Tom Morello recently interviewed with Drowned in Sound. The interview focused on politics, and Morello revealed that if he were President, his first action would be to change the National Anthem.
Morello had much, much more to say about politics and the current administration:
So there are no players involved with any idealist, romanticised principles similar to Ralph Nader's, say, who give off even a remote scent of possibility in a democratic context?
Not really. We basically have a one party system here, where there's one corporate party with two shades of indifference [laughs]. One party's maybe a little bit more honest in their willingness to ravage the planet for profit and the other one's just kind of sad and weak - and those are the choices we have every four years, so I'm not willing to sit back and just hope for the best. I think that it's our job to just keep fighting for a future that's not as dim as the one that they would shove down our throats.
Say that infrastructure was gone. Picture this scene from a parallel universe: Morello and the Axis of Justice take over the Oval Office and all the old oil tycoons are out on their arses. What's first on the agenda?
In my country? The first thing we'd do is immediately change the national anthem to Woody Guthrie's ‘This Land Is Your Land'. I think that's an important first step - a country needs the right song and with that great class war anthem of Woody Guthrie's we would restore the censored verses that they didn't teach you in the third grade. That, I think, would be the first order of business and that would definitely set us on the right path.
And outside, on the Whitehouse lawn, or on the pavement of Downing Street, there's a bill of politically charged musicians and speakers from across time taking to the bandstand. Who would you put up there to inspire the masses?
My ideal line up? Well you certainly couldn't do any better than having Joe Strummer in any incarnation headlining the bill. Commandant Joe is always my favourite vote as someone who really walked it like he talked it, so he would definitely headline the bill. I think, as far as speakers go, I always enjoy hearing what Nelson Mandela has to say... talk about someone who walked it like he talked it, from spending 25-plus years in jail to becoming the leader of a free South Africa. I don't think there's any more inspirational a story than that guy's.
As far as One Man Revolution goes, there's a strong influence from guys like Billy Bragg, Joe Strummer and Bruce Springsteen. How did you come to narrow down the sound to match the Nightwatchman persona?
I've always been a fan of heavy music and I've always been a fan of rebel music and it only dawned on me in more recent years that you don't need a huge wall of Marshall stacks to be heavy. Sometimes the right lyrical couplet can be more cutting than a barrage of guitar overdubs.
You can read the entire interview here. That Joe Strummer thing is probably not going to work out, but nevertheless, you have to give Morello credit. Though not everyone will agree with his opinions, he has done his research and knows what he's talking about. Personally, I disagree with him on the National Anthem; I think we need to take Radiohead's "National Anthem" as our new anthem. That song rocks. I know Radiohead is British, but hey, so was America at one point.
