Evil Ways

An exclusive lesson with Rage Against the Machine’s Tom Morello

By Andy Aledort

High-pitched squeals; deep, low-end bone crunching; whammy bar insanity; staccato jabs of white noise-these are but a handful of the incredible sounds that spew forth nightly from the guitar of Rage Against the Machine’s Tom Morello. If you think you’ve heard it all and that the sonic possiblities of the electric guitar have long been tapped out, then you haven’t heard Morello. Like his predecessors Pete Townshend and Jimi Hendrix, Morello has taken the status quo and turned it on its head. In but a few short years, he has destroyed all prior notions of what sounds can be achieved with an electric guitar and a handful of stomp boxes.

“I’ve always been attracted to guitarists who intuitively understand that the electric guitar is a relatively recent invention,” says Morello. “The guitar shouldn’t be trapped by the parameters of what has been done up to this point. It took a while for me to realize that I should concentrate on the eccentricities in my playing and find my own voice. Otherwise, it’s like being a hamster in a wheel-practicing endlessly in order to sound like a third-rate Yngwie Malmsteen.”

In 1992, Rage’s eponymous debut introduced the world to the band’s then unique-and now highly influential-blend of hip-hop, rap and Zep/Sabbath heavy metal. And while all four of Rage’s members-including vocalist extraordinaire Zack de la Rocha, bassist Timmy C. and drummer Brad Wilk-are very talented in their own right, the core of the band’s music is most certainly Morello’s endlessly inventive guitar playing.

GUITAR WORLD: You are known for creating an incredible wealth of bizarre sounds, both live and in the studio. What is your basic setup?

MORELLO: I use the same exact setup live and in the studio: a 50-watt JCM 800 Marshall 2205 with channel switching, circa 1987, matched with a Peavey 4x12 cabinet. I have no idea what model it is or what’s in it, because I took all of the information off it years ago. Where I come from-Libertyville, Illinois-all of the basements were filled with Peavey gear, and it took me a while to embrace my suburban Peavey heritage. I’ve used this setup for the last eight years, for every Rage show and recording we’ve ever done.

All of the effects I use go through the effects loop in the back of the amp, in this order: Cry Baby wah-wah, DigiTech Whammy pedal, DOD delay pedal, an EQ pedal-set “flat” and just used as a signal boost for solos and particularly rocking moments-and an Ibanez flanger.

GW: When recording, do you use a variety of guitars on each track, or do you stick to just one?

MORELLO: I’ll usually use just one, or maybe two. For Evil Empire all of the basic tracks were done with whatever guitar I used on that given song.

GW: Is there one main guitar that you used for most of the new songs?

MORELLO: For all of the songs that are played in standard tuning, I use the blue “Arm the Homeless” guitar that I’ve used for years. It’s a complete mongrel, made from spare parts. It was originally made for me by Performance Guitars, and I hated everything about it! (laughs) Not only did they rip me off, but there was not a thing about the guitar that I liked. The only thing that remains from the original guitar is the body. It’s a Strat shape, and now it has EMG pickups.

For the songs played in “dropped D” tuning (where the low E string is detuned one whole step to D), I use a groovy little guitar that I found in a Toronto pawn shop. It cost about $80 Canadian, and it’s like a department store guitar. I saw it hanging on the wall, and it spoke to me. It said, “I will be involved in the future of your music!” (laughs) It’s so hideous, and it weighs about one ounce. I don’t know what make it is, but they told me that it’s probably made by a company called Creamy. Someone painted over the headstock, so I don’t know for sure.

GW: Where can you hear it on Evil Empire?

MORELLO: On the song “Tire Me.” I thought the appropriate match for that guitar would be my 20-watt solid-state practice amp, so that’s what you’re hearing on that. It sounds pretty wild. The wiring in that guitar is completely screwed up and allows for a lot of beautiful possibilities.

GW: Do you still use your old, trusty Telecaster?

MORELLO: Oh yeah. It’s a stock black early-Eighties Telecaster that was given to me by an old roommate. He was in a band called Liquid Jesus. We swapped; I gave him a Marshall head, and he gave me the guitar.

