Revolution Action!

By Jason Arnopp

The most incendiary band on Planet Rock are back. RAGE AGAINST THE MACHINE have almost completed their third album, and as guitarist Tom Morello exclusively reveals, there's still plenty to be angry about...

"Kids are gonna trip when they hear this new album..." TOM MORELLO

It all started in late '92 when an unknown LA combo named Rage Against The Machine supported Suicidal Tendencies in London and proceeded to peel back scalps. Rage then headlined their own show at Camden Underworld on January 26, 1993. We were bowled over by incendiary tracks like 'Bullet In Your Head', 'Bombtrack' and 'Killing In The Name'. "Nothing short of incredible," raved the ecstatic, five-K review. "Body Count had the idea: Rage Against The Machine are executing it."

While Anthrax and Public Enemy had previously teamed up for a one-off blitz through the latter's 'Bring The Noise', the 90's had yet to witness the ideal full-time rap/rock collision. Then Rage came along. Their apoplectic self-titled debut album initially snuck into the UK on import, before being given a domestic release. An uncensored 'Killing In The Name' was mistakenly played on Radio 1, treating listeners to multiple doses of the world 'f**k'. After that, there was no stopping the hysteria, as Rage beanie hats became the latest must-have accessory on Planet Rock. Rage Against The Machine interviews, you may have noticed over the years, are rarer than rocking-horse shit. Ironically, they're one of the bands with most to say, wearing their political colours very much on their collective sleeve and often backing up their beliefs with action - whether it be by appearing naked onstage with gaffer-taped mouths in protest against censorship, or supporting numerous causes. The most recent of these is Death Row prisoner Mumia Abu-Jamal, whom the band maintain did not recieve a fair trial. Rage are set to return to action this summer with their currently untitled third album. When guitarist Tom Morello extended an invitation to Kerrang! to send him 20 questions - with the proviso that we print his answers in full - we naturally told him to not be so ridiculous. Or did we? Here's that UK exclusive...

Kerrang!: Why have you held back from doing press interviews for so long? Surely your fans want to hear your views and opinions?

Tom Morello: "We've been working on a new record, for one, and now that there is something to talk about seems an appropriate time to begin doing press. Once again."

Kerrang!: Were you surprised that the New Jersey benefit show for Mumia Abu-Jamal passed without incident, given that it appeared to be misunderstood as a pro-cop killer event?

Tom Morello: "No, I actually wasn't surprised at all, because any controversy surrounding the event came exclusively from the cops and politicians. We played a benefit for Mumia in 1995 which went basically unnoticed by the media. In this case, an enormous controversy was whirled up when the true controversy should be about the sham trial that this innocent political dissident recieved."

Kerrang!: Which political causes are you lending your name to at the moment, and why?

Tom Morello: "We never lose track of any of the causes that we lend our name to: so long as our CDs are in existence and our website is up, all of those from Rock For Choice to U.N.I.T.E., the garment workers' union, to the Anti-Nazi League, etc. We're always trying to build a bridge between our fans and those grass-roots organisations."

Kerrang!: What did you make of the Clinton/Lewinsky 'scandal'?

Tom Morello: "The scandal was that the war crimes committed by Clinton that is, the bombing of Afghanistan and the Sudan in the midst of the Lewinsky matter - went basically unnoticed by the media. The American media was obsessed with the stains on an intern's dress and turned a blind eye to the bloodstains on President Clinton's hands when he violated international law and killed innocent civilians in those unethical bombing raids."

Kerrang!: Why has this album been so long in the making?

Tom Morello: "Well, the album itself hasn't been that long in the making. We began work in May of last year. Timmy, Brad and I rehearsed for three months writing songs, then Zack and Brendan O'Brien, our producer, joined us for only a month. The recording only took about three-and-a-half weeks, and in the six months we've been waiting for Zack to finish the lyrics. In '97 we did extensive touring with the Wu Tang Clan and Atari Teenage Riot and that's all."

"I work with three incredible musicians..." TOM MORELLO

Kerrang!: Do you feel you've lost momentum?

Tom Morello: "Creatively, the slow pace of recording and touring is very frustrating for me. I would love to make a record every year, maybe two records every year, and tour the world and play in front of our amazing fans much more often than we do. But unfortunately within our band there are very different creative metabolisms, and some of us just work more slowly than others. The upside is that I work with three incredible musicians who make the powerful music that is a unique product of our chemistry."

Kerrang!: Will this album surprise anyone?

