Tom Morello - The Progressive Interview - Interview

Progressive, The, Jan, 2004 by Elizabeth DiNovella

My dad has been one of the beneficiaries of neocolonialism and inherited an enormous tea plantation on which he lives today. He's done very well for himself. He's not such a good letter writer to his son.

Q: But your mom is still an activist.

Morello: My mom has been tremendously political her whole life. She was involved in the Urban League and other civil rights organizing in the Chicago area. For twelve years, she ran an organization called Parents for Rock and Rap, which is kind of the anti-PMRC, for those readers who remember the Parents Music Resource Center fronted by Tipper Gore. My mom combated pro-censorship forces on Oprah, CNN, and radio talk shows. She befriended Ice-T and 2 Live Crew and people like that. For another ten years, she taught adult literacy at the Salvation Army, and now she volunteers her time in underprivileged schools.

She's a great lady, and she gives spirited introductions to Rage Against the Machine and Audioslave. My mother, who looks very much the part of the retired suburban high school teacher, will get on the stage with a militant fist raised high and say, "Please welcome the best fucking band in the universe."

Q: Rage Against the Machine is overtly political. Audioslave does not have politically charged lyrics. How did that happen?

Morello: There are many overtly political bands that do not sell fourteen million records like Rage Against the Machine because the first thing they have to take care of is the musical chemistry. You can have all of your politics lined up and all of your analyses together, but it's got to be a great rock and roll hand.

And the way great rock and roll bands happen is organically. The convergence of those four musicians made a band called Rage Against the Machine that had a political content. Had we started out saying it must be a, b, c, d, trying to shoehorn ideas and music into a little box, it wouldn't have worked. When bands do that, it's either derivative or it's not compelling.

With Audioslave, the four of us got in a room and we said, what's this going to be? We're not going to try to be Rage Against the Machine; we're not going to try to be Soundgarden; we're going to see what develops. It developed musically, very successfully for us, in a way that felt just great in the room.

For me, Audioslave didn't have political content. And that's when I formed Axis of Justice. It's important to me to have both great rock and roll and to be able to fight the power on a daily basis. That's where that divergence happened, to do my politics via Axis of Justice and my music via Audioslave.

Q: What is Axis of Justice?

Morello: Axis of Justice is a nonprofit political organization formed by me and Serj Tankian, singer of System of a Down. We formed the organization a little over two years ago to build a bridge between progressive-minded musicians, fans of rock and rap music, and local grassroots organizations,

For ten years in Rage Against the Machine, kids were asking me, "I love your band. I feel motivated. How do I get involved?" We formed this organization to answer that question for the kids who were basically like I was. I grew up in a small, conservative Midwestern town. I had these ideas in my head but there was nothing to connect to. I wouldn't have known if there was an anti-nukes rally happening in the next town over.