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Thomas Baptiste Morello (born May 30, 1964) is a Grammy Award-winning American guitarist best known for his tenure with the bands Rage Against the Machine, Audioslave, and as the acoustic artist The Nightwatchman.
He was featured as one of the guitarists in Rolling Stone's "The Top 20 New Guitarists" article. An outspoken political activist, he was also ranked #26 on Rolling Stone's list of the "100 Greatest Guitarists of All Time".
Morello was born in Harlem, New York.
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Quotations
To me it seems pretty straightforward. There are two opinions one can have about freedom of speech, you're for it or against it.
The only bad.
word" is FCC."
A good song should make you wanna tap your foot and get with your girl. A great song should destroy cops and set fire to the suburbs. I'm only interested in writing great songs.
Encyclopedia
Thomas Baptiste Morello (born May 30, 1964) is a Grammy Award-winning American guitarist best known for his tenure with the bands Rage Against the Machine, Audioslave, and as the acoustic artist The Nightwatchman.
He was featured as one of the guitarists in Rolling Stone's "The Top 20 New Guitarists" article. An outspoken political activist, he was also ranked #26 on Rolling Stone's list of the "100 Greatest Guitarists of All Time".
Early life
Tom Morello was born in Harlem, New York. His mother, Mary Morello, is of Irish and Italian descent. She was a teacher at Libertyville High School. His father Ngethe Njoroge, a Kenyan, was the country's first ambassador to the United Nations.
Morello grew up in Libertyville, Illinois, at the time a virtually all-white suburb of Chicago. There he attended Libertyville High School. He sang in the school choir and was active in speech and drama club; a prominent role was Oberon in A Midsummer Night's Dream.
He showed his political leanings early. Morello has described himself as having been "the only anarchist in a conservative high school", but has since identified as a nonsectarian socialist. In the 1980 mock elections at LHS, he campaigned for a fictitious anarchist "candidate" named Hubie Maxwell, who came in fourth place after Jimmy Carter at the overwhelmingly Republican school. Ronald Reagan won the mock election. He also wrote a piece headlined "South Africa: Racist Fascism That We Support" for the school's alternative paper, The Student Pulse.
At age 13, Morello joined Nebula, a Led Zeppelin cover band as lead singer. At this same age, Morello purchased his first guitar at Rigoni Music in Libertyville. He wanted a solid-body Ovation guitar, but he didn't have the money to buy one. Instead, he purchased a Kay guitar. Wanting to learn how to play "Black Dog" by Led Zeppelin, he took two guitar lessons, but instead was taught the C-major scale. He decided that playing the guitar was a waste of his time, so he placed it in his closet for the next three years.
Around 1984, Morello first started studying the guitar seriously. He had formed a band in the same year called the Electric Sheep which featured future Tool guitarist Adam Jones on bass. Few if any of the Sheep could really play an instrument at first, but the band was an impetus for Morello to start honing his skills. Instead of performing cover songs, the Sheep wrote original material that included politically charged lyrics. None of the songs composed by the Sheep contained solos; soloing was a skill that Morello began learning in college.
At the time, Morello's musical tastes lay in the direction of heavy metal, particularly Kiss, Alice Cooper, Led Zeppelin, and Black Sabbath. Morello developed his own unique sound through the electric guitar. Later, his music—and musical politics—were greatly influenced by punk rock bands like The Clash, The Sex Pistols, and Devo.
Morello graduated in 1982 and began attending Harvard University. There, he made a point of practicing every day for up to eight hours without fail, no matter how much studying he had to do. He graduated in 1986 with a BA degree (with honors) in political science. He moved to L.A., where he briefly worked as an aide to Senator Alan Cranston as he set about trying to join or start a band. Adam Jones moved to L.A. as well; Morello introduced Jones and Maynard James Keenan to Danny Carey, who would come to form the band Tool.
His brother Zach Mudie Morello and mother founded Parents for Rock and Rap, an anti-censorship group.
Career
Lock Up (1988-1990)
Lock Up was formed by guitarist Mike Livingston and bassist Kevin Wood, who had previously played together in the band Ella and the Blacks. The original drummer was Michael Lee, who later quit and was replaced briefly by D. H. Peligro, formerly of The Dead Kennedys and later The Red Hot Chili Peppers. After Peligro left, he was replaced by Vince Ostertag.
