MORELLO EXCITED TO BE FIGHTING THE POWER AGAIN WITH RAGE

Tom Morello discusses getting back to his authentic political roots with the triumphant return of Rage Against the Machine.

After a raucous and politically charged return to the stage at Coachella on April 29th, 2007, Rage Against The Machine are back and it’s no coincidence lead guitarist Tom Morello feels right at home performing with lead vocalist and fellow political activist Zack de la Rocha once again. After Rage split up in 2000, the rhythm section of Tim Commerford, Brad Wilk and Tom Morello joined forces with vocal legend Chris Cornell to form Audioslave, and the band became an immediate worldwide success. Even with Rage’s break up, Tom Morello never stopped being a political activist and he continues his current work with Axis of Justice, a non profit organization formed by Morello and System of a Down’s Serj Tankian, whose purpose is to bring together musicians, fans of music and grass roots political organizations to fight for social justice. But the time was certainly right for Rage Against the Machine to take the musical and political community in a choke hold and speak out on their opinions of the war and the Bush Administration in their powerful songs.

We caught up Tom Morello recently to discuss Rage Against the Machine being political yet authentic and to talk about how important it is to fight the power and stick it to the man.

“For any band in order for it to be good, in order for it to be great, it has to be authentic. That’s why we didn’t ask Chris Cornell to rap about the Zapatistas because that wasn’t going to be authentic for him. Each band has to find its own equilibrium. For me it was important to be in a band that rocked powerfully and was exciting musically, and it’s important in my life to be fighting the power, sticking it to the man, doing those things. So I’m able to that exclusively in Axis of Justice and I also do my Nightwatchman political music thing that I do.”

Rage Against the Machine have a few selected dates scheduled on the Rock the Bells tour along side Wu Tang Clan. The band will perform July 28th and 29th in New York and Aug 11th in San Bernardino, California and August 18th in San Francisco. The Rock the Bells Tour will bring together Cypress Hill, The Roots, Mos Def, Epmd, Mf Doom and many more, joining headliners Rage Against The Machine and The Wu-Tang Clan with special guest Public Enemy-Celebrating 20 Years of Revolution & Rhyme. Tom Morello, AKA The Nightwatchman has also released ‘A One Man Revolution’ a solo album of acoustic folk music. Rage Against the Machine are supposedly working on new material in the studio and although there is no definitive release date planned as of press time, Zack, Tom and the boys will not find it difficult to come up with a wealth of new material inspired by the sad state of affairs in the world.