Ibanez was nice enough to make me a guitar that is based on their Talman model. It has a locking tremolo, but it also has a “Hipshot”-type switch on the tuning peg for the low E that enables me to switch instantly to “dropped D.” It has single-coil, “lipstick”-type pickups in it. That’s the third main guitar, with the mongrel and the Tele. The $80 Creamy guitar is more of a novelty.

GW: What attracts you to the hip-hop-meets-Black Sabbath blend you do in Rage Against the Machine?

MORELLO: For me, it’s the juxtaposition of the hugeness of the riffs with the depth of the grooves, combined with the political impact of the lyrics. Rage is a band that stands proudly in the domain of bands like the MC5 (the proto-punk and heavily political Detroit-based band of the late Sixties), the Clash and Public Enemy. The MC5 were one of the first overtly “revolutionary” bands, and I found that to be extraordinary and inspirational.

Rage Against the Machine’s music is an exclusive product of the band’s chemistry. It’s very fortunate that the four of us happened to find each other to create this band. This is music that casts its nets wide. Our audiences have hip-hop, hardcore punk and heavy metal contingents, all of whom find elements of our music attractive. For a band like ours, one with a revolutionary outlook, it’s great that we can address different groups of people with our music and crash down the barriers that separate different genres of music. Those barriers are completely artificial, anyway. Being at a Rage show is a little like being at a Public Enemy show and a Metallica show at the same time.

When the band originally got together and wrote the first batch of songs, many of which appear on the first album, we knew we liked the music, but we had no idea how people would respond to us, in terms of the music itself as well as the lyrics. But at the first couple of shows we played, the response was amazing. I had never seen a crowd respond so well to what was then a completely unknown band.

One of our first big gigs was opening for the band Tool, who are good friends of ours. At the time they were the “cresting” band in Los Angeles, so we were able to play for fairly large, enthusiastic crowds. Right away, the music connected with the audience in a way that I had never anticipated.

GW: Did you ever have doubts that you could be successful playing this type of music?

MORELLO: We never really cared about that. We never though we’d get a record deal; we played this music because it was satisfying, personally. Because there were no calculations with regard to trying to fit into a particular scene, the band came across as something that was fresh.

I always loved the huge riffs of Led Zeppelin and Black Sabbath, but, with few exceptions, I though the lyrical content was lacking. I mean, some of that mystical, Celtic “goblin lore” is a bit much (laughs). . .it didn’t have much to do with my suburban existence! Then there’s Public Enemy, who are lyrically brilliant and totally radical. To me, that was the missing element, and we cross-bred those two ingredients in a way that felt very natural.

GW: How do you feel about Faith No More and the Red Hot Chili Peppers, two bands who combined elements of rap/hip-hop and heavy metal/funk in the late Eighties?

MORELLO: I have nothing but the utmost respect for both of those bands. The whole climate of popular music has changed so dramatically since then. One of the things that was so radical about those bands was that they were combining elements of black music-overtly funky, George Clinton/Parliament-style rhythms-with elements of hard rock and punk rock. That was absolute commercial suicide! At that time, the color barrier was insurmountable. That is something that both of those bands should be commended for.

Those bands, as well as Living Colour, are owed a huge debt by bands today that try to deal with cross-genre music. Living Colour was a band that was finally able to bury the ghost of Jimi Hendrix, who, great as he may have been, has haunted every brown-skinned guitar player who has come along since he died. Living Colour made it acceptable for African-Americans to play in rock bands without people shouting for “Foxy Lady.”

GW: Well, that’s better than being white and having people constantly shout out for “Free Bird.”

MORELLO: (laughs) That’s probably true!

GW: Who are your biggest influences as a guitarist?

MORELLO: The chief influence on my playing is my background and upbringing. The way I play has everything to do with 18 years of suburban angst finally leeching its way through the pickups! The guitar players I admire most are those who use the guitar less as a musical instrument and more as a “divining rod.” To search for sounds, textures. . .or horrible spirits, (laughs) and pull them through the speakers! Jimmy Page is a good example of that, and he was probably more of an influence than even Hendrix was. Later on, it was Andy Gill from Gang of Four.