After a falling out between Livingston and Wood, Morello stepped in to replace Mike Livingston and Chris Beebe took over bass duties to complete the band's lineup. In 1989 the group released their only album, Something Bitchin' This Way Comes, on Geffen Records. Tom's solos included tapping and fast fretwork as well as toggle switching in songs such as "Can't Stop the Bleeding", "Nothing New" and "Punch Drunk", which would later become one of his hallmark styles.
Rage Against the Machine (1991-2000)
In 1991 Tom was looking to form a new band after Lock Up disbanded. Tom was impressed by Zack de la Rocha's freestyle rapping and asked him to join his band. He also drafted drummer Brad Wilk, who he knew from his band Lock Up, where Wilk unsuccessfully auditioned for a drumming spot. The band's lineup was completed when Zack convinced his childhood friend, Tim Commerford, to play bass. After frequenting the L.A. club circuit, Rage Against the Machine signed a record deal with Epic Records in 1992. That same year, the band released their self titled debut. They achieved a phenomenal amount of mainstream success and released three more studio albums.
In August 2000 in Los Angeles at the Democratic National Convention, Rage Against the Machine performed outside the Staples Center to a large crowd numbering in the many thousands while the Convention took place inside. After several audience members began to throw rocks, the Los Angeles Police Department turned off the power and ordered the audience to disperse, firing rubber bullets and pepper spray into the crowd.
In late 2000, after Tim's stunt at the VMA's, the disgruntled de la Rocha quit the band. On September 13, 2000, Rage Against the Machine performed their last concert at the Grand Olympic Auditorium in Los Angeles, California. After the band disbanded, their fourth studio album, Renegades, became a collection of cover songs from artists such as Bob Dylan, MC5, Bruce Springsteen and Cypress Hill. 2003 saw the release of their last album, titled Live at the Grand Olympic Auditorium, an edited recording of the band's final two concerts on September 12 and 13, 2000 at the Grand Olympic Auditorium in Los Angeles. It was accompanied by an expanded DVD release of the last show and included a previously unreleased music video for "Bombtrack".
After disbanding, Morello, Wilk and Commerford went on to form Audioslave with former Soundgarden singer Chris Cornell, and released three albums as well as a DVD from the band's concert in Cuba. Zack de la Rocha started working on a solo album collaboration with DJ Shadow, Company Flow, and The Roots' Questlove, but the project was dropped in favor of working with Nine Inch Nails' Trent Reznor. Recording was completed, but the album will probably never be released. So far, only one track has been released: "We Want It All" was featured on "Songs and Artists that Inspired Fahrenheit 9/11".
Audioslave (2001-2007)
After de la Rocha left Rage Against the Machine, the remaining band mates began collaborating with former Soundgarden vocalist Chris Cornell at the suggestion of producer Rick Rubin. The new group was first rumored to be called The Civilian Project, but the name Audioslave was confirmed before their first album was released.
The band released their eponymous debut album on November 19, 2002. It was a critical and commercial success, attaining triple-platinum status.
The band released their second album, Out of Exile, on May 24, 2005. It debuted at number 1 on the Billboard charts and attained platinum status. In the same year, they released a DVD documenting their trip as the first American rock band to play a free show in Cuba. The band's third album, Revelations, was released in the fall of 2006. As of February 15, 2007, Audioslave have broken up as a result of frontman Cornell's departure due to "irresolvable personality conflicts". The band reunited with Zack de la Rocha and resumed their previous band, Rage Against the Machine.
The Nightwatchman (2003-present)
Morello is less known for his folk music, which he plays under the alias The Nightwatchman. He has explained:
In November 2003 The Nightwatchman joined artists Billy Bragg, Lester Chambers of the Chambers Brothers, Steve Earle, Jill Sobule, Boots Riley of The Coup and Mike Mills of R.E.M. on the Tell Us the Truth Tour. The thirteen-city tour was supported by unions, environmental and media reform groups including Common Cause, Free Press and A.F.L.-C.I.O. with the ultimate goal of "informing music fans, and exposing and challenging the failures of the major media outlets in the United States." Tom Morello explained:
"Media consolidation needs smashing and globalization needs unmasking. When presidents and politicians lie, it is the job of the press to expose those lies. When the press fails, the gangstas come out from hiding. The lie becomes the law. The point of the Tell Us the Truth Tour is to help others make connections, and to show them that activism can change the policies of this country."
