Rage Against The Machine’s Tom Morello may love crafting acoustic tracks about politics, war and civil rights, but don’t expect him to write about romantic love. Ever.
When asked by CNN if he might someday write a real love song, Morello, reportedly, rolled his eyes in antipathy. "Why do people keep asking me that?" he said, before hurling into a lovey-dovey, tongue-and-cheek jam. "Try making babies to that!"
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That guy’s made plenty of baby-making songs," Morello added, motioning to singer-songwriter
Ben Harper, who was in the other room.
Morello and Harper were together to promote a Chicago show in support of labor unions. Morello recently collaborated with Harper for a track, the soulful "Save The Hammer For The Man", on Morello's latest Nightwatchman album, "WOrld Wide Rebel Songs".
"We were playing a show in Chicago for some union issue, and some of the other musicians on the bill were grousing about not getting paid", Morello said. "One of the other musicians canceled the show because he had to return to his vineyard. We were on the phone kind of moaning about this, and Ben said, 'Tom, you let me know if you want me to put the hammer down'. And I said, 'Ben, save the hammer for the man'. And we're like, 'Hold on. One day, that must be a song!'"
Morello says he and Harper come from the same background, "from the ethnicity of our parents to quite a number of things."
He added that he’ll always felt a bit like an outsider: "I was the only black kid in an all-white town. Then I was the only radical student in a conservative high school. Then I was the only rock ’n’ roll guitar player at Harvard University. Then I was the only dude with a Harvard diploma in a Hollywood rock ’n’ roll band. So in some ways, there's always been a sense of aloneness..."
Thanks for the report to Anne Erickson, Gibson.com.
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