GW: How did you develop some of the unusual techniques that typify your guitar playing?

MORELLO: A favorite technique of mine involves flicking the toggle switch back and forth between two pickups, one of which is off and the other of which is on full. In this way, I use the toggle switch as a “kill” switch, to momentarily shut off the guitar sound completely.

I first stumbled across this technique when I was in college and was saddled with an Ibanez Destroyer guitar. While everyone else was playing those one-knob/one-pickup, Eddie Van Halen-type guitars, I was playing a guitar with many, many knobs! Very unhip at the time. I figured, “Well, I got this thing, so I might as well use some of these knobs.” This guitar had a volume control for each pickup and a toggle switch. I was screwing around with the switch, using a wah pedal and playing way too loud in my dorm room when my next-door neighbor came in and said, “Did you get a synthesizer?!” A little light bulb went off in my head-maybe I was on to something.

GW: What are some early examples of this toggle switch technique?

MORELLO: On the first record, you can hear it on “Bullet in the Head.” During the verse there’s this “Farfisa organ” sound, which is a combination of a couple of simple elements. Here I’m manipulating sheets of white noise, using the Whammy pedal and the toggle switch together. I was really excited by the prospect of playing hip-hop music within the context of a punk rock band, and I wasn’t going to make any excuses for there not being a DJ! At that time, my chief influences were Terminator X and Jam Master J, and I was determined to recreate the record scratching, DJ stuff-those rich, bizarre textures-on my guitar.

The Whammy pedal can be used as a harmonizer, and it also has a feature where it recreates what you play two octaves higher. At first I though that setting sounded horrible, but later I loved it. On “Bullet,” the Whammy is set to two octaves up, while the pedal is depressed all the way forward, which means that everything you play comes out two octaves higher. I hit one giant power chord composed entirely of open strings, with the toggle switch set to the pickup that’s off. I then switch back and forth between the pickup that’s on and the pickup that’s off to create the rhythmic pattern of white noise. Then I drop the pitch of the white noise by depressing the vibrato bar. The open strings are restruck at the beginning of each phrase. My left hand is manipulating the toggle switch, and my right hand is depressing the bar. The Whammy pedal stays full-forward the whole time.

GW: There’s a high-pitched bird noise about 45 seconds into “Bullet.”

MORELLO: The Whammy is still set at two octaves up, and I’m playing the harmonic at the 7th fret on the G string, which produces a high D. With the toggle switch set to the pickup that’s off, I pick the note, then switch the toggle to the pickup that’s on, simultaneously swooping up with the vibrato bar.

GW: How do you play the normal-sounding guitar part that kicks in at 0:56?

MORELLO: Before playing that part, I roll the Whammy pedal all the way back, which defeats it. Rolling the Whammy back sounds a little different than turning it off completely. It still fucks with the sound a little when it’s rolled back. I like that sound a lot and use it for other specific things.

GW: How is the sound affected when it’s rolled back?

MORELLO: It affects the other effects, but how depends on what’s on and what’s off. The most dramatic example of this has to do with the way I’ve been playing the “Bullet” solo live. The solo starts with me pulling the plug out of the guitar and touching it to the metal edge of the jack socket. While doing this, I’m manipulating the tone by rocking the wah-wah pedal, and I repeatedly touch the plug against the socket to create rhythms. The overall tone, though, is dramatically affected by the Whammy pedal being on. I don’t know how-I just know that it does!

I learned a very hard lesson regarding this technique at the reading Festival in ‘93. The Whammy pedal was turned off instead of just rolled back, so when I pulled the plug out and touched it to the metal, instead of getting this massive wall of white noise I got a short, dull thud. Absolutely dead in the water! And I’m thinking, “This is going to be a very difficult recovery!” (laughs) I had to sheepishly plug the guitar back in and act like I knew what I was doing.

This wasn’t just in front of the massive crowd that was there; this was broadcast live to all of Europe, and all of the rock fans were with me on that solo as the cameras zoomed in!

GW: Did you use this technique for the solo on the record?

