Explore Quotes by Tom Morello

I named my son after Randy Rhoads - Rhoads Morello.

I grew up on misogynist, devil-worshipping heavy metal music, and then it was groups like The Clash and Public Enemy that reminded me that there were a different set of ideas that could be expressed with great music.

As a guitar player, I've been influenced by dance music - it was Crystal Method and The Prodigy back in the day. I would listen to those textures and try to approximate them on the electric guitar.

My music is - there's no litmus test, there's no political litmus test for listening to it - but I am never going to compromise one iota to satisfy with someone who's uncomfortable with the ideas I feel in my heart.

The one thing that Hendrix had that is unique among extraordinary guitar players is he had songs that were on the radio. His guitar genius was exposed to the masses by 'Foxy Lady.'

My one wish for humanity is that everyone can become the person they were meant to be - what are the barriers to that? Often it's crushing poverty or certain circumstances.

I saw 'Purple Rain' in the summer of '84, and, 'Spinal Tap' notwithstanding, it's the greatest rock & roll film of all time. There's so much Prince coming at you that you have to remind yourself he's also a breathtaking guitar player.

'Purple Rain,' the album, is a great guitar record.

I'm a Chicago Cubs fan. I grew up in Libertyville, Illinois, and attended my first game at Wrigley Field when I was four.

My parents met in Kenya. My father is African, is Kenyan. The Kenyan side of my family was involved in the anti-colonial movement.

In the salary-cap-free world of MLB, you get what you pay for... but only if you pay the most.

I am not the least bit surprised that injustice persists. I'm also not surprised that resistance to injustice persists.

With guitar, I'd always mixed more sounds that occur in hip-hop, or occur on Crystal Method records, or occur at the zoo - so I've never been sort of tethered or have limited myself to the traditional rock n' roll vocabulary.

When I moved to Hollywood, I was expecting it to be this Mecca of extraordinarily talented musicians, and it was instead the era of Faster Pussycat and bands that had an appeal, but I couldn't do anything like that. There's nothing in my being that can do anything like that.

I think that there are artists of different genres whose calling is to use their art to hope to affect and better the human condition - whether it's System of a Down, or Rage Against the Machine, or Public Enemy, or the Clash, Bruce Springsteen, or Pete Seeger. It's a group that I'm proud to be counted among.

There are many pop stars who are great performers - but there is no chart-topping pop star in history who could play guitar like Prince.

Baseball is a business. Sure, we fans are wistful dreamers who fantasize about glory on the diamond, but to the people who hold the purse strings, the Cubs win the economic World Series every year.

I was a fan of heavy music - first metal, then punk, then hip hop.

Paul Ryan's love of Rage Against the Machine is amusing, because he is the embodiment of the machine that our music has been raging against for two decades.

Music, I think, is best when it honestly explores personal demons, and it stirs around in the silt of the psyche to find out what's really there.

I've played hundreds of protests. I've marched on dozens of picket lines. I've strummed my guitar at innumerable demonstrations.