nails
Wolfgang Van Halen
Artists “Some riffs have that swing. You hear it in the first Van Halen album”: Wolfgang Van Halen's new song echoes classic VH
  1. Artists
  2. Drummers

Brad Wilk on Prophets of Rage, Sabbath and Alex Van Halen's swing

News
By Chris Barnes published 31 January 2017

Rage drummer talks groove

When you purchase through links on our site, we may earn an affiliate commission. Here’s how it works.

The Prophets rise

The Prophets rise

Rap-rock trailblazers Rage Against The Machine exploded from speakers and stages with their incendiary self-titled debut in 1992.

The album was a welcome antidote to the lacking social and political commentary in music at the time.

Zack de La Rocha was the band’s fearless mouthpiece, spitting venomous rhymes that called out the perpetrators of police brutality, racism and political injustice. Behind him was a fiery musical trio: Tom Morello hammered out razor-sharp, effected riffs, and the seemingly telepathic rhythm section of bassist Tim Commerford and drummer Brad Wilk laid Zeppelin-meets-drum machine grooves beneath. Whether lighting up stages or spearheading protests, they were a force to be reckoned with.

Wilk grew up in Oregon before moving to Southern California where he started tuning into the influences that would inform his sound behind the kit. He was exposed to everything from Black Sabbath and Elvin Jones to Zeppelin and NWA. This heady mixture left its imprint on Wilk, and his signature funky, loose, swung groove was born.


In 2013 Wilk left the security of his Rage cohorts and ventured into challenging new territory when producer Rick Rubin invited him to fill in for his hero Bill ward on Black Sabbath’s final record, 13.

And now, Wilk is back with Morello and Commerford as part of Prophets of Rage. Recruiting Cypress Hill’s B-Real and Public Enemy’s Chuck D, and digging into the rap legends’ back catalogues too, Prophets of Rage was born. With this renewed purpose, Brad’s groove has never sounded more powerful or focused, and it’s high time we caught up with the Renegade of Funk.

How and why did Prophets Of Rage come to exist?

“Tom called me up and asked if I was interested in getting together with Tim and also Chuck D and DJ Lord to see what that sounded like. I’ve played with Tom and Tim for so many years I just never take for granted what our chemistry is. We can communicate almost telepathically. We got in a room, and it was great. It wasn’t until we added B [Real] in the mix that it really felt like something special was happening. There was such a great chemistry between all of us in the room.
”

Page 1 of 3
Page 1 of 3
Shitting bricks with Sabbath

Shitting bricks with Sabbath

Do you still approach the Rage songs with the same fire as you used to, or does age and wisdom give you a different perspective?


“My drum tech was telling me he was going back to old Rage clips, saying, ‘You’re playing more physically now than you were back in 2000, just before the band broke up.’ I feel like there’s such a purpose now that I can’t help but put myself physically and emotionally into these songs. We all still play every note like we mean it and we will continue to do that for as long as we can.”

You recorded drums for the last Sabbath album.

“That was an unbelievable experience for me. I remember getting the call from Rick [Rubin, producer]: ‘Hey, do you want to come over to Ozzy’s and play Black Sabbath songs?’ It was as simple as that. In my head I was like, if I play with these guys for one day in a room that’s good enough for me. On the first day I was playing War Pigs, Dirty Women, Hand of Doom, and then new stuff that they were working on. Quite honestly, I was shitting bricks. I don’t really get starstruck, but these guys were my heroes. There was obviously a chemistry there. What’s interesting in Black Sabbath is tony [Iommi] is the guy you follow, almost like the bass player of the band. He’s just this solid, unbelievably unwavering guitar player, then you have Geezer [Butler, bass] who plays in and around things. It’s such an amazingly different situation for me. It was incredible writing songs for two and a half weeks with them. We had a batch of 16 songs and then before I knew it we were in the studio recording them. We made it old school, did it on two-inch tape, no click tracks in sight.”

