The band who frightened Tom Morello: “I listened to it and I was shocked”
In general, the harder the pearls are clutched, the more powerful a punk music movement is. Because at its most potent, punk music should frighten and provoke the otherwise easily offended parts of society.
Some of the greatest bands in history have all achieved this and taken the slander thrown their way as the highest form of praise. Iggy Pop had parents pulling their children from his shows, the Ramones had a generation of disillusioned youngsters ready to smash the system, and well, the Sex Pistols offended the most sacred of all, British royalty.
That fearless desire to express their true self garnered fans and enemies in equal measures, and whether they were liked or not, there was no denying their influence. But despite the colloquialism of their lyrics, their influence managed to extend across the pond and inform a rap-rock movement that would start just over a decade later.
A young Tom Morello of Rage Against The Machine recalls first seeing Sex Pistols in a magazine and “being literally frightened about the fact that they existed. It felt like a threat somehow, almost as though I might be harmed by their existence.”
He continued to explain how ‘Anarchy In The UK’ in particular, formed his idea of punk as a whole and how societal anger could be manifested into a musical form. He said, “I couldn’t believe there was music like that. It instantly compelled me to want to be in a band.”
He continued, “It gave me the revelation that a song could be that powerful without having the trappings I thought were necessary for great rock and roll. Until that song, I thought you needed to have a $10,000 Les Paul guitar, a castle on a Scottish loch, groupies, and a limousine – I truly thought that you had to have all that before you could make rock and roll music. I listened to it, and I was shocked to find that you don’t need any of that. You’re gonna make rock and roll music tomorrow, is what you’re going to do”.
Morello added, “That was a totally new way of looking at what one might say in a song. It made me think of the people in that band. There were thinkers in that band. There weren’t stars in that band. There were people that didn’t just have musical ability; they are people that have ideas, and I thought that was very appealing. It’s one of those songs, having heard it 90,000 times, it did its job when it needed to. The historical context of that song is what made it such a nuclear bomb.”
The influence is clear when you trace Morello’s career through to the point of his own stardom with Rage Against The Machine. It’s abundantly clear how democracy shaped his outlook on music.
Similar to the Sex Pistols, Rage were never about platforming one individual higher than the song, because they knew the lyrical and spiritual intent of their music was deeply revolutionary.
