The Magnificent Others with Billy Corgan - Tom Morello | The Magnificent Others with Billy Corgan

Episode Date: February 12, 2025

Billy Corgan sits down with Rage Against the Machine co-founder Tom Morello to trace the path from Tom’s earliest days as a KISS-obsessed comic-book devotee to his rise as a musical agitator on the biggest stages in rock.Tom reveals how dropping into the Sunset Strip glam scene led to a short-lived major-label deal that taught him never to compromise his artistry. He recalls the explosive formation of RATM, “a ring of power that drives men mad”—and dives deep into why Rage’s politically charged fusion shook the world. You’ll also hear about his boundary-pushing work in Audioslave alongside Chris Cornell’s transcendent vocals, plus his acoustic alter ego, The Nightwatchman, born of a hunger for unfiltered activism.But there’s more to Tom than riffs and revolution: he’s a proud father, film producer, and fierce defender of the unsung heroes of heavy metal, Judas Priest. Balancing a hardwired passion for justice with family life, Tom Morello offers a master class in remaining unapologetically true to yourself—even when that truth demands you stand front and center with a guitar in one hand and a protest sign in the other. If you’ve ever wondered how an avowed political rebel and virtuoso shredder finds his place in an ever-changing music industry—and in a world still hungry for change—this conversation is a must-listen.Watch The Magnificent Others on YouTube: https://www.youtube.com/@BillyCorganTMO Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoicesSee Privacy Policy at https://art19.com/privacy and California Privacy Notice at https://art19.com/privacy#do-not-sell-my-info.

You know, I can't be like the one black kid in town, the only person to get into Harvard, who then comes home without a degree. So I get that. What is a non-sectarian socialist? It's an answer you have to give to a guitar world when they try to hem you in. Well, were you attracted to women in Renaissance scar? Much more so than in real life. Ray Jans machine is like the ring in Lord of the Ring.

It drives men mad. It drives men mad. All right. we're going to jump right into the deep end by all means do you view the entire world through the prism of Star Trek like many Trekkies do?

No, no, no. I would say that Star Trek harmonized with suspicions that I already had about how the world might one day be. You know how the Trekkies are? Yeah, yeah, sure, sure, sure, sure, that everything. So I can ask you one of these cheesy kind of questions.

Yeah, yeah. Who was the character on the OG Star Trek that you're most attracted to? Because we do kind of define ourselves that. Sure, sure. Probably Sulu. Okay.

Can you give me? Yeah, sure. Probably Sulu in a way. Because I, first of all, I appreciated the, you know, the diversity in the cast, which of course was a big deal to me being sort of like the only black kid in an all white town. But there was something about Sulu that it felt to me like he was, he didn't have, he didn't have the weight of the world on his shoulders. and yet he was in the coolest one. Was he the one that had the kind of the cool haircut?

Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah. That felt to me like he had like a lot of range of possibilities. I just found out the other day that his character was forced in by the network because they wanted a teen, idolish character, and his character was, his haircut was based on the monkeys. Did you know that? I didn't know that. I literally just learned this like three days ago. Yeah, God bless.

Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah. I know you're, I always, you know, because we both grew up in. Illinois, not too far from each other. But how did you get from... Tell me the family story of how you got from Harlem, which is where you're born to Chicago. Sure, sure, sure, sure. Well, my mom met my father in East Africa, in Kenya.

She was teaching there. And then I was born in Harlem, and she was a single mom, living in... But is this... Sorry to interrupt you. And again, who knows? Because, you know, you do your research, but who knows what it's true anymore. Yeah, yeah, yeah. But I saw something where your father...

said he's not my kid and took off? No, no, no, no. Okay, so tell me the real story. Yeah, sure, sure, sure, sure. So my mom was teaching in East Africa where she was, you know, part of a bunch of like sort of white U.S. teachers in the Aberdeer Mountains

where she went to teach, and she met the people making Kenya's independence movement there, and that felt more interesting to her. And my dad, who's Joma Kenyatta's nephew, they became romantically involved. And that was not. going, you know, sort of raising an American, you know, half white kid was not going to be sort of a part of his destiny. So she moved back to the States. She wanted to live somewhere where she grew up was entirely white.

She wanted to live somewhere with some diversity because she was going to be raising a black kid. So she moved to Harlem. And that's where I was born. Like west 142nd in Riverside is where we had a little apartment. And but the, she worked for the Jimmy Dean show. Jimmy Dean, who was both a star and made Jimmy Dean of country fame. Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah. Sorry to interrupt because it's an important part of your life story. But that was the pumpkin's go-to road destination, was the Jimmy Dean franchise because you got the best breakfasts.

Did Rage have a on-the-road breakfast destination? I was like to, during certain swathes of the country, Waffle House, of course. Okay, Waffle. So for us, Jimmy Dean was like we were really spending one. Exactly, yeah, yeah, yeah. We're upscaling. I was aiming for more caloric intake. All right, God bless.

per dollar. Sorry to interrupt. That's right. Your important life story. It's totally fine. Both those are important parts of my life story. Yeah, so she, we lived there for about a year. Then she moved back to central, Marseilles, Illinois.

I eventually ended up in Libertyville, where she got her. The original love it's Marseilles. It's Marseilles, Illinois. I never knew there was another way to pronounce that word until later. So how old were you then when you're? One, when we moved back. Okay, so New York was not part of it. No, we would return in summer.

So there was, I knew as aunts and uncles who were part of the extended family. It was the connection that she made through sort of the Catholic Church was Father Salmon who was like one of the first black Catholic priests in Harlem and he became, you know, he was the he introduced her, he said, this is your family here and so the people were my aunts and uncles

and he had passed away recently but we reconnected with him more recently so he was in our lives which was pretty great and provided sort of another nest and another home away from the which was a very very different life than the one in Marseilles and Libertyville. I don't know what the percentage, the white percentage of Illinois was in our, you're slightly older than me.

Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah. But we literally grew up with the same television, the same radio station, so that's something we've always shared. But, you know, Illinois at that point, up until about 1972, when there was an influx of a ton of immigrants coming in Pakistani, Vietnamese, Filipino. That's what I grew up in Glendale Heights. But Libertyville was... I literally integrated the town, according to the real estate agent. Yeah, I was going to say. So you grew up in an almost completely white world. In a completely white world.

And my mom who had a tremendous amount of global experience teaching, had a master's degree, couldn't find a teaching job in the northern suburbs because we were an interracial family. And she was a single... That blows my mind. Yeah. So just walk me through that a little bit. Sure.

Does she, how would they even know to discriminate against her? Well, no, I mean, I'm not sure what it said on her application, but she was not sort of shy about what her family was. And in multiple towns where she was, they said, you can teach here, but your family should probably live elsewhere. Very, like straight up, like get. Did that wound your mother in any way? No, not at all.

Mary Moran, like, not at all. She was, she was, you know. Knowing you a little bit, that doesn't. surprise me. Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah. So she finally, the reason why we lived in Libertyville was there was a high school friend of hers from Marseilles who was teaching at LHS at Libertyville High School who was able to vouch for her and her family. That's so crazy. Yeah. And so then, but then we had to find a place to live. So the apartment complex across from the high school, the real estate agent had to bring us door to door so that to introduce us so there wouldn't be

any surprises. And I was, they made, they made it very, very clear that this was not some like an American Negro child. This was an African princeling who was to try to sort of soften the blow of the, of what was happening. And that, you know, and honestly, that worked pretty well until I was old enough to date their daughters. And then they didn't care if I was the king of Botswana. You will not be crossing the welcome mat on homecoming night. I'm curious because I have my own mental version. But so what for you is your sweet spot of youth in Illinois? Like, you know, like we both grew up on the Bozo show.

Sure, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah. So what is your Halcyon day? Like, if you had to do a snapshot of you riding your bike. And I'm not talking teen, like youth. Yeah, yeah, yeah. I would say summers as a kid. But give me a year, though. Let's say, let's say seven or eight years old, so 72, somewhere.

Okay, so what are you listening to? What I'm doing? I'm collecting comic books, which is huge. Who was your favorite? The Iron Man, like sort of the Iron Man for Avengers and whatnot. Also, like the DC World Weird War Tales and I enjoy those as well. But it would be summers where we would spend the summers in Marcells. Marcells is very different from Libertyville.