Did Rick or the band give you direction on your drum parts?


“Unbelievably they gave me free creative rein. The riffs were all there. They basically just let me do what I wanted to do. Rick is great in that he lets you figure it out. He may have an idea of what he wants to hear, but he lets you figure it out, which is an art.”

Bill Ward’s are some big shoes to fill...

“Every time I was playing I was thinking, ‘Would Bill ward like this, would he be okay with this?’ A lot of that was going on in my head, yet I was also like, ‘Okay, I’m a guy who has created a sound and a thing before I was in Black Sabbath, and that still had to be intact.’

“I grew up wanting to be Bill Ward and trying to learn those records on vinyl, playing parts over and over again. So much of Bill Ward is in my DNA, I would be a different drummer if I’d never heard Black Sabbath. The first Black Sabbath record I heard was actually Masters of Reality and I remember hearing the way he played and how he played that kick drum just after the snare drum just after the two-count. It was so distinctly Bill. I copped that at an early age and you hear it in Rage songs. He had a swing too. I grew up listening to big band a lot with my dad and there was always a lot of swing going on.

“The weirdest thing about that whole experience – and this is a true story – is that we recorded at [Rick Rubin’s] studio Shangri La in Malibu. I would walk outside on breaks and look out at lifeguard station number six. This was the exact place where I grew up when I was 13 or 14 years old I would bring my ghetto blaster to the beach in the summer and blast Black Sabbath. I’m just looking at this and it was such a full circle moment.”

Page 2 of 3
Page 2 of 3
Finding a groove

Finding a groove

You’re best known for your groove. Did it take much development or was it always there?


“I always had an innate swing in me. I also listened to a lot of Van Halen records. Alex Van Halen grew up on swing. Out of high school I ended up going part-time to a jazz school called Dick Grove School of Music. It taught jazz, Afro-Cuban and percussion and I really got into drummers like Elvin Jones. I knew that I would never be a jazz drummer. I wanted to be a rock drummer who was influenced by jazz, rather than a jazz drummer who might be influenced by rock.

“My teacher was David Garibaldi from Tower of Power. We called him the General. He was just amazing and really taught me about ghost notes. I always listened to John Bonham and I thought his placements of ghost notes were a thing of wonderment. I’d spend hours and hours, not listening to the stuff you could hear easily, but the stuff in between what he was doing. He had such incredible hands. Funnily enough, I didn’t really ‘get’ Led Zeppelin until after I hit puberty, and I hit puberty really late! Then I really understood Led Zeppelin and specifically understood John Bonham in a whole new way. They were such an incredible band that had this groove that oozed sexuality. That was a huge part of my learning process.”

You’ve always played a simple drum set-up. How much has it changed, if at all?


“When I started in Rage I had a three-piece drumset. I had a snare drum, a kick drum, a floor tom and a couple of cowbells. On the second record I wound up adding a tom. When I went to Audioslave I added an 18" floor tom. With the Smashing Pumpkins I kept it basically the same. With Black Sabbath, if you look at the original Bill Ward kits, he had a single kick drum, 16" and 18" floors and one tom. I really kept it to that.

“Having said that, when I was 13 or 14 years old, I was enamoured with Neil Peart and I had this massive f**king drum kit. I spent time in my room learning 2112, learning all the songs off Moving Pictures, learning the Signals record. I was deeply into Neil Peart just before I got into John Bonham. I actually wound up starting with a massive kit and it slowly got smaller and smaller.”

Page 3 of 3
Page 3 of 3
Categories
Drums
Chris Barnes
Chris Barnes
Social Links Navigation

I'm MusicRadar's eCommerce Editor. In addition to testing the latest music gear, with a particular focus on electronic drums, it's my job to manage the 300+ buyer's guides on MusicRadar and help musicians find the right gear for them at the best prices. I dabble with guitar, but my main instrument is the drums, which I have been playing for 24 years. I've been a part of the music gear industry for 20 years, including 7 years as Editor of the UK's best-selling drum magazine Rhythm, and 5 years as a freelance music writer, during which time I worked with the world's biggest instrument brands including Roland, Boss, Laney and Natal.