One of his many songs, "No One Left", which compares the aftermath of September 11 to that of a U.S. attack on Iraq, appears on the album Songs and Artists that Inspired Fahrenheit 9/11.
The Nightwatchman also appeared on the album/DVD Axis Of Justice: Concert Series Volume 1, contributing the songs "Until the End", "The Road I Must Travel", and "Union Song".
Morello, as The Nightwatchman, released his debut solo album, One Man Revolution, on April 24, 2007.
The Nightwatchman joined the Dave Matthews Band for its short European tour in May 2007. As well as opening for the Dave Matthews Band, he was invited to guest on a couple of songs each night. The last night of this Morello/DMB arrangement was May 30, 2007 at Wembley Arena in London, on Tom's birthday.
The Nightwatchman is currently supporting Ben Harper on tour. During this tour, Morello has been joining Harper onstage for a cover of Bob Dylan's "Masters of War", on which he plays the electric guitar in the style for which he's best known.
Morello has presided over a Hotel Cafe residency in LA since November 2007, which has featured many of his musical cohorts, including Serj Tankian, Perry Farrell, Jon Foreman from Switchfoot, Shooter Jennings, Nuno Bettencourt, Queen V, Sen-Dog from Cypress Hill, Jill Sobule, Boots Riley, Alexi Murdoch, Wayne Kramer from MC5, and others.
On October 10, 2008, The Nightwatchman appeared on the The Late Late Show with Craig Ferguson as a musical guest, promoting his new album, "The Fabled City".
Rage Against the Machine reunion (2007-present)
On April 29, 2007, Rage Against the Machine reunited at the Coachella Music Festival. The band played in front of an EZLN backdrop to the largest crowds of the festival. The performance was initially thought to be a one-off, this turned out not to be the case. The band played 7 more shows in the United States in 2007 (including their first non-festival concert in 7 years at the Alpine Valley Music Theater in East Troy, Wisconsin), and in January 2008, they played their first shows outside the US since re-forming as part of the Big Day Out Festival in Australia and New Zealand.
The band has since continued to tour around the world, headlining many large festivals in Europe and the United States, including Lollapalooza in Chicago. In 2008 the band also played shows in Denver, Colorado and Minneapolis, Minnesota to coincide with the Democratic National Convention and Republican National Convention, respectively.
Other side projects (1994-present)
Morello and Wilk joined with Maynard James Keenan of Tool and Billy Gould of Faith No More to record the song "Calling Dr. Love" for the 1994 Kiss tribute album Kiss My Ass. The lineup was billed as Shandi's Addiction.
In August 1995 Morello contacted former Articles of Faith frontman Vic Bondi and asked him if he wanted to work on a Rage side project. Tentatively titled Weatherman, the short-lived group featured Bondi on vocals, Morello on guitar, Matt Johnson on bass, and Abe Van Eyck on drums. They recorded demos in September 1995. Bondi wrote all the lyrics, while Morello wrote all the music. One track, "Enola Gay", was recorded by Brett Eliason in fall 1996. Tom re-used the main riff of the song for the Audioslave single "Cochise."
Morello also played lead guitar and produced on three tracks of Primus' 1999 studio album Antipop.
Morello played the guitar on The Faculty soundtrack, featured with Class of '99 for their cover of Pink Floyd's "Another Brick in the Wall (pt. 2)"
Morello worked with The Crystal Method on their 2001 album Tweekend. He co-produced and played guitars on the smash single "Name of the Game" and "Wild, Sweet and Cool".
Morello recorded guitars along with country legend Johnny Cash during his late career with American Recordings, which was released on the Unearthed.
Morello played the guitar part for "Nutmeg Fantasy" by Macy Gray on the Spider Man Soundtrack
Morello produced the 2003 Anti-Flag album The Terror State. He has also been known to play with Anti-Flag in some of their concerts.
Morello played guitar in the score for Talladega Nights: The Ballad of Ricky Bobby (2006).
Morello played the guitar riff heard in the final battle scene of the film Dodgeball.
Morello played guitar in the single "No Man Army" by The Prodigy, which appears on the "Smack My Bitch Up" single and subsequently "One Man Army", an instrumental version of the song that appears on the soundtrack to the movie "Spawn".