Libertyville was a... Marseilles is downstate, right? Yeah, it's a former... The moreals were coal miners, right? So it was a former coal mining tone that was a bucolic, like no one locks their doors. Now it is, it's a very, very difference. It's like the bad end of a Bruce Springsteen song now. But at the time, it was, we'd spend our summers there.

So it was just riding bikes, collecting baseball cards, playing, you know, excelling on the Little League team, swimming in the radium-filled pool. Very Illinois. Yes, very Illinois. playing with hot wheels and, you know, at nights with the, you know, mosquitoes and fireflies sitting on the front porch with the family. So because you were growing up in a, you know, predominantly doesn't even describe it, you're basically growing up in a white world.

That's right, yeah. What was it that you saw in the culture that you were attracted to? And I'm not trying to make it a black or white race thing. I'm trying to say, who were your cultural identifiers that you thought, okay, that's kind of, that feels like me. Billy Williams. Billy Williams looked like he could have been my dad. Okay.

You know what I mean? Like, and it was, I've later reflected on this. Have you met Billy Williams? Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, I spent some time. That's cool. I haven't shared that with him. But that's cool. But yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah.

He was like sort of the light-skinned, you know, Chicago Cubs. Is this pre-Star Wars or? Not Billy D. Williams. Billy Williams of the Cubs. Oh, Billy Williams. Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah. Yeah, yeah, yeah. Yeah, yeah, yeah.

Sure, yeah. Oh, yeah, yeah. Yeah, yeah. Now, that's the Cubs. Yeah, yeah. You got a Cubs baseball. Yeah, I saw that. All right.

But yeah, so that was, you know, that was a, you know, as a, again, my mom was also, like, the only single mom in town. Like, we were really unicorns on, on multiple fronts. But, you know, Billy Williams was, I was big fan of sport. Frank O'Harris, too, was another, because he was both, both Italian and African American. Yeah. And those, you know. So sports guys that you could say, okay, not that, not that could be me, that at least feels like. That's right, that's right.

Yeah, yeah, sort of beyond the community that I lived in. And also in my household, like my mom, we would, my mom was very, very, she didn't want my existence to be a ethnically homogeneous one. So we would go to like church groups in North Chicago and in Waikigan. So I had friends that were sort of outside of Libertyville as well. So she was giving you this sense of, hey, there's a bigger world out there. That's correct. That's amazing. Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah. Did you talk at any point later with your mom about that, like what her thinking was?

Sure. I mean, it was, it was, we would go back to Harlem every summer. She just wanted, she knew that this was the place where she could have a job and she could make a life for our, for our little family. But Marcells was not, Marcells of anything was probably whiter than, you know, the Liberty for the liberty. Because I wasn't there for three quarters of the year. But, but she was, she made a really, a real sound effort to let me know that there was a world beyond, that there was a world of identities and people. beyond the ones in Libertyville and Marseilles. So we have a mutual love of heavy metal. Yes. And I'm struck by you know, like you're saying,

your mother went out of her way to make sure like, hey, look, this is the world. We live in this world, but there's this other world out here. But, you know, outside of, say, Tony Mac Alpine. Sure. Right? I mean, there weren't a lot of brothers playing metal. No. No. I mean,

it's... None. None. And it's maybe gotten a little better, but it's still very much rooted. And I don't think it's a race thing as much as a suburbia thing. Sure, yeah. It strikes me that ultimately metal is a suburban phenomenon. Yeah, Birmingham notwithstanding, but yeah. But even then, it's still, Birmingham, you know, you talk to people in the UK, Birmingham is the suburbs as far as they're concerned. Yeah, yeah, yeah.

So what was it about metal that you found some form of kinship? Yeah, well, I found music on my own. My mom had a couple of restaurants. There was some classical music, like my great uncle had played in Chicago Symphony Orchestra, right? So there was some music in my house. My grandfather was a talented pianist. But the records in my mom's house were, she had war's greatest hits. You know, and a couple of classical records.

I had to find music on my own. And where I found it was via comics. Kiss was my favorite band before I heard a note of their music. I saw the record was on sale at the A&P grocery store. And I was like, well, that's, I need to have that album. Which kiss album? Destroyer. Destroyer.

Good place to start. A fine entry drug. Yeah, right. A fine entry drug. And so that was the music that I first was imprinted, imprinted with. And then, you know, every magazine that had Kiss on the cover, List had other bands inside. They were Led Zeppelin, they were Aerosmith, they were Ted Nugent, later maiden and priest. And so I didn't have, there were no older brothers influencing me.

Like, I was on a solo musical exploration that was through the... And back then it was really, you know, it was. You heard stuff on the radio was one thing. But if you were in Iron Main, it was all word of mouth. That's right. 100% word of mouth, yeah. And through the mail, like I read Hit Parader and Cream and Circus religiously and studied them. And then saved up, you know, there was not a lot of income for, so I had to really think about what record I was going to get.

So I would study these magazines, and then it looked like Aerosmith Rocks was going to be the next Target album. Okay. You know, and then. Did you ever do ever do the record? record club thing you made that mistake we made that mistake you were like this is awesome 13 albums for one paid and then and then three months later our stepmother comes goes what the hell did you do exactly you may still be paying it off now because you get a record you didn't want and that was the scam you had to send it back yeah and nobody's sending it back and they would say you like just total drek

yeah yeah yeah that's funny the ones that they were the ones that they were unloading yeah yeah so then I love metal and then but but I wanted to be I was a singer before I was a guitar player like my idol was Robert Plant before it was Jimmy Page. And then my voice changed. And that sort of put some... You started playing guitar at what age? I didn't start playing when I was 17. Yeah. That's late. Very late. I got my first guitar at 13, took two guitar lessons that made me think that music wasn't for me. And it sat in a closet for four years, yeah.

I have this theory. No one seems to pick up on it yet, so I'm bringing it to you. I'm sure I told you about this before. But I do find it fascinating that, Adam from Tool, you, and obviously you guys had a band together when you were young, and there I am living probably 20 miles away from you guys. And we all grew up in the same atmosphere. We all started rock bands that were predominantly riff-driven. Yes. Right?

Yeah. And we took music in three completely different directions. Correct. I find that really fascinating. It's the closest thing, and somebody will get mad at me, but it's the closest thing to Beck, Clapton, and Page kind of growing up in the same. hood. Yeah, yeah. And we have had our influence on what followed. So if you want to get mad at me, they can. That's not an insane theory. That's not an insane thing. No, but I find it really

fascinating because what was it in the water that we were all drinking? Right. Well, there's, I mean, the one thing that all three have in common is metal. You know, like Adam and I, we were in his truck driving up to Alpine Valley to the pre-shows in the Iron Maiden and the Deo shows. And then I think what's interesting is how, like, like, that metal DNA appears in all three, but then there's how it branches off in different ways. Might be comic books for all the help now, right? Yeah, yeah, yeah. I think, I think it's, I do see similar in this, and when we have a mutual love of priest

and Sabbath, there's something about growing up in an industrial, uh, working class area. Maybe our dreams are bigger somehow, or they're more rooted in fantasy? Yeah, yeah, yeah. Because it's so dreary. That's right, yeah. You know? Yeah, like what is, beyond the Dairy Queen. Like, you know, because you've lived here for years, and we all have friends here,

and, you know, people that grew up here, they're like, oh, yeah, you know, I went to school with Gene Simmons kid, and, you know, Steve Lukathor used to drive me to school. Sure. And we're like, I remember the first time the pumpkins went to Europe, we saw our first famous person. And it was Bonnie Tyler.

Oh, my gosh. Total clips of the heart. Yeah. She was in the same hotel. Yeah. Like, oh, my God, it's Bonnie Tyler. And nothing against Bonnie Tyler. Cool.

Yeah. Great songs. But I mean, we weren't into Bonnie Tyler. But we were like, oh, my God. There's a celebrity. A celebrity. Your first, my first famous person was Daryl Hannah, who I saw sitting in the back of a car in Westwood. And I went to a pay phone to call home.

