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Street Roots • October 13-19, 2017
TOM MORELLO
‘If you aren’t
angry, you aren’t
paying attention’
Tom Morello, o f Rage Against the Machine and now Prophets o f Rage, uses his voice fo r the oppressed. In an interview
with street papers, Morello explains the origin o f “Arm, the Homeless, ” the legendary saying written on his guitar.
people on three continents, so the message,
as well as the rock ’n’ roll, seems to be
resonating.”
n the 1980s, Tom Morello - years before
Prophets of Rage kicked off their short run
becoming Rage Against the Machine’s
of U.S. club dates in September in Boston,
resident Guitar God - was just a young
leading up to the Sept. 15 release of their
man in Spandex who loved heavy metal and
self-titled album. Part of the proceeds of the
practiced guitar in the stairwell of a Harvard
show were donated to local food banks and
dorm.
homeless shelters.
“I started playing
“Of course, the message will be in the
«u,tar relatively late,
mosh pit, but we also want to leave a Robin
when I was 17,”
Hood-like footprint in each of the cities we
Moreiio said. “So, it
play,” Morello said.
was actually in my
Just as Robin Hood and his Merry Men
freshman year at
belong to English folklore, each member of
Prophets of Rage belongs to an elite class of
rock and hip-hop legends.
that it wasn’t going to
But even with three-quarters of the
be just a hobby, that it was going to be much
original Rage Against the Machine lineup
more than that, and I didn’t have any choice
lending their hands to the mission of
in the matter, but here I was stuck as a
Prophets of Rage - including Chuck D and DJ
political science major.
Lord of Public Enemy and B-Real of Cypress
“And of course, fulfilling an honors degree
Hill - Morello stressed that when they came
at any Ivy League school didn’t leave too
together, they didn’t want to re-create RATM
much time to practice arpeggios, so I may
or any of the groups involved and they
have made some sacrifices on my social
wanted to respect the legacy of each group.
calendar to get the necessary practice. I
“Any band, in order for it to be great or
would finish my studies, then go practice in
stand on its own two feet, needs to discover
the stairwell for four hours and drive
its own chemistry,” Morello said.
everybody absolutely insane,” he said with a
laugh.
BY JASON GREENOUGH
C O N T R IB U T IN G W R IT E R
I
Prophets of Rage
• •
musician lorn Morello
,
r
r • j ,
has never been afraid to
be politically provocative
On homelessness and hypocrisy
‘Amalgamation of radical musicians’
The legendary guitarist, who now makes
up one-sixth of the political supergroup
Prophets of Rage - alongside members of
Rage Against the Machine, Public Enemy and
Cypress Hill - has made it his life’s work to
use his voice for the oppressed. Oddly
enough, the biggest thing he can attribute to
this newest chapter in his career was the
insanity of the 2016 election and the
mounting tension and frustration it brought
to so many - himself included.
“The band came together as a necessity, in
these tumultuous times, because we felt that
we couldn’t just sit back and tweet about the
disconcerting world affairs,” Morello said
about the birth of Prophets of Rage. “So we
put together a pretty potent amalgamation of
radical musicians to both rock the crowd and
also to effect social justice change. So, within
a year and a few months since the band was
founded, we’ve played to over 2 1/2 million
While Morello’s politics have deep roots
and can be traced back decades, he’s not
afraid to be provocative for the sake of it. For
example, many have tried to figure out the
meaning behind the famous “Arm the
Homeless” expression written on his guitar.
The truth is, it was a spur-of-the-moment
decision prior to sound check before playing
a now legendary show at the Whiskey a
Go-Go with RATM.
“That was my sort of homemade guitar,
which I had drawn these cute, white
hippopotamuses on, and I decided to take a
Magic Marker and thought of the phrase,
kind of echoing the provocateur artistry of
the Paris commune in the back of my mind,”
Morello said. “In the city of Los Angeles,
where you have Bentleys and Rolls-Royces
driving by these homeless tent cities, it just
felt like a fine, provocative artistic
statement.”
The way Morello sees it, homelessness is a
matter of immoral priorities and it’s the
people at the top who are arranging said
priorities.
“The homeless don’t have a lobbyist in
Congress. Poverty and homelessness is a
crime, and that means there are criminals
who are responsible for it, and the grotesque
economic injustice that plagues not just our
country but the world is terrible,” Morello
said. “We are an incredibly wealthy country,
but there are people living on the street with
no roof over their heads who are looked at as
sort of a subset of humanity that is even
beneath the dignity of even making eye
contact (with them).”
Morello also called out what he sees as
hypocrisy among those claiming to be
religious. As he notes, many religious
founders spent time with “the downtrodden,
the outcasts, the homeless and the
prostitutes” as people who were worthy of
help and attention. Modern America,
however, lacks this same compassion, he said.
“In our country, they’re shunted to the
side as refuse. It’s infuriating and needs to be
addressed,” he said.
Morello has come a long way from those
days on the staircases at Harvard, and he
now plays at stadiums and festivals all over
the world. He’s made it his life’s mission to
be a champion for the underdog and a voice
for the silenced, and he’s also one of the
most well-respected musicians in the world.
Being such a vanguard has allowed him to see
many injustices in many forms, and when it
comes to the current state of America,
Morello’s message is loud and clear: “If you
aren’t angry, you aren’t paying attention.”
“That being said, anger needs to find focus
in order to effect change,” said Morello.
“There’s no brand new way that the world
has changed. Change happens when people
stand up in their place in time and demand
that their voices be heard. Every radical,
revolutionary change has come from below,
not from above,” he continued. “In today’s
age, you may be tempted to sit back and
watch the clown show on CNN, or hashtag
change on Instagram, but in all reality, you’re
only a click or a scroll away from getting
engaged.”
Courtesy o f Spare Change News / INSP.ngo