Rage Against The Machine’s Tom Morello Reveals If He Wants Zack de la Rocha Back

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Former Rage Against The Machine guitarist Tom Morello was asked in a new Music Radar interview if he misses working with Zack de la Rocha.

“Zack is one of the greatest frontmen and lyricists of all time. He’s an electric performer like no other, maybe James Brown gives him some competition. Or maybe not! [laughs] In my mind, he’s the greatest and I wish him well in doing what he wants to do on his own path.”

He was then asked if he could see de la Rocha joining Prophets of Rage for a guest performance.

Morello responded, “I don’t know… but he’d be more than welcome!”

He also discussed the early days of Rage Against The Machine, “I was about 26 or 27 when I made that first RATM record, so I did have some experience behind me. In my late teens and early 20s, I really chased tone. I wanted to sound like Randy Rhoads or Nuno Bettencourt or Eddie Van Halen or Andy Gill, but I couldn’t make it sound like those guys.

“I couldn’t afford any other gear, so one day I must have spent about five hours with my amp trying to make it sound the best that it could, marking all the settings as I went. It was a conscious and life-changing decision: ‘I’m not going to worry about tone ever again!’

“Instead I’d just focus on creating music with the tone that I had and thought, ‘Okay, it looks like I’m stuck with this tone, so what kind of music does this tone make?’ All you have to do is listen to something like Led Zeppelin’s song The Ocean. The greatest grooves, the greatest riffs, heavy as can be… and played on a Telecaster?! Gain does not equal heaviness. A huge riff doesn’t need gain, it needs deep groove and the right notes.”