See? Did television, like what you were watching in television, did that kind of help? Sure. I mean, well, the stuff I was, the stuff that I leaned into, it was, you know, like the Planet of the Apes TV. show and stuff like that. I remember that TV show. Oh, really? Oh, yeah. Was it a cartoon or wasn't it? No, it was Roddy McDowell. You know, reprisings as Cornelius. I just interviewed Paul Williams, who was famously in battle for the planet. Yes, yeah, yeah, yeah. But now TV, yeah, it was, you know, it was the TV guide and there was a Saturday morning cartoons. It was, it's a world that, like,

our children will never, never understand how you had to, you know, to remember when you'd watch stuff you didn't really want to watch? Because it was on. Right. It's like, There's four channels, and I'm going to watch this cooking show because it's the most. Or I'm going to watch the cooking show because the person cooking is kind of hot. Right. And the next, you're waiting for the next show, too. But the TV guy would come out. I remember circling, you know, like you're waiting for happy days,

and there's a Godzilla movie on Creature Feature and whatnot. I feel like, correct me again, because this is the world of research. Was Hollywood first before Harvard or Harvard then Hollywood? Harvard, yeah, no, I was the, and let me, I'll say, preface this by saying it is through no unique genius of my own, but I was the first person from Libertyville to ever attend Harvard. No one had ever

applied before either. So there was not... Were you a really good student? I was a really good student, but no one had ever... Like, I went to the guidance counselor with good grades, and I was in drama club and had some other stuff. And they said, you know, you're a shoeing at U of I. Here's the application. Because that's what you do in Illinois. You go to U of I. And if you're a stoner, you go to Illinois State.

Yeah, yeah, or CLC. You're going to see. But I looked over his shoulder, and I saw there was like, the colleges of North America, a musty ledger. And I said, can I borrow that? And I read it cover to cover. And I learned that there were universities, first of all, University of Illinois is a fantastic school. But there's other schools, too. So it wasn't like you grew up thinking, I want to go to Harvard.

No, I couldn't care less. Honestly, I would have been happy to go to CLC. Very happy to go to CLC. But I thought, why not apply? The thing that was most appealing about it was their endowment was so huge. that they accepted their freshman class need blind. So basically their freshman class is a social experiment. It's like we're trying to get a group of people together

that will learn from and teach each other. And I just thought that was, rather than like, there's the X number of alumni kids and the ones that kind of for the school. And that to me just felt like, like that was a different idea of how to have a school. And that was feeling. So, okay, now you're going to Harvard.

Polysai was the? Polysai, yeah. But I was, but it was, I started playing guitar at 17, but I was, had the calling at 19. I was at the little rehearsal room under the, you know, where we had dinners under the cafeteria. And it was, you know, the skies open. There was a moment of improvisation where I felt a calling. Like this, and I had many other interests. I was, I was an artist.

I was a writer. I was interested in leftist political revolt. And I was like, I now am a guitar player, and I have to bend everything around that. And it hadn't struck you before that. No, no, no. In terms of an identity. Yeah, yeah. And then while balancing a polysci major at Harvard was a challenge, because I can't be like the one black kid in town, the only person to get into Harvard who then comes home without a degree.

So I get that. Yeah, so I had a soldier on. What, because I was actually recruited out of high school for political science. It's a weird story, but it's not important. But what did you, what, because, you know, you're so closely attached. Yeah. That's not the right word. But people see you as a political person.

You've always been a political person in the public sphere. That's who you are in front of the camera and backstage. But what was it about, you know, the political science? Did that help you kind of, I don't want to be as glib as thinking like you learn the strategy. about how to take over the world, but it might have had something to do with your aggressive posturing. The hope was to arm myself intellectually for the coming struggles. You know, that's, that was, that was, that was, you're in the right place now.

That was the hope, exactly, exactly. That was the hope. You know, and it's PolySai, the people who are watching this who are from Harvard. It's actually the, Harvard doesn't have majors, they have concentrations. It's not called Polysci. It's called social studies. So there's going to be someone who's going to, now that that, That's clear it up. But you just, it's interdisciplinary. It's part philosophy, part history,

part economics. But did it inform you in a, I don't know, to me, to me, some people, when they're calculated, it reads to me poorly. Yeah. You, your calculus, and I say this respectfully, it's always struck me as thoughtful. Yeah. Like, I have a, I have a vector of attack here. Yeah. And I know, and somehow you have a light touch to it. I don't know how you do it. No, but I feel like, You're one of the only people that could preach to me, even if I completely disagree with you politically, and I'm going to listen, and I'm not feeling like you're tapping me on the cheek.

Yeah, well, thank you. But I just, like, the, what the Harvard Polly Sye experience did was provide more arrows in the quiver for something that had been there from day one. And that was to stand up for the poor and oppressed in every situation. Now, where do you think that comes from? My mom.

Okay. 100% from my mom. It was the ethos of my home. Was this something she talked? No, no, it was just the ethos of my home. You're in it. I'm in it. I'm in it.

In a way that was sharpened when I... Sorry, real quick. Was it because you guys were poor or it's because the way she felt about the world? The way that she felt about the world. Yeah, we didn't have a lot of money, but I never thought about that because it was... No, I get it. I just saying it's like, it's, for lack of rhetoric, it's your family tradition. It is the sense.

It is 100% the family tradition. Which once I was in high school realized how unique that was, not just in the family. in my town, not just in my high school, in my town, but in the world. That's very unique. Yeah, that that, the, the, the, the person. Is your mom still alive? She is, 101 years old. God bless you. I was just talking with her.

God bless you. She's having a day to day, which I was negotiating, but she's fine. She's good, yeah, just 101 years old. That's intense. Yeah, yeah. That's intense. Because I, I, I, you know, we live in an age where a lot of people talk, a lot of hashtagging and stuff.

I love people who walk the talk. So your mother walk the talk. Oh, 100%. Yeah, their entire life. I think that to me is what defines where things go. Yeah. We're always going to disagree about this and that. But you've got to be in it and you've always been that person too.

I'm going to stand here and I'm going to tell you what I think. Yeah, yeah. But you walk the talk. I'm compelled to. It's not to me, it's like. No, I get that, but I'm saying I have a respect for it. And I think, how can I put it? We need more people in the space, particularly in the arts,

that are willing to kind of stand there in a, in a manner of digression of their convictions, but not an aggressive posture that repels people. And I think you've done a wonderful job of sort of saying, this is what I believe, but it never feels like you're shoving me out a door. And if that comes from your mother, mad respect for your mother.

Like you said, that's not something everybody grows up. That's correct. I just grew up with my dad smoking joints and looking at the TV and going, they're all liars. Which, which... No, but I'm saying... Which is an important political point of view.

But it wasn't based on any, my father told me his whole life he was an atheist and then later it changed to agnostic and then later it changed to I believe in God, but I don't know who God is. Okay. But, you know, when he would sit there and say, this is, it wasn't attached to anything. It was, there was no called action. Right, right. It wasn't like, son, you can change the world. Yeah.

It was son, you're, because they control the world and there's nothing you can do. That's not. Yeah, that's a different. What do you do with that? Yeah, what do you do? Because when I did have some power in the world, it was a different. different times. I didn't know what to do with it. You know, and you got people in your way, you don't want to say that, you're going to sell less records. You know, and unless you have a sort of a

some internal moral compass or something that you believe and then you're then you're just like anybody else. And you're, you're susceptible to the winds of that's correct. I think that moral compass is the is a key thing. And for better or worse, that was, you know, baked in. Senator Allen Cranston before or after Hollywood. So, so moved to, move to L.A. and with my Harvard degree, unable to find. Why did you go to L.A.? Because Circus Magazine said that's where I had to go to play in a heavy metal band on the Sunset Strip

in order to have a career in music. I love that it's that shallow. Yeah, I'm coming here. Where else would you go? Yeah, so I moved out here and I couldn't get a job. What year? 86, September of 86. A very right period for the Sunset Street.

Incredible. I mean, first of all, I was, make it clear, I was never any part of it. There was no, the welcome mat was not put. out. Like, first of all, you had to either be, you know, scantily clad in lingerie to get in the clubs or have 12 bucks. And I didn't fit into either one of those, either one of those categories. So you're the guy on the street looking through the window. I'm the guy on the street, we're collecting flyers. Yeah, literally, like me and my roommate, we would just sit along,

sit on that, like, curb outside of Gazaris and just watch the pageantry go by. But I couldn't get hired. Well, I couldn't get in a band and I couldn't get a job. Those are the two things that I, my only work experience had been five summers at the Bristol Renaissance, That's why I worked my way through Harvard was... Did you dress up in Renaissance Garp? What else would you do? Are there pictures? Of course.

And I'm proud of. As soon as we get out of the center of the house. It's all there for you. I can't believe I'm nervous of us. Yeah, pirate chantees and, you know, I was like a wandering minstrel for five... Were you attractive to women in... Was I attracted to women? No, were you attracted to women in Renaissance scarf?

