Thomas Baptist Morello was born on May 30,1964 and is an American guitarist, singer, songwriter, and political activist.
78 Facts About Tom Morello
2.
Tom Morello is best known for his tenure with the rap metal band Rage Against the Machine and with the rock band Audioslave.
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Between 2016 and 2019, Tom Morello was a member of the supergroup Prophets of Rage.
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Tom Morello was a touring musician with Bruce Springsteen and the E Street Band.
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Tom Morello co-founded Axis of Justice, which airs a monthly program on Pacifica Radio station KPFK in Los Angeles.
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Tom Morello attended Harvard University and earned a Bachelor of Arts degree from the Committee on Degrees in Social Studies.
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Tom Morello is best known for his unique and creative guitar playing style, which incorporates feedback noise, unconventional picking, and tapping, as well as heavy use of guitar effects.
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Tom Morello was ranked number 40 in Rolling Stone magazine's list of the "100 Greatest Guitarists".
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Thomas Baptist Tom Morello was born on May 30,1964 in Harlem, New York to parents Ngethe Njoroge and Mary Tom Morello.
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Tom Morello's mother was a schoolteacher from Marseilles, Illinois, who earned a Master of Arts at Loyola University, Chicago and traveled to Germany, Spain, Japan, and Kenya as an English language teacher between 1977 and 1983.
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Tom Morello's father participated in the Mau Mau Uprising and was Kenya's first ambassador to the United Nations.
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Tom Morello's aunt, Jemimah Gecaga, was the first woman to serve in the legislature of Kenya; and his uncle Njoroge Mungai was a Kenyan Cabinet Minister, Member of Parliament, and was considered one of the founding fathers of modern Kenya.
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Tom Morello's parents met in August 1963 while attending a pro-democracy protest in Nairobi, Kenya.
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Tom Morello was raised by his mother in Libertyville, Illinois and attended Libertyville High School, where his mother was a US history teacher.
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Tom Morello was the homeroom teacher for Morello's classmate and fellow guitarist Adam Jones, later of the band Tool.
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Tom Morello sang in the school choir and was active in the speech and drama clubs; a prominent role he played was that of Oberon in A Midsummer Night's Dream.
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Tom Morello developed left-leaning political proclivities early, and has described himself as having been "the only anarchist in a conservative high school", and has since identified as a nonsectarian socialist.
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Tom Morello wrote a piece headlined "South Africa: Racist Fascism That We Support" for the school alternative newspaper, The Student Pulse.
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Tom Morello graduated from high school with honors in June 1982 and enrolled at Harvard University as a political science student that autumn.
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Tom Morello graduated in 1986 with a Bachelor of Arts degree in social studies.
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Tom Morello moved to Los Angeles, where he supported himself, first by working as a stripper.
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From 1987 to 1988, Tom Morello worked in the office of United States Senator Alan Cranston ; however, this proved to be a negative experience for Tom Morello, who decided never to pursue a career in politics.
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Tom Morello had to compromise his entire being every day.
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Tom Morello had formed a band in the same year called the Electric Sheep, featuring future Tool guitarist Adam Jones on bass.
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Tom Morello wrote original material for the band that included politically charged lyrics.
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Tom Morello has said that he was profoundly influenced by Run-D.
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Tom Morello cited Black Sabbath guitarist Tony Iommi as one of his biggest influences as a riff writer.
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Tom Morello developed his own unique sound through the electric guitar.
29.
Lock Up had disbanded prior to Tom Morello forming Rage Against the Machine.
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In 1991, Tom Morello was looking to form a new band after Lock Up disbanded.
31.
Tom Morello was impressed by Zack de la Rocha's freestyle rapping and asked him to join his band.
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Tom Morello drafted drummer Brad Wilk, whom he knew from Lock Up, where Wilk unsuccessfully auditioned for a drumming spot.
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On December 17,2011, Tom Morello performed a live set for "Guitar Center Sessions" on DirecTV.
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On February 2,2019, Tom Morello made a guest appearance at the Foo Fighters pre-Super Bowl 53 concert in Atlanta, along with Zac Brown, for a cover of Black Sabbath's "War Pigs".
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Tom Morello appears on two songs on Springsteen's 2012 album Wrecking Ball.
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Tom Morello joined Springsteen, the E Street Band, and the Roots on Late Night with Jimmy Fallon to preview the album prior to its release.
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On December 4,2012, Tom Morello again joined Springsteen and the E Street Band for five songs during a concert in Anaheim.
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The material Tom Morello recorded with Springsteen appeared on Springsteen's 18th studio album, High Hopes, which was released in January 2014.
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Springsteen heavily credits Tom Morello as being a major inspiration for the album by saying he was "my muse" and "he pushed the rest of this project to another level".
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Tom Morello subsequently appeared alongside Springsteen and the E Street Band during a January 2014 appearance on Late Night with Jimmy Fallon and then on the ensuing High Hopes Tour which came to an end in May 2014.
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On September 21,2021 Tom Morello released a new song called "Let's Get The Party Started" featuring members of Bring Me the Horizon.
