TOM MORELLO TELLS IT LIKE IT IS. We couldn’t fit all of his words of wisdom in the Dec. issue of GP, so here are some outtakes from that interview, which, like all Morello interviews, was a lively and spirited discussion.
Why don’t more guitarists strive for a unique voice?
It’s very difficult, especially for young players, because when you’re originally drawn to the instrument, well now it might be from Guitar Hero, but it used to be because you liked particular guitar players. To my ears, good guitar playing sounded like Randy Rhoads. I wanted to sound like that. So you work towards that. But the best you’re ever going to be is a second-rate Randy Rhoads. For me it took years to figure out and circumstances had to collide for me to try to get my own voice.
When I reviewed the Street Sweeper Social Club CD, I said the song “The Oath” reflected your Jimmy Page influence. Do you think that’s true?
All these songs were written on acoustic, even though they’re played on a Les Paul through a Marshall stack on the record The melodic strains that begin “The Oath” are something I would play very comfortably on acoustic casually around the house. The debt that it definitely owes to Jimmy Page is in the light and the shade. When it crashes into that huge riff, the juxtaposition of the two is what makes each part more exciting.
When you go from clean to dirty in that song, are you just turning your guitar’s volume knob up?
That’s right. That’s all I ever do.
What guitar was that?
That’s a good question. On this record I made a bold and conscious decision to not just play the same two guitars that I’ve played on every record I’ve ever made. So I reached into my guitarsenal and a brownburst Les Paul, probably the one really really nice guitar in my collection, is what I play on most of the record. I think on “The Oath” it’s the Arm the Homeless guitar and that brownburst Les Paul.
Your solo on “Clap for the Killers” is pretty stark sounding.
Sometimes I let the instrument play the amplifier rather than me trying to play either one of them. That was the Les Paul into the half-stack and I knew I wanted to do a sort of Albert King outro solo on that, sort of a juxtaposition from the dropped-B molten heaviness of the song. That was the same tone that was up for the rhythms with the volume ratcheted back some and me emoting.
The acoustic guitar on “Somewhere in the World It’s Midnight” is a nice change.
I had tried that part on electric and it felt a little too caveman like. When the verse was played with electric, the chorus didn’t seem to slam as hard. So I double-tracked acoustic guitar and one of them might be a 12-string.
Have you done that before?
Certainly in the Audioslave catalog. One of the luxuries of this record was that I was the guitarist, bassist, and producer. So in a more democratic band setting, more hours on the clock are spent figuring out an idea to agree on, rather than me trying out a bunch of ideas and then me just picking one. So I recorded this a couple different ways and to me the acoustic sounded best.
Talk about the tune “Good Morning, Mrs. Smith.”
Boots mocks me relentlessly for the southern-rock feel to that one. I tell him we should be so lucky to sell as many records as Lynyrd Skynyrd. How the record became this particular batch of songs was I gave Boots a cassette tape—a real old fashioned tape, recorded on my old Radio Shack condenser mic of about 24 song ideas. The freedom in coming up with 24 ideas was that I wasn’t attached to idea #17 more than 16. I thought, I’m going to write the music for a couple of records, give it to Boots, and see which ones he feels he can really do his thing on. So the songs that were chosen, I had very little to do with. He came back and said, “I like these songs.” I stocked the pond with fish, and he cast the net. That was freeing too, because I didn’t know if it was going to be the southern-rock jam or the dropped-B mammoth riffery song. It was nice to be surprised.
If he mocks you, why is that tune on there?
The flow that he delivers over that is one that he felt right off the bat. I really like how his acidic and satiric lyrics combined with something that is classic ‘70s rock makes for something brand new.
Did you play your Ovation Breadwinner on this record?
No. I wish.
That’s what you said last time. It seems like you’re not trying.
I love the Breadwinner. I’m working on a home studio finally and the Breadwinner will be displayed proudly and called into service.
A home studio? Don’t tell me you’ve given up on the Realistic cassette recorder.
Heavens no. That’ll always be what I use for the genesis of the idea. Every couple of years I have to get a new one when the gears wind down. I remember writing the riff to “Bomb Track” as a 19-year-old at Harvard, and I wrote the Street Sweeper songs on one. I think the price of those has gone up about three dollars in that time.
How did the live band come about?
We had a very accelerated start as a live band. The record is me on guitar and bass, Stanton Moore playing drums, and Boots doing vocals. So I was sort of taking my time mixing it when all of a sudden Trent Reznor calls up and says, "Do you want to go on the road with Nine Inch Nails and Jane's Addiction?" And I said, “Yes sir, I do.” The tour at that point was maybe a month away. So I had to mix and master the record and then figure out what it was going to be as a live incarnation. I drew on some trusted musicians who have backed me up as the Nightwatchman. We got some shiny new uniforms and basically had about five days before the tour began to figure it out as a live band. So rather than having five days of extensive rehearsal, I’ve always felt that the best way to get better as a live band is to play live. So, we filled those days with six shows. One was at the School of Rock, playing in front of 11-year-old kids. One was at Sing Sing maximum security prison. The next one we called up the Roots and asked if we could open for them. The next was a bar in the west village called Kenny’s Castaways. Then we did a show honoring Wayne Kramer at the Nokia in NY and the next day we flew to Florida to start the tour in front of 10,000 people.
Was there any rehearsal?
Yes, but barely, because I was working so hard to get the record done. It was either get the record done before the tour or wait six weeks to finish. I had this sneaky confidence that the live band was going to come together, but I knew it was going to be very exciting.