It is a well-known fact: Tom Morello is an activist who is always on the front lines. He would happily and easily talk about it for hours. Hence the desire, for once, to stick to discussing only music with him. Let the music do the talking… so
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You mentioned the E Street Band just now, and “The Ghost of Tom Joad” remains one of the covers that comes up most regularly at your concerts in recent years. Is this now distant experience with Bruce Springsteen still among your best memories?
Of course, and it goes even further! Playing this song with him in 2008 was a kind of awakening for me, a rekindling of my love for the electric guitar. At the time, I was completely immersed in the folk phase of my career with The Nightwatchman. After thousands of shows torturing an electric guitar, I had opted for another path. This song, and Springsteen with it, reminded me that my real home was a Marshall Half Stack amp and an electric guitar, that there was still so much to explore with those two.
More generally, what do you look for when you choose a song to cover on stage?
Whether it’s “Kick Out the Jams” by MC5 or “Power to the People” by John Lennon to name a few recent examples, the idea is that songs that I believe in deeply elevate the emotions that I could have generated and conveyed at a concert. I take concert setlists very seriously, it’s something that I haven’t left to anyone else to do since my high school band! I find that it’s underestimated and I often struggle with it, because I want my concerts to have a kind of narrative, with its peaks and valleys.
All that considered, are there any covers you've tried that didn't work out in the end?
Oh, lots (laughs)! Some of them were even part of the setlists before disappearing. There was a time when we did “We're an American Band” by Grand Funk Railroad, because the irony it implied amused us. We even started shows with it. Let's just say that it wasn't our best idea and that we were far from “The Ghost of Tom Joad” (laughs)!
Do you like to sing?
Rather, yes. That's an interesting question. It's kind of crucial to free yourself from the constraints of a rock band. I love being in a band, I love this alchemy of musicians evolving together and where each one plays a role. But if you don't sing in this rock framework, you're like stuck in a situation of dependence on this absence of a singer. That's why I bless the freedom that is mine to go from one band to another but especially from one genre to another, in complete independence. I don't have to wait for the singer to show up to play my songs and get my message across.
Relive Tom Morello's performances at Heavy Weekend, Hellfest and Colours of Ostrava festivals.
