Tom Morello
Tom Morello
Thomas Baptiste "Tom" Morellois an American musician, singer-songwriter and political activist. He is best known for his tenure with the band Rage Against the Machine and then with Audioslave. Morello was most recently a touring musician with Bruce Springsteen and the E Street Band. He is also known for his acoustic solo act called The Nightwatchman, and his latest group, Street Sweeper Social Club. Morello is also the co-founderof the non-profit political activist organization Axis of Justice, which airs a...
NationalityAmerican
ProfessionGuitarist
Date of Birth30 May 1964
CityNew York City, NY
CountryUnited States of America
There's a lot of injustice in the world and it's what I sing about in my music and what I try to confront in my life as an activist.
I have another name for what they're terming whistleblowers, and that's righteous heroes. From Bradley Manning to Snowden. They're people of conscience who are unwilling to turn a blind eye to the crimes of our government. And thank goodness for them.
The most powerful music is music with purpose.
Sacrifice and neon lights slave ships don't wait. Love many, trust few, and don't be late
In my own way, I was a rebellious kid.
There are literally billions of people on the planet who live in an unimaginable poverty that's not in any way different from the plight of the people in Orchid. And you can't have the splendor of Rodeo Drive without the sweatshops of Indonesia; those two things go hand in hand.
In our country there's never been a successful progressive struggle that did not have a soundtrack, whether it was the civil rights movement, workers' rights movement, women's rights movement. There's got to be songs at the barricades, and those are the kinds of songs that I try to write.
There are many fans of hard rock music that have been wrongly pigeonholed as apathetic. This music is not music for the elitist coffeehouse culture in SoHo. It' s rock 'n' roll music for kids across the land, and I think that makes it much more subversive in a way, in that it has the form and the function of a powerful, populist music, but it can carry very incendiary messages.
You can kiss my Kiss-loving ass because Kiss was never a critic's band. It was a people's band.
I was a fan of heavy music - first metal, then punk, then hip hop.
I didn't grow up with my Kenyan family. I grew up in a small, conservative suburb of Chicago.
I find it ironic that now water is more expensive than music. On the one hand, record companies can't go crying when they've gouged consumers for decades, charging exorbitant prices for CDs that cost 29 cents to make. On the other hand, when music is free, musicians starve.
I came late to the genre of folk music.
I literally integrated the small town of Libertyville, Illinois. I was the first person of color to reside within its borders.