Much more so than in real life. Interesting. Yeah, yeah. Goth has a similar aphrodisiac effect. A woman in normal clothes versus a woman in black clothes? That's so fun. It's true, though. Yeah.

Well, I mean, there's sort of this suspension of, like, the nerd, the Star Trek comic collecting nerd that you are, you know, playing D&D in Libertyville and then the, you know, in Glendale Highspine. Yeah, yeah, the suave, jerry-courled troubadour at the Renaissance fame. Oh, my God. Two very different romantic prospects. So I read when you were working for Senator Alan Crenston,

and you found that disillusioning. Yes, yeah, yeah. You don't have to belabor it, but I'm, the easiest thing is, I'm just looking for more meat on the bone of how you became you. Yes, yeah, yeah. You know, because in many ways, and I got to, I don't remember when we first, I felt like we met like around 92, 91, very early on. Playing family feud.

Thank you. Visiting you at an apartment. I remember that. I could still see us at the apartment. Yeah. And it was a mutual friend of ours, photography. said, oh, come meet this guy. And so we've known each other that many years.

But when you did, say, burst on the American consciousness as Tom Rello, you were pretty fully formed. Yeah, yeah. You know, I'm a walking wreck in progress. You seem to be like, like, there you were. Yeah, I was, I mean, both the band and sort of person, I was pretty crystal clear about. Sure, but I think what's interesting is, is that doesn't just happen overnight. No, no, no.

I mean, the thing about working at the center. office, I was, it was the only job I could get. With my Renaissance Fair resume, I mean, I could juggle, but I couldn't, I'd never worked retail, so I couldn't be hired to sell Iron Maiden t-shirts. But you got to go all the way back to D.C. or you're still? No, I was his schedule, Senator Kranson's scheduling secretary for California. So when he comes to California, when he comes to California, in Southern California, I just read Senator and I sued. Yeah, he's my, he's, he's, his, his, that's why I was confused about time. I'm responsible for his schedule. Yeah, but the thing, the thing about it, that,

It was, you know, I got to see really how the sausage, I scheduled the sausage making. So I know exactly how it's made. And the job is to ask rich people for money. The end. That's the job. And, you know, he had progressive opinions about the environment and immigration, this, that, and the other. The job, we used to go, at the time when we were traveling, I would, I would commandeer a hotel's bank of payphone. So there's like 10 pay phones.

And they're the senator's pay phones. So I'd call a guy number, rich guy in Texas number one. Can you hold for Senator Krantz? Boom. Number two, can you all of something? So the phones are just dangling. There's nine phones dangling with people waiting to be asked for money. And then when he hangs up this one, I come back around and we start the process again. And that was, it was just so. For someone of your moral conviction, that must have been really. No, it was a day gig. It was always just a day gig. No, but I'm asking the emotional question. It must have been hard for you to watch. Yeah, yeah, it was. But I had, but I was so dismissive. Dismissive is in the right word. I was so sure that real change does not. not come through electoral politics when I had that job. I was always a radical and a revolutionary at heart, trying to be in a rock band, like trying to buy apple juice and wheat bread was why I was working. But still, you're getting a, yeah, but the thing, the thing that was the most disheartening was one day this woman calls up, and I would sometimes feel calls from constituents,

and she was complaining that Mexicans were moving into her neighborhood. And so I don't know what she wants the senators to do about that, perhaps some pogrom. Apparently kicked the Mexicans And so I told, I said, you know, ma'am, you know, you're a racist and you can go to hell. And I, and then, you know, she called back and I thought that I had represented the senator well because certainly he wouldn't. What kind of, what kind of phone call is that? I just, I got yelled at for two weeks by everybody up and down. What do they say? Like, you can't treat a constituent that way.

You know, you're representing the senator poorly. You know, it's not your job to express opinions like that. And I thought if in my job, I can't tell a racist. to go to hell, that's perhaps not the right line of work for me. What is a non-sectarian socialist? It's an answer you have to give to a guitar world when they try to hem me in. Well, after this, I'm going to ask you about guitar pedals, but first I need to ask you about, what is a non-sectarian socialist?

First of all, the labels, I think that it's a, you do yourself an injustice and you do your enemies and injustice by sort of like, I've, the political program that I've always followed, I said it earlier, is you always stand up for the oppressed in every instance. So is there a label for that or you don't want a label? I don't think, I mean, there's, it's, it's, that has fallen under many different labels through time. Sure. From anarcho-sindicalism to, you know, to, to, to what, I, standing up for the people on the butt. Stand up and shout.

Oh, all, stand up exactly. Dieh had it right. But, I mean, you find that in, in, you know, both in liberation theology and you find it in the communist manifesto. Right. That that point of view is one that I think on a daily basis, I do my best both in my art and in my life to enact. To the crowd that just hears somebody wants free money or somebody wants stuff that they haven't earned. Yeah, yeah. What do you, because I, you and I are totally aligned morally. Yeah, yeah.

I find it really difficult to watch, you know, this incredibly wealthy. diverse and rich country, I don't mean just rich, I mean, look at our art and look at our culture, that we haven't sort of figured out how to take care of people. Yeah. And I'm not even talking about like the handout version. I'm talking about why can't we organize our society in a way that's just a lot more kind. Yeah, because that's not what it's meant to be because it's the, there's an underlying profit motive that precludes that being something that could happen.

So what would you say to people that when they hear us talk like, that recoil. What is it, are you making, I guess what I'm asking, is it a moral argument you're making? Is it a, is it a, here's a better system argument? Like, what, what argument would you pick? I think you would start with the moral argument is, is that should it ever be okay for children to go hungry? Start with that. As a child who went hungry many times, no. Start with that. And if the answer is no, then that's, start pulling that thread and see if the whole sweater on rats. Right. Okay. Yeah, I just, I'm not really interested in politics in this forum, but, you know, in your case, it does define your art. So you're a unique opportunity to kind of poke at it differently.

Let's talk about lockup. Sure. Happy to. I almost wore my lockup shirt today. 1989, Geffen. Are you having the, I got a major label deal. I'm in. This is going to be great.

It's it. people think. Walk me, because I didn't know this part of your history. Yeah. And I'm surprised I don't know. I do remember hearing about lockup. Sure, sure. So what is Tomarillo in 1989 thinking? Sure, sure. Well, at one night, Adam Jones comes over to, who's working in prosthetic makeup at the time, comes over to my apartment to be a wingman. Do you want to go out of a place called Al's Bar? I'm like, dude, I got to go to the center's office at 8 in the morning. He's like, please. I'm like, fine. We see a local band playing called Lockup. I'm like, this is a, first of all, It's a different kind of club.

It's not a sunset strip club. It's in downtown L.A. It has a much more of sort of a punk rock earthiness. And the band is fantastic. It's kind of like a raw, a really raw, early chili peppers,

funky or and harder. Yeah, I was surprised because I heard some kind of... Yeah, funky or and harder. Yeah, I was listening to this morning a bit. Yeah, yeah. And they became my favorite local band through a great set of circumstances.

I eventually joined my favorite local band. I was the junior member. Everybody was five for six years older than me in the band. And while on the one hand, I think that I maybe made the band worse by making it a little smoother, a little more metal, a little more shreddy solos that maybe it didn't

need, I definitely made it more appealing to record commercial. So you were part of the getting of the deal? Yeah, yeah, I could write songs and stuff too. And we got a deal and everybody back home, everyone in Libertyville thinks you're a millionaire. Listen,

if you can go back in a time machine, right? Okay, because I think it illustrates the point. Anybody but anybody who had a record deal in 1989 that era, pre-grunge, anybody but anybody playing loud guitar that had a deal on a major label, it was like, how? Yes, yeah. It was that big a deal. To us in Illinois, we were like, how do you do that?

It was incredible. But I'm living with five roommates in a squat is where I'm living in the time. No, I get that, but again, it's this idea. Now, we're not talking about the world through television like us watching Gilgan's Island in the basement. But I'm saying is the idea that a band could get signed playing heavy music in 1989, I mean, there was probably, how many bands do you think were signed that were heavy?

Like, not like metal bands. Like, let's call it the coming hard rock alternative revolution. We had heard of the sound gardens and the James Addictions. It would have been under 15 or 20 bands in the whole world. Yeah, yeah, yeah. So for us, it was like, oh my God. So what are you thinking? Well, I'm thinking, like, I've realized my dream.

I'm going to be a rock star. I'm going to make albums. I have albums at home. Now there's going to be an album. Who produced the first lockup? Oh, I forget dude's name. He was the guy that did the Faith No More record. Okay.