Morello played guitar on the Atari Teenage Riot song Rage
In July 2006, reported that Morello and Boots Riley, front man of The Coup, would collaborate on a project called Street Sweepers. Riley has often performed alongside Morello's alter ego The Nightwatchman, and Morello produced and performed on a track for The Coup's 2006 release Pick a Bigger Weapon.
Morello played the guitar solo on the track "Depleted Uranium is a War Crime" by Anti-Flag from their 2006 album For Blood & Empire.
Morello sat in with the Dave Matthews Band featuring Butch Taylor and Rashawn Ross for multiple dates on the band's May 2007 stint in Europe. He performed on "#41", "American Baby Intro" and "Satellite" at various dates on the brief tour.
Morello appeared on stage with Tool during their performance at the 2007 Bonnaroo Music and Arts Festival, performing the song "Lateralus."
Morello appears in Guitar Hero III: Legends of Rock as a "guitar boss" (the first of 3 in the career mode of the game) in a night club. Beating him in a one-on-one battle (playing an original composition he recorded for the game) will unlock him as a playable character and will result in the player and Tom playing the master track of "Bulls on Parade" as an encore immediately following the battle. Morello's original composition features many of his trademark guitar effects like those heard in songs such as Audioslave's "Cochise" and "Doesn't Remind Me" and Rage Against the Machine's "Bulls on Parade" and "Sleep Now in the Fire".
Morello also worked with Maynard James Keenan and Chris George to write "Cuntry Boner", featured on Puscifer's first CD single release.
In April 2006, Morello produced two tracks for the group Outernational; on the band's website, it states that Morello will be producing their debut album.
In April 2008, Morello made two guest appearances with Bruce Springsteen and the E Street Band at the Anaheim Pond. They performed "The Ghost of Tom Joad" (which had been previously covered by Rage Against the Machine). The new, edgy arrangement featured two extended solos by Morello. The videos posted on YouTube quickly garnered thousands of views and were the buzz of Springsteen fans worldwide; one of the performance was included on the year's subsequent Magic Tour Highlights EP.
Morello was an "assistant electric guitar" in the 2008 superhero movie Iron Man; he also played the first terrorist to be killed during the scene in the insurgent cave base.
During his Fall 2008 tour, Morello performed with Boots Riley, the front man of The Coup. The two debuted a song from their upcoming project Street Sweeper that will release an album in 2009. In March 2009, a website appeared at the url streetsweepermusic.com which debuted Street Sweeper's first single "Fight! Smash! Win!" It was also announced that the band would be the opening act on the upcoming tour with Nine Inch Nails and Jane's Addiction.
Technique
Morello is famed for his guitar style, which consists of heavy metal/punk hybrid riffs and hip hop-inspired sounds. His guitar playing is also characterized by heavy use of guitar effects, such as delay, modulation, wah, harmonizers, distortion, feedback, and others in unique ways and combinations. The most recognizable effect in Morello's arsenal is the Digitech Whammy, which helps him create many of his sounds. Matthew Bellamy of the English band Muse has cited Morello as an influence, which can be heard in his use of pitch-shifting in solos.
Critically acclaimed, he is said to use the guitar in a unique and imaginative way; rather than just plucking the strings, his maneuvers include toggling between two pickups - one on and one off - while rubbing his hands on the strings over the pickups (his signature vinyl scratch effect used in "Bulls on Parade"). He also uses techniques such as rapidly hitting a pencil on the strings ("Cochise", although he now emulates the sound by "baby-slapping" the strings), scraping an Allen wrench on the strings for a whole song ("People of the Sun") and even tapping the bridge with his audio jack cable ("Testify" and occasionally on "Bullet in the Head").
He is also known for his technical proficiency with the instrument. His early lead work on Lock Up's "Somethin' Bitchin' This Way Comes" shows him exhibiting a wide range of "shred" tactics such as high-velocity alternate-picking sequences and sweep picked arpeggios with finger-tapping. His guitar teacher in college was Michael Angelo Batio.
