Tom Morello names the greatest frontman of all time

Credit: Raph PH

A collection of Tom Morello’s favourite songs

Wed 21 September 2022 11:00, UK

Tom Morello, the innovative guitarist known for his tenure with Rage Against the Machine in the early 1990s, has branched out over the past three decades into countless collaborations visiting a host of styles and genres. As he formed close collaborations with the likes of Bruce Springsteen, Eddie Vedder, Ben Harper and Ollie Sykes, Morello’s understanding of rock history grew from strength to strength.

Morello’s introduction to rock music was mainly through listening to classic hard rock groups like Led Zeppelin, Black Sabbath, Iron Maiden, Kiss and Alica Cooper. In the early 1980s, Morello formed his first serious band called the Electric Sheep, in which he was joined by future Tool guitarist Adam Jones on bass.

Through the 1980s and into his time under the Rage limelight, Morello adhered to a distinctively heavy guitar style with heavy headbanging riffs aplenty. This aggressive sound perfectly framed the politically charged subject matter by which he and many of his early bandmates and collaborators became identified.

Keeping heavy rock at heart, Morello has broadened his horizons over the past few decades to welcome a host of influences, old and new. Speaking with Line of Best Fit in 2021, Morello explained how his infatuation and eventual friendship with Bruce Springsteen opened pivotal doorways for him in the musical world.

“I came to Bruce Springsteen quite late, during the heyday of Born in the USA, I was on a different path, and I didn’t really understand him as an artist. The first time I saw him perform was at the Amnesty International ‘Sting & Friends’ concert in 1988, which was shown on HBO. It was in a soccer stadium in Argentina, and it completely blew my mind; I cried during the show. I thought he was a pop artist, but he was such a powerful performer, and it made me feel like there was hope in the world again.

“I went out the next day, and I bought [1978 album] Darkness on the Edge of Town, and it felt as though he was from the same small town that I was, we shared things in those lyrics: we both have father issues, being trapped in a town that hates you, etc.”

After finding a spiritual bond with Springsteen and a deeper understanding of his music, he began to open his mind further. “His acoustic album, The Ghost of Tom Joad, was really one of the principal things that pushed me to begin writing acoustic music,” Morello continued. “It helped me dig back into Dylan and Woody Guthrie and Phil Ochs and Pete Seeger and that long tradition of acoustic protest music.”

Where, previously, Morello’s inspiration for politically oriented music came from his adoration for classic British punk groups like Sex Pistols and The Clash, he began to see the same direction through softer conduits, namely acoustic folk music.

Singling out Springsteen’s ‘The Ghost of Tom Joad’ as a particular favourite, Morello indeed: “It kick-started a second, very vibrant life for me as an artist – making four records, touring the world, playing on every picket line and barricade – I can attribute that in some significant measure to the acoustic song ‘The Ghost of Tom Joad’, but I chose this for the electric song.”

In 2008, Morello was invited to make two guest appearances on Bruce Springsteen’s tour with The E Street Band at the Honda Center in Anaheim. One of the songs Morello played with Springsteen was ‘The Ghost of Tom Joad’, a song he had previously covered with Rage Against the Machine on their 2000 album Renegades. Since then, Morello has made frequent appearances on Springsteen’s studio projects, including a re-recording of ‘The Ghost of Tom Joad’ for 2012’s Wrecking Ball.

Below, we have collated a list of songs Tom Morello has singled out as favourites across several interviews. The mixture of tracks illustrates the guitarist’s key pools of influence alongside some of his own songs and collaborations that he holds close to heart as defining career milestones.