Faith No More record in one of the replacements records. But we went up to the site, you know, the studio in Marin County, like the beautiful studio where we're the band we're like the east side los angeles punk like most of our gigs were at like hardcore gay bars like that was where the punks there was a punk scene there and we're in this bucolic setting where there's you know there's there's there's a hot tub you know the the chef is reclining beautifully in the hot tub deer are coming up to the studio it's very led zeppelin three we're like we have no idea what you're not at a castle you're close yeah yeah yeah yeah And we made a very sterile, very sterile record.

Why do you think it was sterile? I think it was the intent of the record company. They wanted... When did you... Sorry, I'm the worst than a record. When did you figure out, was it too late when you figured out, uh-oh? Yeah, it was too late. It was when there was a lot of influence in the production to dampen down sort of what I do.

And like, there was talk of keyboard. I was very prejudiced against keyboard stuff. I had to physically disable at night sneak down and disable the keyboard, the roads so that it wouldn't be on the record. But they didn't want any toggle switch playing, no sort of guitar pyrotechnics. Like the stuff that was most me, they were sure they did not want any of that on the record.

Yeah, because when you listen to the record, it sounds like you're not quite you yet, which is weird because I don't know that other... Yeah, yeah. I was a shredding, yeah. No, but it makes sense because it tells me that they just sort of took away part of... That's right. That's right. It's not like you hadn't figured yourself out. That's correct. I still hadn't until, but I was more, I was more Nuno Betancourt than Andy Gill. Yeah, I get it.

It felt a little bit anody. Yeah, yeah, yeah. And so, so the record came, but we listened to what they said, because they're the experts. This is Geffen Records. They've got Guns and Roses and the Tom Zutats there and, you know, there are a lot of voices in the room and surely this must be the way to go. And then we named the record, possibly the worst record name in the annals of Western music. Something this way comes. Yeah. Yeah. That was not nice. That said I was a junior partner. Do you go on tour or a record?

We go on tour. We have our 15 minutes where they hear a single and you're being promoted and you're at horrible places in different, you know, in Phoenix and in Denver where there's like people are like, there's cocaine dishes in bathrooms like you've sort of seen in Led Zeppelin movies. And it's just so off-putting to me. And it's completely, you know, as a big class. I grew up on metal, but the clash was my heart for for, you know, for, and then those 15, I mean, it was probably more closer to 15 seconds, we're over. And the record company

stops returning calls. The touring entourage goes from six to four, two, to the four of us in a van. Yeah. And I realized like the dream is dead. You know, like I had my grab at the brass ring and I failed

to grab it and were summarily dropped. We try desperately to like replace some band members and do a another showcase and make another demo and I'm older now and and I was done I remember I was I was 27 years old sitting on my couch when the singer of lockup called he and I were the last two in the band and he called to quit um you could have continued he called to quit um and he hung up and the first person I called was Brad Wilk who I had jammed with yeah you reminded me of a story when we were on the chili pepper tour in Pearl Jam was so as Pearl Jam was

Pearl Jam, Pumpkins, Chili Peppers was the bill. We played about 40 shows on that tour. And during the tour, that's when Under the Bridge took off, and that record just blew up like crazy. And Pearl Jam had, I think, one song out. It would have been alive or something. And I remember coming to one of the gigs, it was about halfway through the gig.

And we were hanging out with them every day, like, you're on tour. And they all looked like, you know, somebody had died. And I said, what's wrong with you guys? because you're usually kind of an upbeat bunch, and they go, they're going to withdraw our tour support. I was like, you're on this massive tour. And I said, well, if this single doesn't catch, they're going to pull our support.

That's what people don't understand about the way that business worked back then. If that song hadn't caught on. Yeah, yeah. Yeah, they pulled our support. So you went through that exactly. Yeah, that's it. It's like, up, you're done. Yeah, and you're 3, 2,800 miles away from home,

no one's returning a call. There's gigs where there are literally no one. There's a waitress and a monitor guy, you know, at the gig. So when you called Brad? Yeah. Well, I was crystal clear on the mistakes that had been made from my point of view is that I had listened to experts. And look where it got.

Yeah. Look where it got me. And I made a conscious, out loud, solemn vow that I was never going to play another note of music that I didn't believe in. I knew now that I would never make records and I would never be a rock star and I would never fulfill the dreams that I had in Circus Magazine when I drove in my Chevy Astrovan out to Hollywood, but I was still a musician and there was value in playing music that was meaningful to me, even if I was the only one to ever hear it. And that was the North Star that has, you know, the next 21 records has, you know, guided my fate.

That's interesting. So in your mind, when you guys did put rage together, it was like, okay, we don't care where this goes, but the one thing we are going to do is be uncompromising. Yeah, it wasn't even that. There was no, it wasn't even we don't care. There was zero commercial ambition. There was no hope of booking a club show when that band formed. Like there was no, there were no L.A. club bands that had the ethnic, you know, diversity of that band that was singing neo-Marxist lyrics with Black Sabbath riffs and a punk rock fury. Now it all seems very obvious in a weird way.

Yeah, yeah. But at the time... In that rehearsal room, it was crystal clear that there was nowhere for this music to be other than that we liked it. And the goal, the sole goal, was to do the thing that I felt my purpose was to do the thing

that I was unable to do with lockup. Was to make a great cassette. So before playing any shows, just made a record. We made a cassette of 12 songs or whatever. And to have, just to have it. And that was, that felt like that was enough. Did that, did that cassette kind of catch on? Well, we, we then played some open mic nights. We played open mic at Al's Bar. We played a couple open mic nights. And the first, the first time, though, that we ever, I'll tell you the first time anyone ever heard the music. No one had ever heard the music. And then we played an industrial park,

in rehearsing industrial park in the valley, not too far from here, where we're doing this interview and there's this dude who worker guy and he said what are you guys doing in there? He said, we're a band. He said, would you like to? He said, can I hear it? I'm like don't see why not. So it comes in we have about five songs together. He sits down on the floor and we play five

Rage Against, the band doesn't have a name, five Rage Against Machine songs. Was there a name before Rage? No, no, no, no. I was just sort of the, no idea. We hadn't gotten anywhere near that. And afterwards we said, what do you think? And he stands up and he says, your music makes me want to fight.

And he had sort of, and he had sort of a, like, his posture was that of like a honey badger, you know, when he said it. And we're like, oh, well, about that. That's interesting. And sure enough, people have been wanting to fight to that music ever since. Yes. I remember the first time I saw you guys live, might have been at like a European festival or something. And there was a lot of buzz. I don't know if we were headlining or was.

was one of those things like we were playing the next day or something. But everyone's like, you've got to see this band. You guys just had that buzz right away. You seem to come out of nowhere, but obviously you didn't. And the first three songs, I remember thinking, oh, my God, what is happening? Like, you seem to tap into that vein in the exact right moment with the right crowd in the right.

It was very interesting to witness in real time. Because these things, they get a little softer in reverse. You know, we can all show the footage of us, jumping around in the 90s. Yeah, yeah. But at the time, it was shocking. And it wasn't shocking. The politics, I thought, yeah, do your thing, you know.

It was shocking in that something that was so on one level, sparse and muscular, seemed to animate this crowd into a frenzy. Yeah, yeah. And we were used to playing, it was grunge days, you know, mosh pits. You guys took on this other crazy thing. So when did that thing come? When did that thing click? Yeah, it was at the first show.

We were playing at a punk rock living room party in Huntington Beach. Someone's parents made the mistake of going away. And a friend of Timmy's said, you know, does your new band want to play? Does your new band want to play? And, you know, I played a lot of bands in my life. And there was, we were set up in a living room, you know,

with the rage against the living room. Yeah, some kids watching, you know, through the living room window behind us. They moved the amoir out to the side. And the first song we played in front of people was take the power back. And it starts with like the baseline. Tim's all jacked up.

It's twice as fast as it was later to be on record. And when the beat dropped, the room exploded. I mean, the room exploded from the first snare hit. And there was a huge mosh pit in the living room. In the living room. We had five songs at the time. And people were going so bananas. We played the same five songs again.

Yeah. And that was. that feeling from that show to the European festivals, you know, pretty much. That's interesting. Pretty consistent. I want to talk about other stuff, so it's not that I want to skip over the 90s, but it's probably the most documented part of our lives.

