Musicians - Tom Morello

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	Musicians - Tom Morello

Thomas Baptist Morello (born May 30, 1964) is the guitarist of the band Audioslave, and formerly of Rage Against The Machine. He is acclaimed for his unique guitar style--he was named by Rolling Stone as one of the 100 greatest guitarists in rock history --and noted for his outspoken radical politics.

Early years

Morello was born in Harlem, New York. His mother, Mary Morello, is a founder of Parents For Rock And Rap, an anti-censorship group. His father was a Mau Mau guerrilla, a Kenyan revolutionary who later was the first Kenyan delegate to the United Nations. Morello's great-uncle, Jomo Kenyatta, was the first elected president in Kenya.

Morello grew up in Libertyville, Illinois, at the time a nearly all-white suburb of Chicago. There he attended Libertyville High School, where he sang in the chorus and was active in speech and drama club. (One prominent role was Oberon in A Midsummer Night's Dream.)

He showed his political leanings early; in the 1980 mock elections at LHS, he campaigned for a fictitious anarchist "candidate" named Hubie Maxwell. (He almost beat out Jimmy Carter for third place at the overwhelmingly Republican high school.) He also wrote a piece headlined "South Africa: Racist Fascism That We Support" for the school's alternative paper, The Student Pulse.

Around 1980, Morello first started studying the guitar seriously. He had formed a band in 1980 called the Electric Sheep with future Tool guitarist Adam Jones. Few if any of the Sheep could really play an instrument at first, but the band was an impetus to start honing his skills. At the time Morello's musical tastes lay in the direction of heavy metal, particularly Kiss and Alice Cooper.

Morello graduated in 1982 and began attending Harvard University. There he made a point of practicing every day without fail, no matter how much studying he had to do. He graduated with honors in 1986 with a degree in social studies. He moved to L.A., where he briefly worked as an aide to Sen. Alan Cranston as he set about trying to join or start a band. (Adam Jones moved to L.A. as well; Morello introduced Jones to some of his future bandmates.)

Bands

In 1988 Morello joined Lock Up, a glam rock band that released one album through Geffen Records before splitting up. Afterward, Morello approached Brad Wilk, who had auditioned for Lock Up, about forming a band. After meeting with Zack de la Rocha at an LA club where Zack was rapping, Zack introduced him to his friend Tim Commerford and their new band, Rage Against The Machine, was formed.

In 2000, Zack de la Rocha left Rage Against the Machine. The remaining three members formed the band Audioslave with former Soundgarden vocalist Chris Cornell. Audioslave have since achieved commercial success with their eponymously titled debut album and their second studio album, Out Of Exile.

Guitar style

Morello is famed for his guitar style, which consists of punk/funk hybrid riffs and hip hop-inspired sounds. His guitar playing is also characterized by heavy use of guitar effects, such as delay, modulation, harmonizers, distortion, feedback, and others in unique ways and combinations. Critically acclaimed, he is said to use the guitar in a unique and imaginative way; rather than just plucking the strings, he pulls off maneuvers such as using the toggle switch to create a tremolo-style effect (an unofficial trademark of his), using feedback from the amp and the whammy bar to create a solo, and taking the jack out of the guitar and tapping it against the strings in conjunction with using the wah pedal. But he is still a very accomplished traditional metal guitarist, as heard on some of his earlier recordings such as "Know Your Enemy" and "Take the Power Back", which both have very fast fret work.

Despite his otherworldly guitar sounds, Morello has a very limited supply of effects to choose from. During his days in Rage, he used a Dunlop Cry Baby, a Digitech Whammy pedal, a Boss DD-2 Digital Delay, a Boss RV-3 Reverb Delay, a DOD EQ pedal (used to boost the volume during guitar solos), an Electro-Harmonix Small Stone Phaser and an Ibanez Flanger. For his work with Audioslave, Morello added a Boss Tremolo pedal (which can be heard on "Like a Stone") and replaced the flanger with an MXR Phase 90 (heard on "Getaway Car"). His amplifier of choice has always been a 50-watt Marshall JCM800 in a beat-up Peavey 4x12 cabinet.

He has numerous guitars, all of which are customized except for his Les Pauls. His most famous guitars are probably "Arm The Homeless" and "Soul Power" (named for the slogans written on these guitars). Soul Power is a heavily modified Fender Factory Special Run Stratocaster with two single-coil pickups in the neck and middle and a Seymour Duncan hot rail in the bridge, a mirror scratchplate and a Floyd Rose-style locking tremolo unit. Arm the Homeless is a blue Kramer equipped with EMG Humbuckers; it has two volume knobs, allowing him to create the toggle effect heard in many Rage solos. He also uses an Ibanez Roadstar fitted with EMG pickups as a backup to Arm the Homeless. Both use standard tuning, although he uses a Mexican Fender Telecaster unmodified (except for political stickers and bad damage from destroying a TV with it) for Drop D tuning.

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Musicians - Tom Morello

Early years

Bands

Guitar style

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