Tom Morello and Boots Riley
Interview conducted by Adam Gildar at the Fox Theatre November 9, 2008
As the six string virtuoso behind Rage Against the Machine, Tom Morello revolutionized more than just the electric guitar. Though relinquishing the microphone onstage, he developed a reputation as an eager vocalist offstage, disseminating radical social and political views to those within earshot. After a foray into apolitical music as part of "super-group” Audio Slave, Morello has returned to his soap box musical roots, reuniting with Rage and playing both the Republican and the Democratic National Conventions for free (in one case under duress from nervous authorities). However with no new Rage albums on the horizon, Morello has turned his songwriting focus towards a new solo project, reincarnating himself as a front man calling himself the Night Watchman. Moving well beyond the distinction of politically conscious to politically focused, this labor loving, anti war socialist is almost better described in terms of his line in the sand stances as much as his musical styling, an eclectic mix of straight ahead bar chord rock, acoustic union chants and a tease of signature shredding.
Changed out of his stage garb, a Che Gueverra patched, insignia laden, black military jumpsuit, the Night Watchman spoke with illiterate as part of an impromptu interview conducted with our pal Trevor Martin at MTV.
MTV: Playing at the DNC in August, playing here now, what do you see as the state in terms of voter’s political apathy?
Tom Morello: I didn’t see any apathy either at the DNC or here. At the DNC it was 10,000 people marching in the street to support Iraq veterans against the war and standing behind them when they were willing to stand against 700 riot police. And tonight there didn’t seem to be a whole lot of apathy in the room either.
Illiterate: Do you think it’s possible for people to be apathetic while you’re in a room?
Tom Morello: How would I know, I’m in the room I’m me. I’m just me (laughs)
Illiterate: Can I ask you a question?
Tom Morello: Sure, what is yours for?
Illiterate: Illiterate magazine, so it’s coming from a bit of a different angle than MTV
Tom Morello: Ok, the clock is ticking, the Night Watchman did his work for the day.
Illiterate: Why are you doing this to me?
Tom Morello: Why I’m I doing that to you? This is going to be a Dadaist interview (laughs). The Night Watchmen has had too much Jameson’s Irish whisk. Why am I doing this to you? What am I doing to you?
Illiterate: Playing music and talking about your political beliefs, what is it that you’re trying to get across?
Tom Morello: I don’t know that I’m entirely doing it to you. Were you a paid guest tonight or were you on the guest list.
Illiterate: Paid guest
Tom Morello: So you made a choice to come in here and then a thing occurred, I don’t know if I’m doing anything to you, that sounds a little pejorative.
Illiterate: Let me put it another way. Why put it out there?
Tom Morello: I don’t have any choice. I’ve been putting it out there in some way or another since I was 17 years old, since I started playing guitar and started becoming politically active at the same time, and at different points in my life the strains of political activism and music have come together and other times they’ve been apart, but they’re certainly together tonight. That’s why I’m doing this to you. (laughs)
Illiterate: Earlier in the evening you spoke to the crowd about the dialectic. Do you think you could ever see yourself doing a speaking tour and an all instrumental tour?
Tom Morello: Every tour is part speaking tour and part rock tour, even if there are no speeches between the songs. You can’t really miss the point I don’t think too much. (laughs). While there are subtleties throughout, you know there’s not too fine a point, but I think the gist of what’s going on people get the idea.
MTV: Now that Barak Obama is in office do you think political activism will rise compared to the last eight years?
Tom Morello: I think it should be. I’m not going to make a prediction that it will be. I say let’s all high five that we have the first African American president, but I think it would be foolish to let down our guard. Like I said during the show, those of us who believe in human rights, and social and economic justice and peace, you can’t relent. Two years ago the Democrats were elected to end the war in Iraq, but they rolled over like Beverly Hills Chihuaha. So just because there’s an election, doesn’t mean that things are done. I’m hopeful because this president looks and talks different than any other president in the history of the United States of America, but he’s still a member of the… I wish he was as socialist as the Republicans claimed he was, but I don’t think that’s the case.