Yeah, yeah. But I'm curious, because I have my own take, but I'm, obviously I want to ask yours. I view not Gen X as a failed generation. I view us as a lost generation because we had, we did have a mandate and a mantle. and whatever happened, whether it was Kurt's death or the shifting tides, including the beginning of Napster and all that stuff. So what's your kind of general take on, let's call it? Because one thing I've been sort of, you know, I like to try to be trendy with my quotes,

but I've been saying Gen X has yet to have a second act. I don't know if that resonates with you. Yeah. Well, I would say from a culture, from a musical point of view, and I won't say I blame it, but I think an explanation might lie in something that we could call punk. rock guilt and that part of what made the the forerunners of the various branches from that tree from the pumpkins to rage to tool nine-inch nails sound garden nirvana etc was that it had a there was a familiarity in that we all had maybe kiss and sabbath record at least one dude in the band had

cared about that a lot but there was also a love of minor threat and fugazi and bad brains And it was those conflicting ideology. When the music's married well to make festival crowds go absolutely bananas. I see where you're going. And feel something that they couldn't have ever felt before with just metal or with just punk. A real like synergy of awesome kick-ass music with ideas and art and poetry. But the people who made it were so conflicted about their own success. And when you're playing in an arena that Poison played five years ago, there was so much hand-wringing.

Look at the release schedules. I mean, I think probably you put out maybe more records. But rage records came out every five years. Tool records every six years. Nirvana records, like, with a lot of guilt every so often. And it was just like we couldn't. There was a part of the ethos was, I can't stand the success that is how. happening because it makes me feel like I've betrayed principles.

You are ringing bells in my head that haven't been rung for a long time. Yeah. And my feedback on that is we ended up headlining Lalapluse in 1994. It was originally supposed to be Nirvana, Pumpkins, Beasties. And then probably because of Kurt's problems dropped out. Certainly I was talking to Courtney during this day. So I kind of heard what was going on behind the scene. Anyway, so we end up headlining the festival

And I still think to this day some of my problems And obviously it's our problems because I created them Was I remember standing there in front of And you know that was the biggest traveling lollapaloo of them all The one we did 42 shows It was packed It was that though that era was just packed And by the way it's all young people

Now if I had any marketing brain at that time It would have been like keep your mouth shut Just play the hits and yeah lived to fight another day. No, and Jimmy Chamberlake called it the Art Breakdown. We were doing, and you would know this song, I Am One, off a Gish, which has that cool, do, do, do, da. No, I made him totally change the groove.

Of course. We did this weird tribal, oh yeah. We'll show them. Oh, yeah, trust me, I show them, I'm still paying for it. So Jimmy's playing this other tribal groove. By the way, the song's only three years old, and I'm changing it. Right, right, yeah. And we get to the break where normally there would be the solo, the dual solo,

and I would have the band kicked down into this kind of groove, and I would just proselytize. And I went after Middle America night after night. How dare you like us? How dare you sit? How dare you like us? How dare you? I don't know.

And Jimmy calls it the art breakdown. And my enduring memory, and we laugh about it now, and this is back when Jimmy smoked, was I was doing the art breakdown. And basically, if it went on too long, he would just stop playing drums. And now I'm just talking or yelling. Yeah, yeah.

And it was like, you know, a little bit on John Lennon. I don't believe in pumpkins. I don't believe in MTV, whatever. I was saying. It sounds like you're living the thing that I just described. And I'm, you know, I'm on the monitors. Yes. You know, and I'm screaming, and I turn around,

and I just see Jimmy like this pacing behind his drunk smoking. Like a Woody Allen, like, oh, my God, what nightmares he got me. So. You were not alone. Yeah, right. It was in the air. It's understandable. But if you're trying to, in hindsight, look back, well, then here's, here's the, if the right

don't get you, the left one will. So what filled that void? I remember. A little fair? No, no. It was the, it was the second, it was the B-C-D-grade pumpkins, the B-C-D-grade rage, the B-C-D-grade Pearl Jam, because they showed up. They made a video.

They were happy to be there. They were happy to be there. And so the overall genre was created and then the sub-pockets were created, and then the bands didn't create an audience that didn't fulfill the need. And so these other bands came along that made the period. Now, you know, when you listen to like a lithium station, there's a lot of songs on them. I'm like, ooh, like I remember that era more fondly than perhaps, you know, perhaps it should. Yeah, yeah, I've been there.

So I don't want the gossip part of the band breaking up in 2000. I was surprised when the band broke up. 2000's right. Am I right about that? Yeah. That's also the year we broke up. But where did that put you psychologically? Because I'm sure there's plenty of talk, and it could become from other guys. But like, okay, everybody wants to focus on the breaking up.

But I always think about the day after. You know, you wake up and you're like, you look out the window, it's like, okay, well, now what do I do? Yeah. I'm kind of curious where you went from there. I was totally fine. I was totally fine. I was like, you know, there was, it was difficult. And then it was just sort of, and now there's a new horizon.

I am a person who, like, I have the genes of my coal mining forebears in me. I like to work. I like to go to work. Yeah, you are a work for sure. I like to go to work. And so when, you know, the singer left the band, I was like, Tim and Brad and I wanted to play together, we spent every day over at Rick Rubin's house figuring out what we were going to do next. And that was, like, exciting.

And we had only made, you know, Rage had only made three records of new music in 10 years, and I had a stockpile of like ideas and jams and stuff that I just couldn't wait to see what happened next. Yeah. This is a funny way to ask this question, but hope it lands. You know, when we're in the intensity of those moments and we're still relatively young, we don't really have a true conception of the way people are going to view what, those years were like or what that music represents. And, you know, as everybody who's a fan of yours would know, you guys went on and did lots of credible stuff without your singer. So it's not like, you know, it's not the thing of like,

that didn't really work out. And you end up working with Chris Cornell is obviously one of the great singers of all time. But what I'm trying to say is none of us can, when we walk away from our situations, and again, we walked away in the same year, none of us, can really understand how the public is going to ask us to redone the Superman cake one more time. Sure. So did you have any sense of that at the time? Are you kidding? Yeah, I mean, the, the, I look at Lord of the, or Ray Jans machine is like the ring in Lord of the Rings. It drives men mad. It drives men mad. The fact that it is, you know, managers, agents, fans. It's probably driven you mad a couple times.

Yeah, yeah, yeah, exactly. And so, you know, yeah, there's a, here's the one of the great challenges for me is that I don't just come from a musical background. I was an activist before I was a guitar player, you know, and in that world, when you have a vehicle like that to really, to, a blank check of the things you can do in the world and the things you can say and the things you can stand up for, and the money you can raise. Not only that, it's very hard to be seen. successful by being radical in anything and to be, and to be, let's call it culturally radical, to be talking about the farmers in Mexico? There's never been anything like it.

There have been bands that maybe were more political but had nowhere near the influence. Well, especially in rock. Yeah, yeah. And there are- Is there even a close second? There's, I mean, and there are bands that, you know, might be bigger that have touched on politics, but nowhere near the level of radical that rage against machine was. So it was a, you know, a challenge for me as a died-in-wool activist was like, are you kidding me?

Like this is a very unique historical circumstance. So if there was any thing that aggrieved you, it was like we're throwing away the power of the pulpit that we've created. That's correct. That's correct. And when audio slave formed, like, I was like, okay, The only thing that I'm sure of is this band is going to be more political than rage against the machine. Okay. Let me take you one step back. And I'm not looking for gossip because I'm really curious, because I don't know Zach at all.

But Zach has always struck me as somebody who was just like you. Those issues were highly, highly personal to him. So, and if it's inappropriate, we just cut it out. Yeah. When you sat him down and I imagine you must have at some point, like, do you understand? these things are important to you, we have this vehicle. I'm not even talking about record sales. Do you understand? We have this jetliner that allows us to voice things that are really dear to heart. What was his sort of inner rationalization? It would be something that I don't entirely understand.

Okay. Yeah. I don't understand. Yeah. I get that. I just say that people are just wired different. You know what I mean? And that what seems to me like a impossible mandate to ignore is just how I'm, that's my perspective. In the pumpkins, that was Darcy. Yeah. The three of us would be like, oh, this is so logical. And she would be the person that raised her and say, not to me. Yes.

And you'd be like. Yeah, yeah. And over time, you sort of accept that. People are, you know, now with some age and some wisdom, I can be like, you know what? That's kind of what made the band work in a particular way. But when that runs out a road, it's very strange because you're like, can't we just? Yeah. Yeah.

