Tom Morello counts being unable to keep Rage Against The Machine and Audioslave together among his biggest career failures, but says those endings led to some of his most rewarding work.
Speaking to Guitar World, Morello placed the dissolution of his two best known bands among four setbacks that shaped his playing and songwriting, alongside abandoning guitar as a teenager, struggling with his equipment and losing his first record deal.
Reflecting on the two bands, he said: “A million windows opened for me because those two doors closed, leading to what I’m doing to this day.”
Before either of those bands, Morello had landed a record deal with Lock Up. He said being dropped after compromising his playing for a producer prompted him to stop making music he didn’t believe in, a decision that fed into his early Rage riffs.
His latest album, Everyone Gets Everything They Want, arrived on September 25th through Mom + Pop Music. The 12-track record features Serj Tankian and Roman Morello on ‘Adjourn It’, KNEECAP on ‘Unconquered’ and Beartooth on ‘Everything Burns’.
Roman co-wrote five tracks, and Morello told Guitar World that some of his son’s riffs were challenging for him to learn.
Watch Tom Morello’s ‘Everyone Gets Everything They Want’ video below.
His solo shows give those songs a place alongside the older material. In a separate Rolling Stone interview published last month, Morello explained that playing Audioslave songs was a way of honouring Chris Cornell at every show, while Rage riffs and his acoustic Nightwatchman work remained part of the set.
Those performances with the Freedom Fighter Orchestra helped shape the new record. Morello said he wanted to capture both the band’s heavy riffs and the political convictions behind the shows, drawing on several years of touring together.
He was more guarded when the conversation turned to Rage’s future. Asked by Rolling Stone whether the band would play again, Morello declined to give a definitive answer.
“If there’s ever going to be any news about Rage Against the Machine, all four of us will report it to you.”
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