GUITAR HEROES: TOM MORELLO

Thomas Baptiste Morello (born May 30, 1964) is a Grammy Award-winning American guitarist best known for his tenure with the bands Rage Against the Machine, Audioslave, his acoustic solo act The Nightwatchman, and his newest group, Street Sweeper Social Club. He was featured as one of the guitarists in Rolling Stone's "The Top 20 New Guitarists" article and was ranked #26 on Rolling Stone's list of the "100 Greatest Guitarists of All Time". He is also an outspoken political activist.

Morello was born on May 30, 1964, in Harlem, New York. His mother, Mary Morello, is of Irish and Italian descent. She was a teacher at Libertyville High School and was the homeroom teacher for Tom's classmate and fellow guitarist Adam Jones, of the band Tool. His father, Ngethe Njoroge, a Kenyan, was the country's first ambassador to the United Nations.

Morello grew up in Libertyville, Illinois,a suburb of Chicago. There he attended Libertyville High School. He sang in the school choir and was active in speech and drama club; a prominent role was Oberon in A Midsummer Night's Dream.

He showed his political leanings early. Morello has described himself as having been "the only anarchist in a conservative high school", but has since identified as a nonsectarian socialist. In the 1980 mock elections at LHS, he campaigned for a fictitious anarchist "candidate" named Hubie Maxwell, who came in fourth place. He also wrote a piece headlined "South Africa: Racist Fascism That We Support" for the school's alternative paper The Student Pulse.

Morello is famed for his guitar style, which consists of heavy metal/punk hybrid riffs and hip hop-inspired sounds. His guitar playing is also characterized by heavy use of guitar effects, such as delay, modulation, wah, harmonizers, distortion, feedback, and others in unique ways and combinations. The most recognizable effect in Morello's arsenal is the Digitech Whammy, which helps him create many of his sounds. Matthew Bellamy of the English band Muse has cited Morello as an influence, which can be heard in his use of pitch-shifting in solos.

To produce his alien guitar sounds, Morello chooses various effects pedals. During his tenure in RATM, he used a Dunlop Cry Baby, a Digitech WH-1 Whammy, a Boss DD-2 Digital Delay, a DOD EQ pedal (set flat and just used to boost the volume during guitar solos or particular rocking moments), and an Ibanez DFL Flanger. Around the time of The Battle of Los Angeles he added a Boss TR-2 Tremolo pedal (which can be heard on "Guerrilla Radio"). For Audioslave, Morello replaced the Ibanez Flanger with a MXR Phase 90. His amplifier of choice has always been a 50-watt Marshall JCM 800 2205 and a Peavey 4x12 cabinet. Though the Marshall is his amp of choice with Rage Against the Machine, he used a Vox AC30 combo amplifier for multiple overdubs on Audioslave's 'Revelations' album. While the Marshall amplifier has two channels, he only uses the overdrive channel, and simply turns down the volume on his guitar to get cleaner sounds.

In the studio, Morello uses the same setup for the bulk of the guitar tracks. For The Battle of Los Angeles, he also used a few other amps, such as a Line 6 as heard on the clean, spacey intro of "Mic Check", plus a Pignose mini-amp and a MusicMan "Twin" style amp. During the recording of Audioslave's last album Revelations Morello experimented with different amplifier setups. For the title track's solo he split his signal to his standard Marshall 2205 head and Peavey cabinet and a 100 watt Fender Bassman head and an Orange cabinet. With delay sent to one while the other is unaffected the sound is being "ping-ponged" between the two amplifiers. He also borrowed a VOX AC30 amplifier from producer Brendan O’Brien for some tracks.