So, I want to talk about Chris because he's such a gifted talent. So let's just stay on that. I don't want to talk about the tragic part of it all. Zach, obviously, is it fair to call him a rapper? I don't know, you know what I mean? Sure, yeah, yeah. I mean, he has a multiplicity of vocal style. Yeah, no, no, yeah.

Very, very, very, very talented and always liked his where he was coming from. But Chris is a melodic. Well, that band could not have been successful like that if the four ingredients didn't work. That's right. You guys really were a sum of the parts, and that's no disrespect, but having played with Brad, and even because Brad did the one tour with me, when Brad would lean into a groove, I'd be like, oh, that's why that thing works. So you know that because that's your guy. But I had to play with Brad to understand that that's part of the secret sauce.

The way he leans on a hat, it's. like Bill Ward. Bill Ward fed through some, you know, I don't know. Like when you saw those fields of bouncing, you know, that's that guy. Yeah.

And even, you know, because I'm a guitar player, and so when I would listen to you guys, I'd oftentimes focus on what you were doing, but then you realize, you know, Tim is just such a cool, like he plays cool stuff.

His pocket is really interesting. Yep, yeah. So, you know, but you got to peer on it from the inside out. So I'm just curious, maybe this is a good way to talk about Chris. Okay, so you go from a guy who's basically a very gifted vocal stylist slash rapper to one of the great Robert Plant, you know, Coverdale for us, right? Yeah, yeah, yeah.

You know, I'm like, that must have been kind of like, well, this is interesting. Yeah, yeah. Well, it was, it's the success, musical success, in my view, of Rage Against the Machine is, that it was a hard rock punk version of the James Brown formula. Everything comes back to the one. It's the one, the one, the one. There may not be a chord change in the catalog of Rage Against the Machine. I'm over here waiting for a few times. And that's its dynamism, that's its power, that is the reason why it makes the field go crazy like that.

Now, when I practiced my 20,000 hours, I practiced a lot of. lot of stuff other than that. And so when we started playing with Chris, it really sort of unlocked, first of all, one of the things that was interesting when we first talked with Chris about making music was he had been the principal songwriter in the music writer in sound in sound in. And he was like, I don't want to do that. I want to concentrate on lyric and melody. Throw stuff at. That's really surprising. Throw stuff at me. I hadn't thought about it like that, but when you say it, it makes sense to me when I listen to the music. Throw stuff at me. And we were like, great and I you know everyone with everyone did you sorry but did you implore him to at least because he's so

he he well I'd be like give me it throw me a spoon man every once in a while I would you know I was he wrote really cool asymmetrical he was he was you know Chris was a person that knew his own mind like that song uh I don't know what the title is like fell on black days yeah yeah yeah yeah like such a cool yeah yeah yeah yeah yeah he was sure he was he was he was like this is what I want to do and this thing. And it in some ways really freed us to, like, the one that his, not Chris was a great, great vocalist, but his greatest talent, in my view, was able to, cheekbones aside, was able to conjure beautiful, terrifying, perfect melody out of the ether.

Yeah, because you're basically, if you're droning out of the ether. There's not a lot of melody in the music. But now, but so what that meant was, when it was song like Like a Stone. Like the melody that he sings on the record is the melody he sang the first time we did it in rehearsal. I am the highway, these beautiful, these sort of simple cowboy chord progressions

that or a more complicated riff, like bring them back alive, which is like a big, heavy Sabbathy, Sabbathy riff. Those are first, like the first thing that came out of his mouth were those, he later fits the words to them. And I just, you know, having been in a band with a tremendous vocalist in, you know, in Zach, I just like, oh, so the guy's singing,

Rick was, Rick Rubman's like, you don't understand. Like, you don't understand how rare what that guy is doing is, and that these songs are just like coming out of daily, just coming out of nowhere that are pretty spectacular. Yeah, Tony Iommi, I saw this one thing once where somebody had asked Tony to compare Ozzie and Dio. And I think it was when Tony was a bit sour about what had happened with Ozzy. So there's a, well, there was a, well, there was a, a little bit of a diss in it, but what he was really saying was that Ozzy always sang with the riff, and

Dia was gifted enough to sing stuff that the riff didn't implore. So that's kind of what I hear you saying. Just to be clear that, no one has ever done what Zach did. Like he's the punk rock James Brown

is what he is. Like it's part bad brains, part James Brown, part public enemy. Like that combination. And the way that his vocals rode on top of the music was, you know, I think that had Rage Against Machine had a melodic singer, it would not have been audience, like, it wouldn't have worked at all. For lack of a better word,

I always thought of rage as a weapon. Yeah, yeah. We had elements of that. Yeah, yeah. But it wasn't our thing. Yeah, yeah. I thought to ask you this, because, again, you're one of the only people

I'd be interested in the answer. It may sound too, obvious to ask you, so I'm not asking for a layup answer, but do you think politics should be in music, or is it a personal choice? I have two thoughts on that. One is that there is nothing that, in the broadest sense, is not political. There is no art, there is no music that does not fit somewhere in a cultural context that pulls either in bread and circuses, way or towards a more just an equitable future way or towards a more... Is it because in your mind it's rooted in humanism?

I just think that, I just think that, like, I thought that the Scorpion's records were not political, but there are, in the artwork and some of the lyrics are, say, opinions about women that influenced my young self to look at the world in a way that could not be described as apolitical. Okay, I get that. Yeah. And in some of the biggest pop music bangers, which I greatly enjoy some of them, there's a bread and circuses component that if we just focus on the celebrity of this person

and on this song, let that be enough of your personality pie that you're not grabbing a pitchfork and a torch. Okay. But as far as art, should music be political, the answer is no. that the thing that is important in art is to be authentic. And for the sake of Tom Morello, you should not try to write political songs. You should write what is meaningful to you. And if it's girls and cars, then please write that.

And don't pretend that you want to write about Peruvian labor unions. Or marching powder. Why do you think politics has a diminished role in music? Because you and I certainly grew up with Crosby Stills and Nash and Jackson Browns singing about no new, Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah. And even, you know, there's a political element to the boss's music. Sure, sure. But culturally, if you take a snapshot where we're sitting here right here in 2024,

I feel in my lifetimes, politics has never been more out of music that I know. Now, it might have been different in 27. Yeah, yeah. For our world. Yeah. I would say that I agree with you to a point. I would say that politics is very much in music. It's not so much in music at the top of the charts, you know?

Okay. It's not so much in, but there's. Okay, so we answer it this way. Why do you think politics and music is not? I would call it a bigger part of the cultural conversation. Yeah, yeah. Like Neil Young writing four dead in Ohio. Right, right.

One of the great political testaments. You know, they were so horrified. You know, they literally, because I recently read Graham Nash's book. Yeah. Our house was climbing up the charts. They literally yanked our house. Wrote a song and four days later. Yeah.

And, I mean, that's, that's, I mean, that's, I mean, that's, the rage against the machine playbook, which is like, we're going to stand with what we believe in. That's right. That's right. So I don't see as much moral courage in the culture. Yeah, yeah. And I'm including myself in that. Yeah, yeah. And I would just say like it would be interesting. I mean, maybe there was that song, This is America during the George Ford. There's a couple of markers, but it's certainly not, you know, and it's, it's, my best answer that question is I'm not entirely sure. The, the landscape of how music is put forward is very, very different now. And at the time of Crosby, Stills, and Nash. There was a music industry, a great, great band, but they got through

a funnel that everyone in the Western world knew that there was a band called Crosby, Stills, and Nash, and when they had a new song, you were going to know it whether it was our house or whether it was Ohio. That's not the case now. Okay, that makes sense. I have this thing I call it, if I could wave a magic wand. So if you could wave the magic wand, but a variation would be if I ruled the world. Yeah, yeah. What, what, what, what, what, what, what, what, what, what, what, would you like to see if you could, you know, and we know it's not that easy. Yeah, yeah, yeah.

And we could, it's a human condition, you know, whatever. We all have these conversations around expensive dinner tables. But as somebody who really grew up with certain convictions, has lived them in public with great conviction, and that's something I really admire about you, what America would you like to see? Is it a blow up the system? and start over?

I would sort of, I would say, I'll name a North Star. Okay, please. I'll name a North Star. That everyone, everyone could become the person they were born to be. And whatever gets us to that is what I would be in. Is that require assistance and opportunity? Or is it require a truly open system? I think, I think it would require a complete, a completely new way of everything.

