Ongoing History Daily: Zach de la Rocha’s lost solo album

When frontman Zach de la Rocha left Rage Against the Machine in 2003, he fully expected to release a solo album in short order. Twenty years later, we’re still waiting. What happened?

Recording sessions were held, first with DJ Shadow. That resulted in two songs being released for free online but despite other songs being recorded, nothing further was heard. Then Zach enlisted Trent Reznor for help. More sessions were booked but all the results were thrown out because Zach felt everything sounded too much like Rage Against the Machine. Several tracks were finished but no one ever expects them to be released.

There was another try in 2016 with a song called “Digging for Windows” co-produced by El-P from Run the Jewels that did get released but for some reason didn’t get a whole lot of attention. An album was supposed to follow, but again, nothing.

Will we ever get a full solo album from Zach? Your guess is as good as mine.