Tom Morello has opened up about his former band, Rage Against The Machine, noting that he’s amazed the group recorded as many albums as they did.
Rage Against The Machine are undoubtedly one of the heaviest, and most influential bands to ever fuse politics with rap, rock, and heavy metal. In their initial nine-year run, the group managed to record four albums, and deliver countless brilliant tunes.
Of course, ask any dedicated fan, and they’ll tell you that four albums is nowhere near enough. However, it seems if you ask guitarist Tom Morello, fans should be fortunate they even received that.
Speaking to Metal Wani’s Jesse David (via Blabbermouth) recently, Tom Morello opened up about his new project, The Atlas Underground, his current band, Prophets Of Rage, and his old group, Rage Against The Machine.
“The new album is a ‘sonic conspiracy’,” he explained. “It’s a collection of diverse artists who are like-minded who have come together to forge a brand-new genre that combines my Marshall stack, crazy guitar riff rock power with huge bass-drops and forward-looking sonic business.”
“In the same way we sort of forged a brand-new kind of music with Rage where we combined metal and hip-hop and punk, I wanted to do that again,” he explained. “I’m never satisfied as a guitar player, I’m never satisfied as an artist to rest on my laurels. I wanted to create heavy guitar music, but in a brand-new context, not just running the same rat race over and over again.”
Of course, while he’s hard at work with The Atlas Underground, Tom Morello has also reportedly just wrapped up the recording of a new album with Prophets Of Rage, a supergroup consisting of members of Rage Against The Machine, Public Enemy, and Cypress Hill.
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“I think the debut Prophets record was we wanted to sort of do what it is that we do, which is big riffs, crazy solos, Chuck D and B-Real doing their thing. This new record, we’re looking beyond outside of ourselves,” he explained. “Tim [Commerford, bass] and Brad [Wilk, drums] and I made a lot of records together and so, each of us on this are challenging ourselves to go beyond what we’ve done before.”
Tom Morello also took the time to open up about his time with Rage Against The Machine bandmates Tim Commerford and Brad Wilk, noting that their dynamic has changed very little over the years.
“Well, the one thing is from the very first time that we played together on August 31, 1991 to today, we’ve had the same chemistry,” he explained. “There’s just a way that those three people play together that has a particular feel to it. Like, prior to meeting Tim and Brad, I was dragging around some of the riffs that ended up on the first Rage Against The Machine.”
“I played those riffs with very talented musicians. It didn’t sound anything like that. It’s just the way Brad and Tim lock in and it’s Tim’s ferocious playing and the way that matches with my riffing, it’s something that is very unique. I got to tell you: The other day when we were in rehearsal, whether we’re playing ‘Know Your Enemy’ or a brand-new Prophets Of Rage song, we lock in a way that is very different than any other three musicians.”
“[Rage Against The Machine] was a band that was very volatile,” Morello noted. “It was, I think, kind of miraculous that we made four records. I’m so glad that we did. That’s the silver lining of that volatility is that we made four records I’m really proud of.”
Of course, this opinion seems to jive with Tom Morello’s recent comments about Rage Against The Machine, when he opened up in regards to why the group broke up when they did.
“I’ll put myself first and foremost,” Morello explained to Metallica’s Lars Ulrich back in July. “It was a lack of emotional maturity in being able to deal with each other as people. We had political vision and the shows never suffered, but we just couldn’t agree on stuff and that sort of unearthed feelings that made it hard to make records.”
“I think there were competing visions of what Rage was supposed to be and competing feelings about what it was like to be in the band that we didn’t deal with.”
“My glass half full version is that for a band that had extremely combustible elements, to be able to have made four records and to be able to have played the shows that we did, I think it’s a miracle.”
Tom Morello also revealed that while it was fun for the group to reunite back in 2007, it sounds like fans shouldn’t be expecting any more reunion shows in the future.
“We got together in 2007 and we had a great time,” Morello recalled. “We had fun onstage, offstage, playing ping pong, going out, to me it felt like there was a lot of camaraderie, but one of the things we kind of helped that and took off the table was everything that had been controversial before—writing music, doing interviews, having a manager—we’re just not going to do that stuff. We’re just going to play shows and have a nice time and be able to look each other in the eye and have a nice time and not be anything that had stirred controversy in the past.”
While Prophets Of Rage have recently released the first taste of their upcoming second album, Morello’s Atlas Underground project is also teasing the release of new tunes. There’s no word yet on when we’ll be receiving full-length releases from both acts, but they’ll be enough to help us briefly forget we’re unlikely to see Rage Against The Machine ever perform live again.
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