MORELLO: No, I did something completely different there. That solo is doubletracked, with one guitar playing the lick on the low E string and the other guitar playing the same lick on the high E string. Each attack is sounded by hammering on with the middle finger of the left hand while toggling in the same rhythm. I also use the wah-wah to manipulate the tone.

After that weird descending lick, I play a riff based on E minor-pentatonic.

GW: On Evil Empire, there’s a wild, record scratching effect on the song “Bulls on Parade.” How did you get it?

MORELLO: Like I got the white noise sound on “Bullet.” I’m relying on ol’ Mister Toggle Switch, toggling back and forth, and the noise is generated by rubbing the strings up and down with my left hand (a complete transcription of “Bulls on Parade” appears in the June 1996 issue of Guitar School). There’s no intelligence behind this; the pitches are all incidental. There are no effects used at all.

GW: One of the heaviest tunes on Evil Empire is “Down Rodeo.”

MORELLO: That was the last tune we did for the album. We finished it while we were in Melbourne, Australia. It’s pretty rockin’! I’m glad we got that one on there.

When we shift to the big, heavy riff, I’m using the Whammy pedal as an octave divider to double the lick one octave lower than it’s played. This is the same technique that appears on “Bulls on Parade.” There are two guitar tracks: on one I’m playing the lick normally, and on the overdubbed one, I’m playing the same lick, but with the octave pedal recreating the notes one octave lower. Those two guitar parts are then blended together in the mix.

GW: Before the verse kicks in, there’s this “bip-bip-bip-bip” thing. How did you do that?

MORELLO: By smacking all of the strings against the bridge pickup repeatedly, in that 16th-note rhythm, by pushing them down with the fingers of my right hand.

GW: How is the verse figure to “Down Rodeo” played?

MORELLO: It couldn’t be more simple; it’s all hammer-ons, played in the 14th position. I’m using a Tone Bender distortion pedal, which is giving me some feedback and sustain.

GW: Right after that figure, you shift to a nice suspended chord figure, which leads to the second verse.

MORELLO: That’s an interesting chord; I’m not even sure of its name. The song then shifts back to the main heavy lick.

GW: Another great tune from the first record is “Know Your Enemy.” How do you play that intro?

MORELLO: That’s another toggle switch deal. On the record, I’m also using the Whammy pedal, set to harmonize all of the notes a fifth higher. I tried to play the figure in root/fifth chords, without using the harmonizer, but that was just a nightmare because it’s so fast. My left hand was falling off! Trying to hammer-on the two-note chords in time, while toggling for each one, was too difficult, so now I hammer-on single notes while toggling for each one.

GW: The beginning of the solo on that tune reminds me a bit of Adrian Belew (ex-Frank Zappa, King Crimson, Talking Heads).

MORELLO: I am a fan of Adrian Belew’s guitar playing, but he couches it in those pop songs that I find almost unlistenable. I’d love to hear him in the context of something more aggressive. I remember hearing some good “pachyderm” guitar from him, though-those wild rhinoceros sounds. That stuff’s groovy.

GW: For the fast part of the solo, are you playing at the same speed that we hear the riffs?

MORELLO: Yes. The Whammy is on there, still harmonizing up a fifth. The pedal gives the notes a strange, metallic, taste-of-aluminum-in-your-mouth sort of quality.

The beauty of the Whammy pedal is that it doesn’t sound “good.” It doesn’t track perfectly, and it produces a lot of extraneous noises and weirdness, but that’s exactly what I love about it.

GW: On the next part (3:41), you sound like Jon Lord of Deep Purple.

MORELLO: (laughs) That’s all hammer-ons, still using the Whammy to harmonize notes up a fifth. It’s really just ascending chord shapes, moving from A to Bm to C#.

GW: Aside from being such a sonic experimentalist, you’ve logged many hours practicing scales and studying music theory. Do you feel that you gained a lot from all of the conventional practicing you did in your early days?

MORELLO: Oh, absolutely. It’s all stops on the same road. I wouldn’t be where I am now in my thinking and playing if I hadn’t put time in studying scales and working on basic technique. I still like to sit at home and jam with my old Al Di Meola records! Guitar World June 1996