“Fundamental”: the guitarist that changed Tom Morello’s entire career
Every guitarist’s journey is unique. Whether trained through classical methods and graded exams or self-taught by devouring YouTube tutorials, a guitarist’s ear, perception, and approach to melody are inherently subjective. Even players who share the same influences will interpret and apply them differently. However, one common thread unites all guitarists: that pivotal moment when the proverbial penny drops with a resounding clang, and everything suddenly makes sense. This transformative experience is a defining moment in the story of every great guitarist, including Rage Against the Machine’s Tom Morello.
There’s no doubt that Morello is not just one of the most distinctive players of his generation but among the most influential, too. While some might find his heavy use of the Digitech Whammy in solos fairly ridiculous through today’s ever-self-serious lens, his grooving fusion of metal, hard-rock, alt, and funk ballasted his band’s righteous charge. He provided a perfect glue between Zack De La Rocha’s furious bars and Tim Commerford and Brad Wilk’s rhythm section of such dynamism that I’d argue that in their pomp, they were up there with other great duos such as John Bonham and John Paul Jones, and Flea and Chad Smith.
It’s fascinating that, despite the punk spirit of Rage Against the Machine and the hard-edged nature of many of their songs, Tom Morello is also a devoted fan of metal—particularly the kind that dominated the 1970s and 1980s. His influences include legendary acts like Led Zeppelin, Rush, Kiss, Iron Maiden, Black Sabbath, and, perhaps most significantly, Randy Rhoads, the late Ozzy Osbourne guitarist. Rhoads’ fusion of neoclassical techniques with metal left an indelible mark on Morello’s development as a player. Interestingly, aside from early Sabbath, most of these bands are the antithesis of punk’s ethos and raw musical character, highlighting Morello’s diverse inspirations.
While Morello was greatly influenced by the punk philosophy and much of its music, he always brought a metallic edge to Rage Against the Machine. This wasn’t just influenced by the acts he has praised so openly over the years, either. One day, he met another neoclassical player, who taught him some valuable skills that would feed into some of his best work in the future.
Growing up in Illinois, Morello was a primarily self-taught guitarist. However, he would sometimes take himself to a guitar shop in Highland Park when he was left stumped by a song he couldn’t figure out, and a kindly hippie stoner teacher would show him his way around Alice Cooper and Black Sabbath licks.
Speaking to Total Guitar in 2021, Morello recalled a fateful day when the old hippie was off sick. When he got there, he got sent into a room with the other teacher, a pre-fame Michael Angelo Batio, the future Nitro guitarist, who would become celebrated for his neoclassical approach and, typical of the nature of the era, find fame for his outlandish quad guitar. They only had this one lesson, but Batio sat the young Morello down and instructed him to play some leads that he scrambled his way through. It was a challenging but significant experience.
Batio told him it sounded like he wanted to play fast, but he didn’t know how. After he was informed he was correct in his supposition, Batio wrote down a series of exercises, which Morello described as “fundamental picking exercises using quadruplets and triplets in different modes.”
Explaining what happened and how this affected him moving forward, Morello said: “He forced me to start slow and said once I had mastered the exercise, I could click the metronome up by one and eventually move on. I believed what he told me and it was a lesson that changed my life and led me to able to play solos like Take The Power Back and #1 Zero many years later.”
Every guitarist has that one moment. There are many songs of Morello’s that can be traced back to it, and not just the ones he listed. This connection might seem unbelievable, given the generally distinct sounds of his main band and Batio’s work, but learning comes in all shapes and forms. Plus, Morello has always carried on the spirit of the metal pioneers that inspired him much more than the punk ones.