MTV: In comparison to 1972 and 1968, in your music, do you draw comparisons between the music of our generation, the MTV generation, and what was going on back then? Do you see linkage?
Tom Morello: The linkage is crystal clear, bad presidents make for good music. The Lyndon Johnson/Richard M. Nixon war crimes and the draft, made people, some of whom had access to recording studios, sing songs about the horrendous immorality of the times, and you’ve seen that over the course of the last eight years, there’s been this kind of surge in musical activism, and I think those two things go hand in hand
Illiterate: If tyranny and oppression are catalysts for art, then is art just dissatisfaction personified?
Tom Morello:… (starts huffing)
MTV: Existentialist questions!
Tom Morello: I didn’t even understand that question gosh darnnit!
(Boots Riley of the Coup joins the trio)
Tom Morello (to illiterate): I really didn’t understand that.
Illiterate: Ok I’ll rephrase it.
Tom Morello: Yeah put it in terms the Night Watchman can understand.
Illiterate: Does art depend on something to rail against?
Tom Morello: No no no no! I think the responsibility of the artist is a very simple one, and that is to be honest in the thing that you do. I think that if apolitical artists tried to wedge themselves into the shoes of a political time, please spare us! I don’t want to hear the Britney Spears song called “I Hate George W. Bush’s Foreign Policy”, I don’t want to hear that song. But I think on the other hand, if you do have those convictions, you should not prohibit it from being a part of your art.
Illiterate: If there’s a lot of people that deserve confronting right now, who do you think deserves a serenade?
Tom Morello: Boots Riley, he’s been on my last nerve for the last week of this tour (laughs). Boots though, why don’t you take this one?
(At this point the four person cross conversation breaks into two groups, MTV continues questioning Tom Morello , while Illiterate takes an intimate minute with Boots Riley of the Coup).
Boots Riley: Who deserves a serenade? All the community organizers who have been looking for something bigger to get involved in, and have been working around issues that have to do with food clothes and shelter, they deserve a serenade; all of the families that are struggling to just pay bills, and have become a scapegoat by the politicians with the economic downturn that we’re in, where people are saying “oh it’s people borrowing too much and not being able to pay their loan.” You know those folks are really the victims of scams that were going on by these financial institutions, those people deserve a serenade.
Illiterate: In your music I heard some ballads, but I also heard some pretty poignant callouts to people that you aren’t happy with. Do you think it’s possible for Love and Hate to exist at the same time?
Boots Riley: Well, when people are fighting for a better world sometimes you’re fighting against someone, but you’re doing that out of love, not necessarily love for the people oppressing you, but love for the people that are being oppressed and exploited and to people that express some power.
Illiterate: What are your plans with the rest of this tour and working with Tom Morello on projects in the future?
Boots Riley: Well we have the song we did together tonight, the first one was called “100 Little Curses” its from our new group called Street Sweeper, which we’ve recorded the album for and that will be out in 2009, it’s gonna be big. There’s a bunch of songs that are even way better than that, and it will be but out by Epic Records, so it’s gonna be big.
Illiterate: If you could interview anyone who would it be?
Boots Riley: Prince
Illiterate: Why Prince?
Boots Riley: Because Prince is the shit!
Illiterate: How important do you think it is to dance when you’re in a time of depression?
Boots Riley: It’s not something I think about whether it’s important or not, it’s just being able to express your emotion and that’s done through dance too. So it’s important to be able to express yourself to be able to tune in to the particular second we’re in right now.
Illiterate: Is there someone you have a particular ambiguous relationship with right now, where you love to hate it and hate to love it, potentially both at the same time?
Boots Riley: 30 Rock!
….
Illiterate says goodbye to Boots and rejoins MTV and Tom Morello’s interview:
Tom Morello:… (laughing) He was my hero growing up! I’m like I’d vote for the Reverand Wright, Bill Ayers ticket!
.jpg "Ryan Riss | November 4 - October 28, 2011")