Tom Morello: "I think so. People have not yet heard anything this heavy from Rage Against The Machine, and they have not yet heard anything this funky from Rage Against The Machine. I think that kids are gonna trip when they hear this new album."

Kerrang!: What is its title/working title?

Tom Morello: "There's no working title at the moment."

Kerrang!: Are there any new song titles you can give us?

Tom Morello: "Nope."

Kerrang!: What kind of lyrical concerns do you have on this new album?

Tom Morello: "That is a question for Zack."

Kerrang!: Apparently, Brendan O'Brien feels that this is the best Rage album you've made since 'Rage Against The Machine'. Do you feel, in retrospect, that the 'Evil Empire' album had quite the same impact as your debut?

Tom Morello: "'Evil Empire' was a different album from 'Rage Against The Machine'. The songs on the original record were written in about the first month that we met each other, and there was a spontaneity to them. 'Evil Empire' was a record where we found a course between our very different musical tastes to make a record that was compelling both musically and lyrically and a record that we could all be proud of, and finding that course took some time. I love songs like 'People Of The Sun', 'Bulls On Parade', 'Vietnow', 'Rollin' Down Rodeo' and 'Snakecharmer'. But on this new record, I think we've taken our game to another level. We wrote quickly and with the spontaneity of the first record, yet our musicianship has improved and our vision for what it is that we are doing has become more focussed."

Kerrang!: Do you like 'new breed' metal bands like Korn, Coal Chamber and Limp Bizkit?

Tom Morello: "I like the fact that metal is headed in a new direction, and is not afriad to embrace disparate elements like hip-hop and some industrial music and incorporate that in the sound."

Kerrang!: Was it not something of a contradiction to appear on the soundtrack to the blockbuster movie 'Godzilla' with a song blasting blockbuster movies?

Tom Morello: "Well, with regard to the lyrical content, you'd have to ask Zack. It's not the first major studio movie that we've participated on the soundtrack of, from 'Higher Learning', 'Spawn', 'The Faculty', 'Small Soldiers' and the movie 'The Matrix', just out now. A lot of times a soundtrack is an opportunity to collaborate with musicians you admire. It's an opportunity to work outside of your band, or to exercise - you know, to flex your musical abilities during a time when Rage has down-time. Out of 'Godzilla', we happened to get a great song in 'No Shelter'."

Kerrang!: Tom, why did you and your fellow collaborators opt to cover 'Another Brick In The Wall', and how did you come to hook up with 'The Faculty'?

Tom Morello: "I was approached by the record company about that one. They said for the first time Pink Floyd had been willing to license a song to a film, and Pink Floyd was one of my favourite bands as a kid - and the opportunity to work with people like Stephen Perkins (Jane's Addiction) and Layne Staley (Alice In Chains) sounded like a great idea."

Kerrang!: Who else would you like to collaborate with, and why?

Tom Morello: "Well, of all my collaborations to date, probably my favourite one was with The Prodigy, and I'd love to work with them again. I think that in Liam Howlett's work there is a brilliance to the songwriting, the arranging and the production work which is really unique, and which meshes very, very well with my guitar playing and pushes it in different directions."

Kerrang!: At last year's Reading Festival, the Beastie Boys asked The Prodigy not to play 'Smack My Bitch Up'. Bearing in mind your association with Liam Howlett, how do you feel about that song?

Tom Morello: "I think that song is a f**king jam. I'm not a fan of any lyrical content that is misogynist in nature, but there are innumerable instances in, you know, electronica, rock 'n' roll, hip-hop and country music where if you hold a strict ideological litmus test up to songs, we'd all have to throw away three-quarters of our record collection. I don't think anyone should be out there smacking their girlfriends, daughters or mothers up because of that song, but sonically it is a phat jam."

Kerrang!: Has Rage Against The Machine achieved everything it wanted to achieve?

Tom Morello: "Absolutely not. On a creative level we've only made three record, or two-and-a-half right now [laughs], and there are many more songs that I would love to write with the band. And on a political level, we've only scratched the surface of the things that a band can do. It's one thing to be the most commercially successful revolutionary rock band of all time, it's another to translate that into concrete action and social change."

Kerrang!: What's on the agenda for the next 12 months?

Tom Morello: "That's up in the air. We have some shows booked. We're playing the Woodstock Concert, the Tibetan Festival, the Mount Fuji Festival and one or two more shows, but until the record is finished we aren't making any firm tour plans."

Transcribed by Leo Ross: [email protected] Into HTML by Lance Buchi.