Tom Morello: "The world does not change itself; that is up to you"
Lockdown turned everything upside down for pretty much everyone on the planet last year, and being a global rock superstar gave little extra protection....
Lockdown turned everything upside down for pretty much everyone on the planet last year, and being a global rock superstar gave little extra protection. For Tom Morello, a life of creativity and performance came screeching to an abrupt halt and, for the first time in forty years, he was facing up to an immediate future that held no shows and no recording sessions in sight. For a man that's restlessly sought to create and perform for his entire musical career, it was a huge shock to the system - and that's even before beginning to tackle the challenges of getting through a global killer pandemic. Facing up to an extended period away from music, inspiration came from the unlikeliest of sources. "Yeah, I have to thank Kanye West for this…" begins Tom as we catch up with him over Zoom, laughing as he delivers perhaps one of the most unexpected things you will hear all year.
The opening 'The Atlas Underground' record, released back in 2018, sought to continue pushing electric guitar music forwards in the manner that Morello has always hungered for. Fusing his trademark futuristic riff sounds with EDM and artists as varied as K. Flay, Steve Aoki, Marcus Mumford and Killer Mike, it always felt like merely the first chapter in a new era of sound exploration. And, with plans afoot for a follow-up even before it was released, it could only take the hard reset of a global lockdown to derail it. Even despite having a recording studio at home, Tom laughs as he describes his complete lack of ability to work it. "I'm not an engineer!" he grins, before describing the moment where he realised the potential in his hand. "I heard Kanye had recorded some of his vocals on the voice memo app on his phone," he says today, "And I thought, well I can't work a studio, and I can't run a mixing board or use Pro Tools. But I can hit this red button on an app…"





