Do you deeply wish that that was not a paragraph in your Wikipedia page?
It is what it is, you either are who you are or you, or you ain't...
or you deny who you are.
Rage Against the Machine
Audioslave
Guitarist Tom Morello has had one of the strangest pathways to rock stardom.
He grew up the only black kid in Libertyville Illinois.
At the age of one he was abandoned by his father who also happened to be
Kenya's very first ambassador to the UN.
Morello went on to Harvard University, he worked for a congressman,
and there was a brief period he also worked as a stripper.
We'll get to that.
It's now been three decades of shredding guitars on stage, and Morello's latest project is the
The Atlas Underground, where he's roped in musicians from everywhere.
We're talking from Mumford and Sons through to the goddamn Wu Tang Clan
to fuse an album that is equal parts the musical and the political.
I grew up as the only black kid in an all-white town which is a politicising event
on the playground as you might imagine from time to time.
And it wasn't just that you were the only black kid, there was literally the Klan there as well.
There was the Klan there yeah, yeah.
This was in, y'know, the 70s and 80s in the deep north.
There was a noose in my family's garage one morning when I was 13.
I saw another noose.
My mum was a public high school teacher and occasionally there'd be like Klan literature
up on her bulletin board,
which looking back right now seems insane
back then it just sorta felt like...
Tuesday.
How did mum explain that to you? When there was noose in your garage.
The noose in the garage was a particularly unnerving- cos' that meant that people are, y'know
sneaking up the driveway in the middle of the night with
y'know...
perhaps and intent to murder.
It's super unnerving yeah.
So you weren't just the only black kid in a white neighbourhood eventually you also became
the only Harvard educated guitar player in Hollywood.
Sure, and I was also the only spandex wearing, y'know six hour a day
Eddie Van Halen noodling, political science student at Harvard University.
And everybody's gonna be an investment banker or a doctor
and I'm like looking to play a show at the Whiskey,
I just wanna know how many people out there have bought, once worn, Tom Morello spandex
on ebay
and can that be sold?
I've got a feeling...
No those have not left the closet but perhaps I should make a return at some point.
Your parents divorced when you were very, very young, like 1 years old.
Did you ever have any contact with your dad after that?
Not until I was like 30.
What happened at 30?
At 30 my mum and I went to Nairobi
where incredibly he had the same P.O box they had when she was there in the 60s and...
I met my dad and he...
Y'know, like...
My mum had been writing to this P.O box for 30 years without a response
and then he had been apparently getting those letters and he met us for dinner, it was pretty crazy.
Wait, so hold on, he got the letters for 30 years.
Yeah.
He didn't respond
That's correct.
And then you rock up at the...
So my mum wrote that we're arriving at the airport on such and such date, 'Will you meet us?'
and my mum tells me this on the flight
and I'm like 'Mum he could be 27 years dead.'
Or he could be living in Sri Lanka, there's no telling where he is.
It turns out he was just getting the letters and not responding.
So I met my dad and learned that he had remarried and I had brothers and sisters.
It was a bit of a tumultuous time because they didn't know we existed.
And I gotta tell ya, no great rock and roll...
I'll further than that, no great artistic endeavour
has ever been achieved without the artist having some sort of chip on their shoulder.
Yeah.
You've got a good one.
Maybe in my psych 101 self-analysis, that might of been the chip on the shoulder.
Early in life you had a stint where you worked in politics.
Yes.
What do you think that did to your sense of politics?
And how it works?
It was eye opening.
My Harvard degree couldn't get me hired to sell Iron Maiden t-shirts so on Hollywood Boulevard
I was like a telemarketer selling garbage bags, literally, that was my job.
I was literally flipping through the white pages looking for a better job and I saw Senator Alan Cranston
who is a progressive senator,
I called up his office sure enough they had a position open and
I was his scheduling secretary for a couple of years.
And while his politics were very very progressive
I really got to see how the sausage is made and it turned me off from any desire
to participate in electoral politics, it was...
Money...
It was just calling up rich dudes and asking them for money. The end.
I'm hesitant to ask this question cos' it could go really awry so just go with me on this.
Is it true, that there was a stint in L.A where you needed money
and you ended up working as an exotic dancer?
Oh I'll answer it this way...
the rent is not going to pay itself.
Brickhouse by The Commodores.
And that was your song?
That was my jam. That was the money maker.
Now next time if I see Tom Morello out in the street, I'm just gonna break out that,
just see if the muscle memory kicks into gear.
There was choreography.
Do you deeply wish that that was not a paragraph in your Wikipedia page?
It is what it is
you either are who you are or you, or you ain't...
or you deny who you are.
You had a period of time where you would perform at
union rallies, peace rallies and stuff like that
and you were getting tear gassed and I'm wondering is there ever a moment when,
you're in the middle of a thing and you're being tear gassed and you got your guitar and you're like
'Did I make a great life choice or a terrible life choice?'
Those are the best days right there, I mean, I didn't choose to be a guitar player,
that was a calling, that chose me
so I'm stuck for better or worse, blessing to curse, I'm a guitar player.
And then it's my job to weave my convictions into my vocation.
So on a day when you're on the frontlines or the picket line or the barricade and you're getting tear-gassed
that to me feels like I'm doing what I was meant to do.
Every day is like a struggle to continue to do right, y'know
it's to be a great dad, it's to write a great riff
and to leave a lasting impression and perhaps, change the world at the same time.
-Tom Morello, thank you so much for your time. -Thank you very much, cheers.
Really appreciate your time.