Tom Morello's gone from a rabble rousing underground high school journalist to a rabble rousing
guitar hero and guerilla folk singer. The
Rage Against the Machine guitarist--and more recently as the
Nightwatchman--has long been active in progressive politics, from fighting against racism, torture, war and sweatshops to fighting for immigrant and workers' rights.
Morello is again putting his music where his mouth is with the release this week of "Union Town" an album of new and traditional worker and union anthems. Here's the kicker--all the proceeds are going to America Votes Labor Unity Fund to support mobilization for pushing back against the attacks on workers in Wisconsin, Ohio and elsewhere. Click here to download. CDs and vinyl copies will be available this summer.
He says his experience earlier this year in Wisconsin where hundreds of thousands marched against Gov. Scott Walker's (R) attacks on workers' rights spurred him to create the "Union Town" EP. In a recent phone interview, Morello told me:
This fight needs a sound track and hopefully this it.
He says he was inspired by "100,000 people marching in the street on a freezing cold Saturday afternoon."
I was inspired by the solidarity of students, steelworkers and firefighters of all ages, colors and creeds who occupied the Capitol building. I was inspired by the fact that there was something in the air that made nurses, teachers, farmers and musicians that it was time to get off the sidelines and make history.
When Morello got home, he wrote the song, "Union Town," and then decided to record an album of "unapologetically pro-labor, pro-working class, pro-union songs and donate 100 percent of the proceeds to the union struggles across the nation."
The album includes three Morello originals: the title track plus "A Wall Against the Wind" and the live version of "Union Song" he sang to the 100,000 people in Madison's Capitol Square on Feb. 21. In addition, Morello offers new takes on "Solidarity Forever," "Which Side Are You on?" "16 Tons," "This Land is Your Land" and "I Dreamed I Saw Joe Hill Last Night."
In the interview, we talked about how he got started as a progressive artist and the relationship between music and activists politics. Here are some excerpts from the interview. Find his tip of that hat to Tom Joad.
What came first, music or progressive/activist politics?
It started about the same time when I was 16 or 17 years old. I was involved in the high school underground newspaper in Libertyville, Ill., where I grew up. We split from the main paper because we wanted to write stories about the complicity with the death squads in Central America, apartheid and that the dean of the school was unfair [laughter], etc. They wanted to have articles about the awesome volleyball team.
Then I picked up a guitar and discovered a band called the Clash, and that was the band that sort of melded the two worlds for me and got me thinking that perhaps I could both be a musician and an activist.
In the latest Rolling Stone, your praise Bob Dylan's politically charged work and writing, but say that when he chose not to "lead a movement--something he didn't sign up for" that he may have missed an opportunity to see if there was a ceiling as to how far music could push forward progressive politics. How far can music push that ceiling?
First, I'll tell you who else failed to push the ceiling--Rage Against the Machine fell short of really grabbing the brass ring in that area. There has never been a more politically radical band that sold 20-plus-million records and yet some of the internal dissension in the band kind of kept them from making more music and seeing how much one can do.
That's one of the reasons this Nightwatchman stuff feels very liberating. When I went to Madison--one day on the news I saw 70,000 union people marching in the streets in Madison and I was there the next day. I wasn't waiting for a lighting rig or a tour manager or a band meeting, I was on the capitol steps with my guitar singing my songs.
That's where I think I can be very effective in this incarnation. It's like the guerilla warfare of music. If unions are in danger anywhere in this great land, the Nightwatchman will be there, standing up for working people.
How do you think music moves the person in the crowd who may be at the rally or show more out of curiosity than commitment?
Music speaks to people a very different way than speeches do or pamphlets do or books do. There is something really hard-wired in the human DNA that responds to rhythm and melody and rhyme. When you get them together in the right order it's that feeling of solidarity that I see in a concert hall at a Rage Against the Machine show, that I saw in the freezing cold streets of Madison at the Nightwatchman performance. It really bonds and brings people together and takes a lot of disparate people and disparate groups and they're all singing the same "Solidarity Forever" chorus and "This Land is Your Land" or "Union Town." It makes you feel like you're all in this together and that's one of things that I think can really put wind in the sails of a movement.
Outside of the artistic satisfaction you might take away from performance in place like Madison or other "movement" events, what kind satisfaction do you take away? What does it do for you as person as opposed to a performer?
I look at it that this is my life's work. I go about this with a missionary zealotry. I am in it to win and want to use my craft as a singer, songwriter, guitar player--all of my creativity, intelligence and power--to push forward social justice issues. I found one way you can do that is stand on the stage with three chords and the truth and in an unapologetic and uncompromising way tell the truth as you see it and people respond.
I think people are very used to, in a lot of areas in their lives whether its newscasters or politicians or articles they read in the paper, there's a sense that they are not being told the whole truth or people are pulling punches or people don't want to step on toes.
That's not what they get when they see me play. That's not what they get when they hear my songs. I'm going to tell you exactly what I think about the situation and that's one of the reasons I think that people responded so great in Madison, and one of the reasons I was so inspired by the experience in Madison to make this benefit record.
Do you have advice for musicians or other performers who want to make a difference along with making music or art?
Don't be afraid of your convictions whatever job you're in. If you're a musician, if you're a carpenter, if you're a longshore worker, if you're a teacher, don't leave your beliefs and your convictions and the things you feel are right on the sideline. Bring those into the workplace and stand up for them where you work. That's how progressive and even radical change can take place.
Some people want different things out of music. Some people want a fancy car or the opposite sex being attracted. That's not what drew me to music. From a very early age, music spoke to me in way that I felt I didn't have any choice about doing anything else in my life. And then it was like "Oh man, now I've got to figure out how to weave my convictions into this." I've been very fortunate with the bands I've been with and with the Nightwatchman solo stuff to be able to do that.
Later this summer Morello was launch his World Wide Rebel Tour--tour dates will soon be available
here--and Rage Against the Machine will perform at the July 30 L.A. Rising show at the Los Angeles Coliseum. For more information click
here.