I first heard of RATM on the radio.  I didnt know who they were, what their band name was or anything.  The song was replayed a lot because it was popular.  I liked the song because of one of the lyrics.  The song featured the lyrics, "Rally 'round the family, with a pocket full of shells."  At that time I was 10 years old and it was May of 1996.  The lyric seemed funny to me.  I always pictured a guy having a sack full of shells in his hand and he was walking around a family that is sitting next to a fireplace.  He was walking like Native Americans go around a campfire.  Because this lyric seemed funny to me, I started to like the song, and i wanted to hear it over and over again.  I went on a trip with my friend and I repeated it over and over again.  He hated it and said he hated the song.  That was when I just said," This band is always going to be my favorite band."  I heard on the radio their name was something like Rage Against the Machine, but because my vocab wasnt that big I thought it was Race Against the Machine.  That made more sense to me.  Later on, I found out rage is a word.  When I had told my brother that my favorite band was going to be Rage, he gave me his Evil Empire CD.  My brother always buys CD's the day it comes out.  He probably bought Evil Empire because it was rap influenced (in early '96, I liked rap.  By about march I had changed to alternative music because my brother also changed from rap to alternative.)  At this time, a July day in 1996, I had owned my first Rage CD.  I thought Rage was a normal band.  But my brother told my dad about Rage and then they got into stuff about politics.  That is the day I changed.  On that day I changed from a citizen who just followed school and everything i needed to do, to a more abstract thinker.   I went on websites and looked at Rage sites.  I read about politics.  I even found out they had a CD before Evil Empire.  I said i must try to get it.  I got it in October 1996.  When I listened to it, I saw the difference in how they sound when you know they are political and when you didnt think they were.   They came to Phoenix in October of 1996 but i thought I was too young to go to one of their concerts.  They came again in 1997 and I didnt go.  I regret that.  I have really badly wanted to see them in concert because they are my favorite band.  If they come here on their next tour, "You'll see me."  Now to my influence with my friends.  When I first got into Rage my best friend hated them.  When I decided to go over to his house, we listen to the "Top 10 Freaking Favorites"(top 10 songs of the week on The Edge radio).  I said I really want to hear Rage.  And he said so do I.  And those quotes that long ago was the passageway for him to be a Rage fan.  He is a hardcore one and actually he visits this page a lot (even the forum).  All my friends in my middle school three years ago didnt like Rage.  They had barely heard of them.  People would make fun of me for liking them.  Well all of a sudden one of my friends at school becomes a hardcore Rage fan.  My influence on them is great because of the way Rage has changed them.  I have got my brother into Rage more, and he has bought me all kinds of Rage merchandise.  And if it wasn't for my kiddie mind I would have liked Rage.  If it wasn't for Rage I would be a totally different person.  I found Rage by myself, and I changed myself because of me, but I thank Rage for making me thinks further than whats going on.  To think beyond reality.  They have also got me back into playing musical instruments.  They have just changed me from the average Joe Schmoe to the Abstract Schmabstract.  I thank them and I am happy to await their next album.