To assist in his alien guitar sounds, Morello chooses various effects pedals. During his tenure in RATM, he used a Dunlop Cry Baby, a Digitech WH-1 Whammy, a Boss DD-2 Digital Delay, a DOD EQ pedal (set flat and just used to boost the volume during guitar solos or particular rocking moments), and an Ibanez DFL Flanger. Around the time of The Battle of Los Angeles he added a Boss TR-2 Tremolo pedal (which can be heard on "Guerrilla Radio"). For Audioslave, Morello replaced the Ibanez Flanger with a MXR Phase 90. His amplifier of choice has always been a 50-watt Marshall JCM 800 2205 and a Peavey 4x12 cabinet. Though the Marshall is his amp of choice with Rage Against the Machine, he used a Vox AC30 combo amplifier for multiple overdubs on Audioslave's 'Revelations' album. While the Marshall amplifier has two channels, he only uses the overdrive channel, and simply turns down the volume on his guitar to get cleaner sounds.
He runs all of his effects in the loop of his amplifier.
In the studio, Tom uses the same setup for the bulk of the guitar tracks. For The Battle of Los Angeles, he also used a few other amps, such as a Line 6 as heard on the clean, spacey intro of "Mic Check", plus a Pignose mini-amp and a MusicMan "Twin" style amp. During the recording of Audioslaves last album Revelations Morello experimented with different amplifier setups. For the title track's solo he split his signal to his standard Marshall 2205 head and Peavey cabinet and a 100 watt Fender Bassman head and an Orange cabinet. With delay sent to one while the other is unaffected the sound is being "ping-ponged" between the two amplifiers. He also borrowed a VOX AC30 amplifier from producer Brendan O’Brien for some tracks.
Equipment
Guitars
- Mongrel Custom "Arm the Homeless" - Morello's most famous guitar, a since-heavily modified custom Fender Stratocaster. Main guitar used in Rage Against The Machine. This is the same guitar that he used with its involvement in the video game Guitar Hero. Tuned to Standard E.
- Ibanez Artstar Hollowbody (Custom)
Effects
Throughout Morello's career, he has used a range of different effect pedals, both live and in the studio. When performing live, he has a pedalboard which contains all of his effects which runs to the effects input in has amplifier.
The effects that Morello has used includes the following:
Amplifiers
Tom's amplifier setup has been practically the same throughout his career in Rage Against the Machine and Audioslave. Here are the amplifiers which he has used during his career in music.
Axis of Justice
Morello and Serj Tankian of System of a Down are the co-founders of Axis of Justice, a political group whose declared purpose is "to bring together musicians, fans of music, and grassroots political organizations to fight for social justice together." They "aim to build a bridge between fans of music around the world and local political organizations to effectively organize around issues of peace, human rights, and economic justice." The group has worked for such causes as immigrant rights and death-penalty abolition. Its recommended book list includes such authors as Noam Chomsky, Che Guevara, George Orwell, Mumia Abu-Jamal and Grant Morrison.
Morello and Tankian, together with a handful of other artists, including Maynard James Keenan, Wayne Kramer of the MC5, the hip hop group Jurassic 5, and Michael "Flea" Balzary of the Red Hot Chili Peppers, released a live recording of covers and original songs, titled The Axis of Justice Concert Series Volume 1.
On April 6, 2006, Tom Morello was honored with the Eleanor Roosevelt Human Rights Award for his support of worker's rights and for his AOJ work. Tom has worked on numerous labor campaigns: the Guess sweatshop boycott, the LA janitors strike, the Taco Bell boycott, the southern California grocery workers strike and lockout, and others.
Morello was a strong supporter of the Immigrants Reform Rally and protest around the US. Morello played as The Nightwatchman at MacArthur Park in Los Angeles and has featured many articles on AOJ. On September 28, 2006, Morello was one of 400 protesters arrested protesting in support of immigrant hotel workers' rights, in what organizers called "the largest act of civil disobedience in the history of the Los Angeles". Morello knew he was going to be arrested; he wore a bright yellow shirt, and gave the LAPD his driver's license number a few days before the march. Morello told MTV:
On his mother's podcast for Axis of Justice she tells that
Politics
On August 27, 2008 Morello performed in Denver, Colorado at the Open The Debates rally in opposition to the Commission on Presidential Debates exclusion of third party candidates from the nationally televised debates. He performed "This Land is Your Land" as The Nightwatchman and endorsed Independent Presidential Candidate Ralph Nader. Val Kilmer, Sean Penn, Jello Biafra and Cindy Sheehan were also part of the rally.
Selected discography
Lock Up
Rage Against the Machine
Audioslave
The Nightwatchman
Actor
External links
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