TOM MORELLO Is Looking For Zealots And Trying To Rattle Cages

April 14, 2007

RAGE AGAINST THE MACHINE/ex-AUDIOSLAVE guitarist Tom Morello recently answered a couple of questions for Salon.com. Read on:

Salon.com: Why did you make the decision to step away from AUDIOSLAVE and scale down to just voice and guitar?

Morello: With AUDIOSLAVE, if we sold a million records, we might be able to buy new sports cars. With THE NIGHTWATCHMAN [Morello's solo project], if we sell a thousand records, we might be able to overthrow the government. I say that kind of facetiously, but the message on this album is distilled in a way that I believe is more potent than it was with my other work. This is not music made for a mosh pit. It's music that's looking for zealots and trying to rattle the cages and bang the bushes and find martyrs and true believers and people that are not afraid to ring the White House with pitchforks and torches.

Salon.com: Four years ago we saw a lot of anti-Bush sentiment coming from musicians, but the end result was still disappointing. What can be done differently this time around to ensure the right people get elected?

Morello: I'm not interested in kicking voters in the ass. That's not been my great passion. I do not believe that progressive change comes from having the right person in the White House — though certainly a great deal of harm can come from having the wrong person in the White House. All progressive change, whether it was women getting the vote, desegregating the lunch counters, getting the eight-hour workday or the end of the apartheid, happened not as a result of having the right person in the White House, but because people whose names you did not read about stood up for their rights. That's how change happens. That's the kind of organizing that I hope for. If we keep heading down the path set by this administration, it's not going to be about getting voted out of office, it's not going to be about getting impeached — it's going to be about the White House going up in flames.

Comments Disclaimer And Information

BLABBERMOUTH.NET uses the Facebook Comments plugin to let people comment on content on the site using their Facebook account. The comments reside on Facebook servers and are not stored on BLABBERMOUTH.NET. To comment on a BLABBERMOUTH.NET story or review, you must be logged in to an active personal account on Facebook. Once you're logged in, you will be able to comment. User comments or postings do not reflect the viewpoint of BLABBERMOUTH.NET and BLABBERMOUTH.NET does not endorse, or guarantee the accuracy of, any user comment. To report spam or any abusive, obscene, defamatory, racist, homophobic or threatening comments, or anything that may violate any applicable laws, use the "Report to Facebook" and "Mark as spam" links that appear next to the comments themselves. To do so, click the downward arrow on the top-right corner of the Facebook comment (the arrow is invisible until you roll over it) and select the appropriate action. You can also send an e-mail to blabbermouthinbox(@)gmail.com with pertinent details. BLABBERMOUTH.NET reserves the right to "hide" comments that may be considered offensive, illegal or inappropriate and to "ban" users that violate the site's Terms Of Service. Hidden comments will still appear to the user and to the user's Facebook friends. If a new comment is published from a "banned" user or contains a blacklisted word, this comment will automatically have limited visibility (the "banned" user's comments will only be visible to the user and the user's Facebook friends).