Tom Morello

STILL RAGING

What music are you currently grooving to?

I do a lot of hiking at night, and my playlist has been mostly an acoustic one – a blend of Steve Earle, Ben Harper, a little Billy Bragg, Bob Dylan and Bruce Springsteen.

What, if push comes to shove, is your all-time favourite album? London Calling by The Clash. Spanish Bombs is a beautiful, poetic history lesson, but Clampdown resonates today of creeping protofascism. I remember hearing that lyric, “you grow up and you calm down”, and it was like, “That’s never gonna fucking be me, man!”

What was the first record you ever bought? And where did you buy it? Kiss’s Destroyer, at the local grocery store. They looked like superheroes and they sounded like Sabbath – a very intoxicating cocktail for an 11 or 12-year-old. Dropping the needle on Detroit Rock City was cinematic.

Which musician, other than yourself, have you ever wanted to be? I would say Joe Strummer on one end, proving the key to making a global connection is to speak honestly in your music and to really mean it. And then Randy Rhoads. [His guitar-playing] was a great combination of improvisational fury and studied ability. You could study his songs in a collegelevel musicology course or bang your head to it in the parking lot of a heavy metal concert, and that appealed to me.

What do you sing in the shower? The recurring song is The Ghost Of Tom Joad, the collaborative version with Bruce Springsteen.

What is your favourite Saturday night record?

My Saturday nights used to be very different before I had kids, but we had some great disco dance parties during lockdown. Me and the kids and the grandmas, and it’ll be Commodores and Donna

Summer. Kids are on the trampoline bouncing around to YMCA. There’s nothing like that.

And your Sunday morning record? I’ve been going back and enjoying

Peter Gabriel records. I love Mercy Street and Here Comes The Flood. They’re beautiful songs.