Read more
Frank Ferrer on stage in 2012
How drummer Frank Ferrer powered Guns N’ Roses for 19 years
 
 
Josh Freese performs onstage with The Vandals during day 1 of Warped Tour at Shoreline Waterfront on July 26, 2025
“It wasn’t music that I really resonated with”: Josh Freese lifts the lid on his exit from the Foo Fighters
 
 
Colin Brittain of Linkin Park performs at the I-Days Festival at Ippodromo Snai La Maura on June 24, 2025 in Milan, Italy
“I love this band, I love the people and the music": Colin Brittain on life behind the kit with Linkin Park
 
 
Listen to 11 isolated drum tracks from rock's drumming legends
 
 
Ozzy Osbourne and Zak Starkey
Zak Starkey reveals that he once turned down the chance to join Black Sabbath
 
 
Eloy Casagrande in Slipknot
Slipknot’s Eloy Casagrande reveals the secret lessons he gave his Sepultura replacement
 
 
Latest in Drummers
Lars Ulrich of Metallica performs at Levi's Stadium on June 20, 2025 in Santa Clara, California.
"Stick with it. Focus…You've gotta put the time in”: Lars Ulrich’s advice to young artists
 
 
Simon Phillips performing with Toto in 2007
“Everybody knew Jeff was a great drummer”: How Simon Phillips succeeded in replacing Jeff Porcaro in Toto
 
 
Blue Carpet held at USTA Billie Jean King National Tennis Center on September 06, 2025 in Queens
The one where Courteney Cox plays Nirvana's Smells Like Teen Spirit on the drums and goes viral
 
 
Simon Phillips
“I didn't recognise him. I found out later it was Dave Gilmour!”: Simon Phillips' chaotic session with Pete Townshend
 
 
DarWin
“Most pop music is rubbish now”: Legendary drummer Simon Phillips on producing supergroup DarWin
 
 
Matt Cameron of Pearl Jam performs live on stage during the New Orleans Jazz & Heritage Festival at Fair Grounds Race Course on May 03, 2025
Matt Cameron explains why he left Pearl Jam and insists that the final Soundgarden album is coming
 
 
Latest in News
Zultan Alaris cymbals
“Deliver a light, open sound with exceptional stick definition and a gentle, airy wash: Zultan unveil new ALARIS cymbal range
 
 
BLOW RECORDS Spotify header
Meet the AI 'artist' that's earning four times the average wage in the UK
 
 
INGLEWOOD, CA - FEBRUARY 19: Prince performs live at the Fabulous Forum on February 19, 1985 in Inglewood, California. (Photo by Michael Montfort/Michael Ochs Archives/Getty Images)
How Prince embraced The Beatles and recorded one of the most vulnerable ballads of his career
 
 
Ace Frehley in 1980
“I hope the fans realised that I’m for real”: Kiss guitarist Ace Frehley inspired a generation of rock stars
 
 
Teenage Engineering OP-XY
Teenage Engineering is letting you pay what you want for the OP-XY
 
 
Wolfgang Van Halen
“My list of voice memos is in the thousands!”: Wolfgang Van Halen on his songwriting process for his new Mammoth album
 
 

MusicRadar is part of Future plc, an international media group and leading digital publisher. Visit our corporate site.

  • About Us
  • Contact Future's experts
  • Terms and conditions
  • Privacy policy
  • Cookies policy
  • Advertise with us
  • Accessibility Statement
  • Careers

© Future Publishing Limited Quay House, The Ambury, Bath BA1 1UA. All rights reserved. England and Wales company registration number 2008885.

Please login or signup to comment

Please wait...