GUITAR:

• Mongrel Custom, aka "Arm The Homeless" - Morello's most famous guitar, and his main guitar for standard tuning since 1991. The original guitar was a Kramer Pacer Imperial. Over time, Tom switched out parts from the guitar. The only thing that remains from the original guitar is the body. It has a metallic blue body with the words "Arm the Homeless" written on it in black and red magic marker, 4 Hippos (painted) on the front, one large hippo (upside down) painted on the back, and a hammer and sickle symbol sticker. Its neck is a 22 fret Performance Guitar neck with a rosewood board and a "banana" headstock; it has an EMG 81/EMG H set of pickups and a Ibanez Edge Floyd Rose Tremolo. The guitar is tuned to standard E.
• Fender Stratocaster, "Soul Power" - It has a black finish with white binding and a color-matched headstock. It also has a mirror pickguard, Ibanez Edge Floyd Rose Tremolo, a 2 way on/ off toggle switch wired as a kill switch, a Seymour Duncan Hotrails pickup in the bridge and Fender Noiseless pickups in the middle and neck positions. It has the words "Soul Power" on the top of the body in silver paint and is his main guitar in Audioslave for songs that are in standard E tuning.
• Fender Telecaster, "Sendero Luminoso" - A black stock 1982 Standard Telecaster, his main guitar for use in drop-D in Rage Against the Machine and Audioslave. He got this guitar in a trade with his room mate.
• Ibanez Artstar Hollowbody (Custom) - Made especially for Morello. Based on an old Vox Ultrasonic, it contains several on-board effects (wah, echo, dist, treble/bass boost) and is painted red and black paint. Used live on the song "Guerrilla Radio" by Rage Against the Machine but rarely seen anywhere else.
• Goya Rangemaster de Greco, "St. George Creamy" - Bought by Morello at a Canadian pawnshop for $60. It was modified with a Seymour Duncan hotrails pickup in the bridge position. A toggle switch was also added that is dead in the middle position, resulting in a "hummingbird chirp" when toggled. Used as a drop D guitar for some songs on the Rage Against The Machine record Evil Empire. Currently, it is tuned to drop B. Used in Rage Against the Machine, Audioslave and with the Street Sweeper Social Club.
• Ibanez Talman (Custom) - Has 3 single coil pickups, an Ibanez Lo-Pro Edge Floyd Rose Tremolo, and a killswitch. It has a custom Kenyan flag finish and it was used on "Revolver", "How I Could Just Kill a Man", and "Pistol Grip Pump" for Rage Against the Machine and "Exploder" for Audioslave. He owns a second talman in a cream finish with a tortoiseshell pickguard.
• Gibson EDS-1275 (Double Neck SG) - Tuned to drop-D on the 6-string neck, and only seen used live on "The Ghost of Tom Joad".
• Ovation Breadwinner - Tuned to standard E, used for "Ashes in the Fall" for Rage Against the Machine. Also used with a MusicMan amp and Tone Bender pedal to capture the Korean radio station audio heard at the end of "Sleep Now in the Fire." He owns 2 others and confines them to the studio because he thinks they look weird.
• Gibson "Budweiser" Les Paul - Used during the recording of Audioslave's third album "Revelations". He hated the Budweiser logo on the guitar and thus decided to burn it off in parking lot of the studio where he received it using a lighter. Afterwards the burn lines were filled with artwork. He liked the new appearance and modified the guitar with "Zebra" Dimarzio pickups.
• Gibson Les Paul Standard, #1 - orange burst finish. Tuned to drop-B for use in Audioslave.
• Gibson Les Paul Standard, #2 - Red finish. Rarely used live until Audioslave's Out of Exile tour where it was tuned to drop-D and only used for Soundgarden covers.
• Gibson Les Paul Standard, #3 - tobacco sunburst finish. Tuned to standard E and used in Street Sweeper Social Club. Can be seen in the music video for "100 little curses".
• James Trussart Steelcaster - A Telecaster style guitar with a body made in steel, finished with red star graphics over a holey front. Seen occasionally on the Rage Against the Machine reunion tour, Tom also owns one with polished finish that was used on early tours.
• "Whatever It Takes" guitar - A custom Ibanez Galvador nylon string acoustic guitar he uses during concerts as The Nightwatchman. Plain body with 'Whatever It Takes ((star))' left of the bridge.

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zuluwashere