‘Jackasses’: Rage Against The Machine guitarist Tom Morello raises his voice for a ‘just and humane planet’
Music icon and BigSound 2020 keynote speaker Tom Morello says a more humane planet is possible, but fans can’t “sit on the sidelines” and let “jackasses drive this planet into a ditch”.
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Tom Morello has been one of the loudest and consistent musician advocates for social justice since he co-founded Rage Against The Machine in 1991.
Through those seminal agitrock heroes to his supergroups Audioslave and Prophets of Rage, solo alter-ego The Nightwatchman and most recently under his own name, Morello has worn his politicised heart on his sleeve.
But occasionally, a “fan” from his millions of social media followers will complain they love RATM but hate the “political BS.”
“What music of mine were you a fan of that DIDN’T contain ‘political BS’? I need to know so I can delete it from the catalogue,” he replied recently to a disgruntled follower. The fan instead deleted their tweet.
On the eve of his keynote address to this week’s virtual BigSound festival – one of the biggest music industry conferences in Australia – Morello said for every fan who hasn’t been paying close attention to the lyrics they have been screaming for years is a new cohort who came for the music and stayed for the message.
“The good news is that the counterbalancing of fans who have no idea what Rage or myself have been about for all these years is plenty of fans who came to that party with little interest in social justice activism, but discovered a rock band that they like, and then were exposed to a brand new set of ideas that in some cases, more than a few cases, have altered the course, the trajectory of their lives,” he says.
It gets a little harder sometimes to hold the line in his own household.
His 97-year-old mum Mary – a social media star in her own right – founded the anti-censorship group Parents for Rock and Rap in 1987 and continues to advocate for positive change in America.
But when asked if he predicts a new wave of protest music from a younger generation in the wake of the pandemic shutdowns and imminent US presidential elections, Morello admits it’s tough to call.
Particularly when he checks out the playlist of his 11-year-old son. What’s a socially conscious artist to do when his kid is listening to contemporary hip hop songs with problematic lyrics? Or teaching his younger son the guitar chords and riffs of AC/DC’s Hells Bells or the other hard rock and metal gods Morello worshipped in his youth?
“I have two young sons … and the 11-year-old is a huge fan of contemporary hip hop. And every day, there’s multiple artists that I’ve never heard of who are around 20 years old, and I listen to that music and I’m like wow … I really have to just kind of go, this is his music,” Morello says.
“I don’t need to critique it, I just have to get out of the way. A lot of times the lyrical content of the songs that are resonating is completely escapist and misogynist and has this kind of over emphasis on material wealth. Stuff like that.
“And then my nine-year-old son is a huge fan of the classic rock and roll I grew up on; we played Hells Bells this morning.
“So I’m teaching him guitar, but then I listen to that music and it’s all about the devil and groupies.
“And here I am in my high minded tower and the music that made me was all this devil-worshipping heavy metal and songs about high school girls. Thank goodness we can transcend our influences.”
Morello was just 15 days from joining his RATM bandmates Zach Del La Rocha, Brad Wilk and Tim Commerford for their first tour in almost a decade when COVID-19 brought an immediate halt to live performance.
Instead of playing their potent – and timely – classics such as Killing In The Name and Bulls On Parade to tens of thousands of fans, Morello penned and released new songs Stand Up and You Belong To Me during shutdown to add his voice to the protest movement in the US.
He remains optimistic music can make a difference as a soundtrack to the fight for social justice.
“Can music help in a polarised world? Music speaks the truth in a language that resonates in a way that nothing else does. No spoken word. None of the other arts,” he says.
“The combination of rhythm and rhyme and the tribal gathering of people really resonates in the reptilian brain of humans in a way that nothing else does.
“So, yeah, of course the music can provide insight, it can provide a lifeline, it can make you feel less alone in your point of view or in your loneliness. And it can be a redemptive and liberating means to a better planet.”
While Morello appreciates the power of a united planet on tipping point issues such as climate change and Black Lives Matter, the Harvard graduate also advocates the important of hyperlocal action.
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He believes the individual can effect change as much as the collective.
“The underlying message of all of my work is that the world is not going to change itself. That is up to you,” he says.
“And whenever the world has changed, it has been changed by people who are no different to anyone reading this right now.
“The people who ended apartheid and made the Berlin Wall fall and got women the right to vote and fought for civil rights and human rights successfully around the globe, had no more power, courage, money, creativity, intelligence than anyone reading this right now. They just stood up in their place and time and did it.
“And a more just and humane planet is possible. But it’s not possible if you sit on the sidelines and let those jackasses drive this planet into a ditch. It’s really a now or never moment.”
The 2020 BigSound music festival and industry conference runs on Wednesday and Thursday. You can register for free to watch Tom Morello’s keynote speech at 6pm on Wednesday and other panels via bigsound.org.au
Originally published as ‘Jackasses’: Rage Against The Machine guitarist Tom Morello raises his voice for a ‘just and humane planet’