“You could make decent money doing that job – people do what they have to do,” he reasoned. Post-graduation, Morello moved to LA to pursue music as a career, but found himself “unemployable” so he sometimes funded himself by working as an ‘exotic dancer’, ie a stripper (!). His main guitar back then was a very metal Gibson Explorer II. Image: Tim Mosenfelder / Getty ImagesĪs a student of Social Studies at the lauded Yale University, Morello threw himself into both left-wing academia and left-field axe studies – it was where he claims to have often practised guitar eight hours a day. Tom Morello and Chris Cornell of Audioslave. Yet underneath it all, he still loved banging rock – Iron Maiden, Alice Cooper, Led Zeppelin and Black Sabbath, whose Tony Iommi he’s cited as one of his biggest influences as a riff writer. This influence can be heard on songs like RATM’s Bulls On Parade where his guitar solos mimic a DJ scratching.
By the time was writing his own songs for next band, Electric Sheep (with Adam Jones) on bass, he said he was profoundly influenced by Run-DMC, and DJ Jam Master Jay in particular.
But once he bought his first Kay electric guitar, with his mother buying him an amp, he took that very seriously: his music tastes soon grew from straight rockin’ (the first single he bought was Sweet’s Desolation Boulevard) to the more politically-charged ( The Clash’s Combat Rock). Morello debuted as only a singer in covers band Nebula, playing Zeppelin, Steve Miller Band, and Bachman-Turner Overdrive. A classmate at Libertyville High School was future Tool axeman Adam Jones. Politics was all around young Morello, who took his mother’s name, but so was rock music. His upbringing was pretty unique: his Italian American mother was an activist and also teacher at the same Libertyville school he later attended, and his errant father was Kenya’s first ambassador to the United Nations. Morello was an only child, born in Harlem, NYC, but raised in Libertyville, Illinois. You just have to think.” Rock, riffs and radicalism – Tom Morello’s music education A lot of noises I make on the guitar you can make very easily. “My guitar playing is solely a product of my determination to explore, rather than any sort of great mastery of technique. I thought: If there are three shred guitarists on this shitty college campus stage, there doesn’t need to be a fourth.” But I sounded like every other guitar player that could play shredding solos. “I practised playing guitar eight hours a day, every day and amassed a pretty solid technique on the instrument. While guitar music may not be choking the top of the charts as it once did, it is no less great or important than it’s ever been.” It’s such an important instrument on the face of the planet but to me personally. Image: Lindsay Brice / Getty Images In his own words The most important bit of hardware in Morello’s armoury is undoubtedly his brain… Despite all this, the tools of his trade remain relatively simple, as we’ll detail here. Because Morello doesn’t really follow accepted rules, he invents new ones. His major artistic ventures – Rage Against The Machine, Audioslave, rap/rock supergroup Prophets Of Rage, solo escapades as The Nightwatchman and those sideman stints with The Boss have all involved different disciplines… if discipline is actually the right word. In his own view, Run-DMC and Public Enemy’s production team of The Bomb Squad have provided a keener compass for his playing than the usual metal, rock and soul players that are the ‘norm’ of modem guitar language. Muse’s Matt Bellamy is an enthusiastic student of Morello’s ethos, ( the two recently gifted each other guitars, sweet!) but who Morello himself took inspiration from? That’s harder to define. Morello’s ‘otherness’ is why he’s so admired, but also one reason not many other players compare.
0 kommentar(er)
