The album that convinced Tom Morello to form Audioslave: “That guy’s good”
Change is a constant of human existence, and it seems particularly unavoidable within the river rapids of the music industry, where bands break up as quickly as they form, and audiences move on without skipping a beat, leaving those newly unemployed musicians with a pretty tricky dilemma of what to do next.
Countless musicians over the course of music history have been presented with that very quandary. In many cases, they have thrown in the towel entirely, taking the break-up of their band as a sign from the universe to give up or, even worse, spend the rest of their lives trying to recapture that fleeting sound. The greatest artists, however, continue on to new climbs, and that is just what happened in the year 2000, when rap-rock heroes Rage Against The Machine decided to go their separate ways.
With their unending dedication to, as their name would suggest, rage, the band dominated the rock sound of America throughout much of the 1990s, with tracks like ‘Killing In The Name’ becoming iconic of the political struggles going on in the nation throughout that decade and beyond. Inevitably, then, their sudden departure, following Zack de la Rocha’s decision to leave, left a huge gaping hole in the American music scene.
What’s more, de la Rocha’s departure left his fellow bandmates unemployed, and Tom Morello, along with Tim Commerford and Brad Wilk, had formed the backbone of Rage’s sound, but they could hardly carry on without their frontman, so they were left with the choice to go their separate ways forever or find another frontman worthy of their output.
In the end, their decision was made in no small part thanks to Rick Rubin. Having produced Renegades, which turned out to be the final Rage Against the Machine record, the legendary producer fostered a pretty close relationship with the band and, as Tom Morello recalled to Classic Rock in 2005, “When Zack left Rage, Tim and Brad spent a lot of time over at Rick’s house talking about what we were going to do.”
“Rick made the last Rage Against The Machine record, so he was in our lives a lot then,” the guitarist continued. “And one record we would listen to at top volume at Rick’s house was [Soundgarden’s] Badmotorfinger, and we’d go: ‘That guy’s good’.”
Chris Cornell was a born frontman and an incredible performer, so it is only logical that the former Rage Against the Machine gang found an affinity with him. Eventually, then, those discussions and listening sessions carved out the basis for the group’s next project, Audioslave.
Seeing Cornell step into de la Rocha’s former shoes, this newly established outfit became one of the greatest, if most unexpected, supergroups of the early 2000s, eventually striking upon an entirely new, expansive sound that was worlds apart from either Rage or Soundgarden.
We, as music fans, already have a lot to thank Rick Rubin for, whether it’s the late-career rediscovery of Johnny Cash or the hip-hop revolution of Def Jam. It would appear, however, that the formation of Audioslave also features on that list, with the added help of Soundgarden and their masterpiece of a 1991 album, Badmotorfinger.