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Tom Morello followed this with the October 15,2021 release of his second solo album, The Atlas Underground Fire.
43.
In 1992, Tom Morello collaborated with hip-hop group Run-DMC on the song "Big Willie", which later appeared on their 1993 album, Down with the King.
44.
Tom Morello played lead guitar and produced on three tracks of Primus' 1999 studio album Antipop.
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Tom Morello recorded guitars along with Johnny Cash during his late career with American Recordings, which was released on Unearthed.
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Tom Morello was the executive producer of Anti-Flag's 2003 studio album The Terror State.
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Tom Morello played a short solo on the Benny Mason band song "Exodus IV".
48.
Tom Morello appears in Guitar Hero III: Legends of Rock as a "guitar boss" in a night club.
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In 2007, Tom Morello was a featured guitarist in the Mortal Kombat: Armageddon soundtrack, playing guitar for the Armory stage's battle music.
50.
Tom Morello is featured on the track "Shut 'Em Down" from the same album.
51.
On November 2,2010, Travis Barker and Tom Morello released a song alongside RZA and Raekwon of Wu-Tang Clan called "Carry It".
52.
Tom Morello was featured in the song "Opinion" in the eponymous debut album by Device, which was released in April 2013.
53.
Tom Morello is featured on Linkin Park's album The Hunting Party on the song "Drawbar", released on June 17,2014.
54.
Tom Morello plays the guitar solo of the song "Without End" on Anti-Flag's studio album American Spring released on May 26,2015.
55.
In March 2016, Tom Morello appeared with Knife Party and Pendulum as a guest at Ultra Music Festival Miami.
56.
On February 24,2019, Tom Morello appeared as a presenter at the 91st Academy Awards.
57.
On January 4,2021, Tom Morello teamed with DJ Free Leonard to urge President Trump to Free Leonard Peltier, by releasing the single "Traditional Way of Life" which contains poetry by Mr Peltier recorded while incarcerated.
58.
In February 2021, Tom Morello was featured on The Pretty Reckless song "And So It Went" on their album Death by Rock and Roll.
59.
Tom Morello has hosted his own weekly show, One Man Revolution, on the Lithium channel at SiriusXM.
60.
Tom Morello joined an additional weekly show March 2,2021, and an original podcast March 3,2021.
61.
On January 13,2023, Tom Morello was featured on Maneskin's single and music video for "Gossip".
62.
Tom Morello has appeared as himself in an array of documentary films; such as Sounds Like a Revolution, Iron Maiden: Flight 666, about heavy metal band Iron Maiden's Somewhere Back in Time World Tour and in Chevolution, an expose about the Guerrillero Heroico photo of Marxist revolutionary Che Guevara.
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Tom Morello was featured in the 2012 documentary film Let Fury Have the Hour by writer and director Antonino D'Ambrosio, where Tom Morello talks about world citizenship, creative activism and his support for workers' rights.
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Tom Morello contributed a written introduction to the 2016 edition of The Big Red Songbook, a compendium of wobbly protest music.
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In 2021, Tom Morello started publishing a regular newsletter in the The New York Times.
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Tom Morello borrowed a Vox AC30 amplifier from producer Brendan O'Brien for some tracks.
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Tom Morello frequently uses communist imagery, such as hammer and sickle stickers on his guitars, and Red star hats.
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Tom Morello's band has expressed support for guerrilla movements such as the Zapatista Army of National Liberation, Shining Path as well as social and political movements such as the Brazilian Landless Workers' Movement.
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Tom Morello is a member of the labor union the Industrial Workers of the World.
70.
On February 21,2011, Tom Morello organized and performed an acoustic concert in support of the protests over collective bargaining rights in Madison, Wisconsin.
71.
Tom Morello wrote an article in Rolling Stone about his experience.
72.
Tom Morello has played at many Occupy movements, including Occupy Wall Street as well as Occupy Los Angeles, San Francisco, Chicago, Seattle, Vancouver, British Columbia, Nottingham and Newcastle, England protests.
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Tom Morello has worked on numerous labor campaigns: the Guess sweatshop boycott; the LA janitors strike; the Taco Bell boycott; the southern California grocery workers strike and lockout; the Democratic Socialists of America Starbucks unionization campaign and others.
74.
Tom Morello was a strong supporter of the 2006 United States immigration reform protests around the US.
75.
On September 28,2006, Tom Morello was one of 400 protesters arrested protesting in support of immigrant hotel workers' rights, in what organizers called "the largest act of civil disobedience in the history of Los Angeles".
76.
Controversially, Tom Morello has on occasion expressed endorsement of the militant Peruvian communist organization Shining Path.
77.
Tom Morello is a longtime fan of both the Chicago Cubs of the MLB and the Los Angeles Rams of the NFL, Tom Morello named his son Roman in honor of longtime quarterback Roman Gabriel.
78.
Tom Morello uses heavily modified guitars from various manufacturers, with each guitar having different slogans written on them that was inspired by Woody Guthrie's "This Machine Kills Fascists" guitar.