That's kind of what I'm asking. Yeah, yeah. Yeah, I mean, it. It is, you know, the person who may be in their mind is going to be able to cure cancer might be working in a Machiladora, you know, on the Mexican border. The person who, you know, might be able to save the planet from global warming might be in jail for an illegal abortion in Alabama. You know, there's a, like, one grotesque global poverty is a big reason why people can't become who they were meant to be. and poverty is not something that happens. Poverty is something that's created.

But I think that that's like as a moral compass to want people to become, I feel very fortunate. I think I was able to become the person I was meant to become through luck and circumstance and my mom and whatnot. But I think that that would be a good place to start.

I think when we were kids, I think Illinois either had the best education system in America or was like top four or something. So we were the benefits of at least that. Yeah, 100%. And I know for a fact that I wouldn't have become who I became without that, the benefit of that education. I can't imagine what it's like to grow up in an education system that doesn't really give you

that. Let me find what you're good at and kind of propel you forward. Explain the night watchman thing to me a little bit. Because I was reading about a bit, and I knew about the shows. I didn't see any. I'm a total novice in this. But I like the idea that you have this, I think you call it a full. alter ego.

Yes, yes. So just walk me through that. Yeah, sure. When it became obvious to me that audio slave was not going to be a political entity, like in order for audio slave to be the best band that could be, it was going to have to be authentic, and it was not going to concern, overly concern itself on a daily basis with changing the world for the better expressing things like that, I felt like I needed an outlet. So I found, I founded a nonprofit organization with Serge Tangen called Axis of Justice.

And that was great, but it wasn't, it felt like I'm a musician. And so I had become, I was a huge fan of Bruce Springsteen, Woody Guthrie, Pete Seeger, Phil Oaks. And I thought, like, I'm just going to, I boldly in my mid-30s began my singer-songwriter career at Open Mic Nights. I'd be playing arenas with Audio Slave. And on nights off, I would go sign up at Open Mic Nights and sit and wait to play my two songs with a whirring espresso machine in the background and felt the the greatest connection to audiences that I have to this day in that guise. And really feeling sort of heard and connected. And in addition to that, having the flexibility of the guerrilla performance.

You have to have a band meeting. Are we going to play this show or are we not? The tour manager has to get a thing together. I could just get on a south-by-southwest flight to play for the anarchists who got arrested at the bicycle shop protest or whatever. And since then I've played hundreds, maybe thousand gigs in that guys, made a bunch of records.

But when you say alter ego, are you in the guise of a persona? Well, it began that way because it actually began at open mic nights, because if I sign up as Tom Morello, everyone goes, he's going to play Bulls on Parade tonight. Acoustic.

Yeah, acoustic. I'm like, that's not what's going to happen. It's going to be existential dread in a minor key. Last thing I want to talk to you about is your move into directing. Yeah, sure. You asked me nicely to be part of a Judas Priest documentary that you're doing. And I know your wife, is she still working in the film?

Not so much, yeah, yeah. For many years, she did music for film. Yeah, that's kind of where I got to know her a little bit, was we had some meetings. So I'm curious on that because is it an aspiration or is it a, why I'm, you know, because I do a lot of side hustle stuff. Yeah, yeah. And when you're a musician with success, you know, at the center is always, you know, whether it's, are you going to go on tour, are you going to do this thing? And you did profits of rage, of course, and stuff like that. So is it something that you've always wanted to do and this is going to be something you're going to add to your, you understand? Where's that going? Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah. It was sitting with a friend a few years ago, like, I've always contributed generously to other people's projects. I've got a lot of ideas that I've handed out. And they're like, you know, you should maybe do some of these yourself.

And I thought, I would, you know, why not a third or fourth act? And so start a production company called Commandante. And the idea was just to make things that I'm very interested in. And Judas Priest, who I did a lot of the heavy lifting to get into the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame.

You know, I thought a doc, the great doc about them is one that the world deserves. And so I thought I'd try my hand at directing that. So Sam Dunn and I are directing it. What do you want the world to know about Judas Priest? First of all, the world does not understand what an important band Judas Priest is. It shocks me to this point that people haven't really figured it.

They don't understand. I mean, from a musical point of view, a lot of what defined the genre of heavy metal was solidified by that band. From the look to the sound, to the singer, to the two guitar players, that's in the DNA of every metal band afterwards. Isn't it shocking? Because if you watch the footage of them, live in Japan, This is my, to me, one of the greatest live records. And, of course, Rob admitted that he had to sing the vocals later because he had a cold at the shows. But if you look at the actual footage of that tour, he's in a kimono.

Yes. But by that time they get to the album cover. Yes. Yes. The Rob we all know. The Rob we all know in love. But, I mean, culturally, it's very, it's, it, for someone like myself who felt personally on the outskirts of metal, I was often the only black dude at the Dio show, you know. And then when Rob came out, it was really important.

When Rob came out and then nobody batted an eye, that was the key part. It's still one of the most beautiful humbling moments of my life. Yeah, yeah. Because, and we talked about it in the dock, when Rob came out as a fan, I held my breath because I thought, here it comes. Yeah. And nothing happened. And I thought, metal's going to be revealed for being the horrible thing that people suspect that it was. And it still brings tears to my eyes and here's why, because I thought, why is there no reaction?

because the world I grew up in would have hated. And that's what terrified Rob. And Rob talked about that. And I thought, I had to do the math in my head, like, why are they not? And I thought, they love him. They love him more than their bias. Yes. Now that is powerful.

Yeah. And it's hopeful. Okay. So in your fourth act, if we're on the fourth act, what to you is it is because we're all in that stage where you know i'm sure you get the call every six months you guys going to put the band you know i'm saying what for you is the ideal state and and i'll offer a little bit of my own thing in that when i when i made peace with james after 16 years you know i had to do a different set of math myself and i'm happy at least in this moment that we have figured

out, okay, this is a constant going forward. We no longer need to debate the status of this entity. We're grateful, and as long as there's a road, let's try to all be on it and let's not try to repeat the mistake. And I'm not trying to put that on you. What I'm saying is that that act that happened in 2017 or so was born of me putting an ad in the Chicago papers around 2004 or where I said I want my band back. And I was mocked widely. because I felt like I didn't know how to operate without the band at the center of my musical universe. Even just call it center.

There's something about the pumpkins in the center makes everything else kind of balance in. So I'm empathetic and I don't know if you'd recall this conversation, but we ran into each other somewhere years ago. It would have been about 10 years ago. And me being the jerky that I am, I was chiding saying, why don't you guys make a new music? And you kind of gave me that look like, oh, it ain't that easy.

So again, not talking gossip, I'm saying is back again to the magic wand. If you have your druthers, what's the right orientation for you going forward? And I'm not even asking a rage against the machine. No, no, no, I hear you. I mean, for me, it's, I'm very clear on it now. The main orientation is to be a great dad. You know, that's the main orientation. And I love that.

And I will drive thousands of miles to Little League games and that. It's my greatest joy. And then this last summer, it was the biggest solo tour that I ever did. The idea of synthesizing 22 albums and a lifetime of work and ideas in a very, very meaningful way. Like this, in the next couple of days, I'm playing two shows to honor brother Wayne Kramer, the MC5, God bless him, and for his chair. And you were part of that. It's hard.

I didn't understand the full context, but it is an MC5 album. Yes, yeah, yeah, it's an, yeah. Yeah. Yeah, but just like that the idea of playing my music, you know, historically and currently. But they're the only other band that really does fall in the rage. That's right, yeah. And they were obviously first to say, hey, we're going to really put it out there. Yes, yeah, all the way up.

All the way up. And that's beautiful. And come, come up. And maybe it's, maybe it isn't every 50-year thing. Yeah. Yeah. No, because to be that fervent in your belief and then somehow break through is, It's crazy. It's a miracle.

Yeah, you have to be that fervent. You have to kick out the jams. You can be that fervent if you don't have that. If you don't have that, then it doesn't really matter. But yeah, that the, that I love the sort of embracing of, it's night watch. I play lockup songs, Night Watchman songs, you know, we honor Chris. Well, you have your kid up there too, playing. And my son, Roman Morello is no joke, dude. Now that is cool. He is no joke. You know, because when we did some shows together in Europe recently, when the,

the person or band that's opening for us is going, that's when I'm warming up. Sure. Horrifically torturous 45-minute warming. And somebody came back and said, how is it? And they go, man, his kid's really good. So I think that's where we are. I preach. God bless you and God bless him.