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Interview
by SashaS
28-6-2003
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| AudioSlave trek where other rockers... |
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A talent to usurp
AudioSlave’s Tom Morello on Rock-politics flame
Tom Morello is one third of Rage Against The Machine that recruited former Soundgarden frontman, working as a solo artist, Chris Cornell to transform into AudioSlave. Their debut album ‘AudioSlave’ came out last October and the band flew to Europe twice, recently for the festival appearances and a headlining date in London. We caught up with the band’s Morello, guitarist extraordinaire, to discuss plethora of topics.
Just heard you’ve designed a skateboard deck that is going to be auctioned for Amnesty International?
“Yeah, correct,” Morello answers quietly, “but the truth is that I didn’t design it, I just put my name to it. But, it is good to do something for charity.”
Apart from that, you’ve founded Axis of Justice (www.axisofjustice.org), with Serj Tankian of Systems Of A Down and even ‘demonstrated’ with him at a pro ‘Soup kitchens’ in Santa Monica?
“Axis are present here tonight,” he points towards the Brixton Academy’s atrium, “and it’ll be at the Lollapalooza tour we are doing this summer. It continues to grow and its main function is to bring together fans of music and local grass-roots political organisations. It allows me to distil my political activism into an organisation which takes the best elements of doing it within a context of a rock band and forging it with actual organized political entities.”
“They made illegal in Santa Monica, a wealthy part of Los Angeles, for private citizens and religious groups to feed the homeless. The purpose of that is to drive them out of the city and not be eyesore to the shoppers buying designer bags and Italian shoes. So, Serj and I and Axis of Justice, and some of the other groups, on the day it became law, we went down to Santa Monica and bought lunch to all the homeless in Santa Monica, daring them to arrest us but of course they didn’t as the embarrassment would have been too great! We continue to feed them in defiance of the law.”
Info-passion and humanity
Have you become more active outside of the band because you don’t have the political platform RATM music provided?
“That platform is gone,” Morello agrees, “but the things that were important to me then are important now, the aim hasn’t changed and that’s to do political work and change the world for the better, whether it is through singing, marching in the streets or some other means, the important thing is that it occurs. What has changed is that the way we go about doing that; quite often, while the RATM songs were political there was so much internal turmoil in the band that the internal band politics derailed the band’s political agenda and we’d cancel benefits tours, this and that, due to the dramas…”
“What we have now is a situation when the band gets along fantastically and we are able to make music however we wanna make it and now have a laser-pointed organisation that gets what we want at the political end. So, there is a bit of a firewall between them, which allows each to flower and prosper. And, I have to say we are having the best time we’ve ever had making music and there is camaraderie between musicians and, as with our previous bands, we’ve never looked at the commercial concerns first.”
“When RATM formed, there was not a band like us,” he understates under his ubiquitous hat, “Marxist politics, Hip-hop beats and heavy Metal guitar, that’s not a formula to get played on a radio and earn a living.”
Flip of hypnosis
It appears that different influences have surfaced lately: RATM could be referred to The Living Colour and NWA, while AudioSlave is more related to Led Zeppelin and Pink Floyd?
“Uh-ah, and it’s interesting you say that,” he reflects measurably, “but the first time Chris and I sat down to talk about a band I said that Tim (Commerford, bassist) and Brad (Wilk, drums) and I wanted our next band to be the best band we’ve ever been in. We didn’t want to rest on our laurels but put all our creative energies into something we’ve never done before. He was really surprised by it but said, ‘Yes, I’m interested in exploring that possibility.’ When we started jamming together, we were lucky to have chemistry and we wrote 21 songs in 19 days, recorded it and are now exploring our entity as a live band. We wrote, recorded and mastered our album without ever having played a single live date!?”
You are going to tour Lollapalooza that is headlined by the reformed Jane’s Addiction; are you going to repeat the ‘‘Lock-Up ‘stunt’’?
[A little insightful story comes from the man himself, told to us some years ago:
“My favourite memory of Jane’s Addiction comes from my pre-Rage days when we were supporting them, with my band Lock-Up. It was the first time I really tasted success, fame, mass adulation... Perry (Farrell, singer) had this idea that my band should dress up as them, put the wigs on and come out and play the first song. We did it and the response was like nothing I had ever imagined, thought possible... It was my first true taste of love-energy because the public didn’t know it was not the Jane’s Addiction!”]
“I haven’t brought that up but we may pull that stunt,” Morello laughs, “if Chris would be up for it! Yeah, I reckon he’d be!”
You inducted The Clash into the Rock And Roll Hall Of Fame, which must have been a hoot as you are a big fan?
“As a matter of fact I spoke with Mick Jones last night,” he casually drops it, “and invited him to come down but he is having his house renovated and can’t make it. Inducting The Clash was a tremendous honour form me and we are covering a Clash song in memory of Joe Strummer.”
Staying behind to hear them soundtrack they try out ‘White Riot’ and it is a decent version but nothing compared to the one they unleash during the show. Masterful, just majestic, as I may have mentioned in the review.
SashaS
28-6-2003
AudioSlave’s album ‘Audioslave’ is available now on Interscope/Sony
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