Tom Morello

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“The Rage Against The Machine guitarist’s remarkable transformation from purveyor of weapons-grade funk-metal riffs into introspective protest folkie yields even more impressive fruit on his second solo effort.” -Entertainment Weekly

Tom Morello of Rage Against the Machine is set to release his anticipated solo album, The Fabled City, on September 30th. The 11-song album, produced by Brendan O’Brien (Bruce
Springsteen, Pearl Jam), is the first release to bear the political and
social activist’s birth name and features appearances by System of a
Down’s Serj Tankian and Shooter Jennings. With more complex electric arrangements than displayed on the sparse solo debut One Man Revolution, The Fabled City is the synthesis of his groundbreaking work as an innovative rock guitarist and revolutionary acoustic troubadour. For the first time, this album bridges the gap between Tom Morello, the acoustic protest singer and Tom Morello, the guitar legend.

The tour in support of The Fabled City will display both sides of
Morello’s guitar prowess with both an acoustic set and full-band electric set performed each night. In regards to the format of the performances, Morello stated “On The Fabled City Tour, I will be playing both acoustic and electric guitar. I want to start off with the darker acoustic songs and then build to some of the wildest electric guitar playing I have ever unleashed on stage in my career. The idea is half Dylan/Half Hendrix. I have been practicing my ass off and can’t wait to rock.”

The Nightwatchman project originated five years ago when Morello adopted the pseudonym and began to perform new solo original material at a variety of small venues around the country: coffeehouses, tents at festivals, and the like. In 2007, the first Nightwatchman record, One Man Revolution, was released to critical praise. Morello knew that he would return to the project; what he didn’t know was exactly how his solo career would evolve. “In a way,
The Nightwatchman did start as an antidote to my arena rock existence,” he says, “but it grew into something much
more. Over the course of the years of touring, I became less stringent about parameters.” What that means, in short, is that The Fabled City, his second record, is at once more personal and less spare than its predecessor. Morello, who for the first time is billed under his real name (the album is credited to Tom Morello : The Nightwatchman), has loosened up the strict acoustic minimalism of his debut, mixing in more instrumentation (including some of his trademark effects applied to the acoustic guitar). It’s a return to louder sounds for a man who has done great things for them: with Rage Against The Machine and Audioslave, he has won multiple Grammy Awards and sold more than 30 million albums worldwide.

“I don’t see the broader sonic palette as decoration so much as declaration,” he says. “I’m more comfortable owning all the parts of my existence as a musician. At first, it was very important for me on the debut that there was a very clear line of demarcation between Tom Morello, guitar hero, and the dark brooding folk of The Nightwatchman. Not so much this time. The new record, I hope, doesn’t shy away from guitar playing and rock music but keeps a strong tether to the dark folk music.”

Throughout his career, Morello has earned a reputation as an uncompromising songwriter, advocate, and activist. He
graduated from Harvard University with honors as a Political Science major, received the Eleanor Roosevelt Human Rights Award in 2006, and is part of a long family tradition of political awareness: his great-uncle, Jomo Kenyatta was the first president of Kenya, and his mother, Mary Morello, founded Parents for Rock and Rap, an anticensorship counterweight to Tipper Gore’s PMRC (Parents Music Resource Center). With System Of A Down’s Serj Tankian, Morello formed Axis of Justice, an organization whose purpose is to bring together musicians, music fans, and grassroots political organizations to fight for social justice and also hosts its inspired radio show, The Axis of Justice Radio Network.

The Fabled City isn’t a sharp departure from this tradition, but it does mark a shift. “This record to me does not feel like it’s soaked in political rhetoric,” Morello says. “I still believe that the job of a songwriter, of a human, is to be uncompromisingly honest, but in this case the main driving lyrical thread throughout is that of loss. Over the course of the last couple of years, I’ve lost seven close family members and friends. The prospects and hopes for a new day
have seemed, at times, dramatically ratcheted back, and I think the record reflects it.” While One Man Revolution was a call to arms, The Fabled City is an exercise in survival: the man in “Midnight in the City of Destruction” trying to hold onto his secret through one more waterboarding session, the woman trapped inside a dreary peasant
existence in “Saint Isabelle.”

The combination of the personal and the political, of the hopelessness of global realities and the hope of the creative
process, is threaded throughout The Fabled City. “When I’ve played these songs live, I’ve played them at tents with five thousand people, only one percent of whom were familiar with my solo work. I have stood out there with a harmonica singing about my dear departed Aunt Isabelle. I’ve played these songs amidst tear gas tax attacks at the G8 Protest. What I’ve learned most of all through this solo endeavor is fearlessness. The times when I felt most alive were when I was onstage despite the carnage going on in my personal life.”

Morello concedes that he’s hardly the first artist to drastically downscale from arena rock into a more personal brand
of musical expression. “The clear model for me was seeing Bruce Springsteen on his Ghost of Tom Joad tour,” he says. “I was stunned at how powerful and heavy a concert could be without any Marshall Amps in the room. I dug back and went into the folk catalog backwards. I discovered the early Dylan, and the Woody Guthrie, and how amazing the messages and the power of the messages were: one man, one guitar.” On tour this summer, Morello has paid tribute to his inspiration by appearing live with Springsteen; as mentioned, the duo’s rendition of the title trackfrom “The Ghost of Tom Joad” has been released digitally and has become a sensation on YouTube.

With a Presidential election only a few months away, Morello has spoken about the superficial similarities between himself and Barack Obama: both are half-Kenyan men in their forties who attended Harvard University. But while Morello concedes that an Obama Presidency would mark a major step forward symbolically, he is skeptical about the broader gains. “I firmly believe that it is the system that is the problem,” he says, “rather than one party or the
other. When a candidate steps forward who will end poverty and end war and save the environment and be unbending to capital, we’ll see. Racism is as American as apple pie and baseball. A black president would definitely be a step in the right direction for the civilizing of the nation. But at the same time, there’s Obama’s vow to continue
a war in Afghanistan and saber-rattling in Iran. Whatever the voice is in his soul that whispers the good things, there are political demands. That’s why I’m a guitar player and a singer. I answer to no one.”

Morello’s stage appearances have always been eventful. This spring, he launched The Justice Tour, a nationwide concert tour formed in celebration of the 60th Anniversary of The Human Rights Declaration and featuring artists such as Perry Farrell, Slash, and Flea. Each stop on the tour included a day dedicated to a local charity and a rock
show to benefit that charity. This fall, when Morello tours behind The Fabled City, he’ll be showing all sides of the Nighwatchman — and, for the first time, of himself. “The first half of each show will be me with nylon strings, three chords and the truth, that kind of thing. The second half will be me rocking furiously on the electric guitar. I’ll be
going for broke in ways that haven’t even happened in Rage or Audioslave.”