Brad Wilk was born on September 5th 1968, in Portland, Oregon, USA. He moved around a lot as a child and lived among other places in Chicago, Illinois. Eventually, he settled in California. As a kid he was a big fan of music in general. Some of his favourite bands were Led Zepplin and The Sex Pistols. He's also cited the music of James Brown and George Clinton as influences. He started to play drums when he was 13 years old and got his first CB700 kit when he was 14. He played along to records and took lessons. Brad decided to make a career for himself as a drummer, placed an advertisement in a newspaper seeking a band who was not afraid to make unique music. He later received a call from Tom Morello, an undiscovered guiatrist with whom Brad would go on to play in two legendary bands: Rage Against The Machine (along with bassist Tim Commerford and rapper Zach de la Rocha) and Audioslave (with Tim Commerford and singer Chris Cornell). Brad enjoys many artists including Black Sabbath, Leonard Cohen, MC5, Nick Drake, Bob Dylan, Gene Krupa, Art Blakey, Charles Mingus, Miles Davis, John Coltrane and Wayne Shorter. Brad is a Buddhist and is seen by many as very grounded and compassionate. His father passed away while Brad was touring with Rage Against The Machine on the 1994 Lollapalooza ticket. He has said that witnessing how material wealth corrupted his father made him value the simple things in life.