| Tom Morello Talks About RATM's Future (From CDNOW.com) |
| Rage's Tom Morello Talks About The Band's Future Jan 11, 2001, 9:50 am PT When we caught Rage Against the Machine guitarist Tom Morello on the phone last week, following the announcement of the band's two Grammy nominations (allstar, Jan. 8), he was at the time on his way out the door to have pancakes with Rick Rubin, the man who produced RATM's latest album Renegades. Pancakes? "Yeah, we spend a lot of time having pancakes and scheming," says the hungry musician. "Actually, we're just figuring out the next single and video from Renegades." (Many radio stations are actually already playing Rage's version of Cypress Hill's "How I Could Just Kill a Man.") But that's not all that was on the pair's breakfast menu. "And the great singer expedition is underway," Morello says. "We have to figure that out. There's nothing to report, but there are some amazing leads. We have not yet even determined a way that we will make a determination [on a new singer], you know? But it's been pretty awesome to receive telephone calls from some of my favorite singers in the world, talking about what we might be doing." Morello declines to name any of the possible replacements for Zack De La Rocha that the band has been in contact with, but he does say that he and bassist Tim Commerford and drummer Brad Wilk feel little pressure to hurry up and find a new singer. "The only pressure is to do something that's great," he says, "and at the bare minimum lives up to the standards of the things that we've done in the past, and hopefully exceeds them. I think it's all a matter of having the kind of chemistry that's powerful, and maybe chemistry that's in a very different way for Rage Against the Machine." And what about that live album Rage recorded last year in Los Angeles? "I'm not sure when the live album is going to come out," said Morello. "We have to figure out our own plans for writing and recording, and then sort of see how the live record will fit into that, and when. We've had two studio albums out within the course of a year, and with a live record in the can, it's all not very Rage Against the Machine-like." So, not wanting to hold him from his pancake date any longer, we asked Morello if 2000 was a crazy year for the band, or what? "I don't know that 2000 was filled with any more highs and lows than any other year," he says with a laugh. "Rage Against the Machine has a lot of highs and a lot of lows in a lot of years, so it was just another year." -- Troy J. Augusto |