Rage Against The Machine Guitarist Tom Morello On His New Solo Album
Rage Against The Machine guitarist Tom Morello has spoken to NME about his upcoming solo album.
“I’ve done a number of solo records before, but I love the idea of being in a band because what you get out of being in a band is chemistry,” Morello said. “Together you create something that none of you could create alone.”
“What you get out of being a solo artist is purity and being able to create something that no one else would be able to create.”
Morello went on to discuss writing with his 13-year-old son, Roman, on the album’s first single, Soldier In The Army Of Love, out 28 June. “One day I was walking by his room and these huge drop-D riffs were coming out of there and I said ‘What’s that’ and [Roman] said ‘Oh, I’ve just been working on some riffs, do you think these go well together?’. I was like ‘Son. Those go very well together and we’re about to write our first song together.’”
“So ‘Soldier In The Army Of Love’ is about the redemptive power of rock and roll. It’s got huge Morello riffs from multi-generations and a shredding guitar solo where you have to guess which one of us played.”
In March 2023, Tom told Rolling Stone magazine that Roman could already outplay him when it came to lead guitar, despite the fact that he was only 11 at the time.
Talking about the musical direction of the as-yet untitled album, Morello told Guitar Interactive magazine, “On the one hand, it’s gonna lean very heavy into like the Morellian riffs of RAGE and AUDIOSLAVE ilk, but there’s also a [Bruce Springsteen’s 1978 album] Darkness On The Edge Of Town component to it as well. There likely will be some collaborations, but it’s not collaboration dependent.”