@@manuelguillermotisocyupanq7618 Exactly. Most Americans buy into this lounge chair communist and his propaganda, with his che guevara t shirt and empty rhetoric, but you and I know he's nothing but a propagandist trying to pass as a real artist. He's just a commie piece of shit.
Tom Morello is the boutique amp, boutique pedal and exotic high end guitar industry’s worst nightmare!!! He embodies a “Shut up and PLAY” attitude that is extremely inspiring!!! I stopped tone chasing years ago. Great interview 👍🏽
@@bloobis_6814 dudes talking shit on a super-iconic amp. I almost guarantee that he doesn't realize how many albums the jcm800 has been used on. Likewise, I'm willing to bet that if he's into rock n roll, he enjoys a lot of albums that utilized this amp.
Switchcraft actually custom made toggle switches for Morello there for a while. Morello said that the typical Fender telecaster and old Radio Shack switches would wear out in just a few shows so he started having them custom made with more heavier components
Personally, I like mine kinda high like Tom does. To me, it just makes it easier on your wrists when you're not reaching way down there and then trying to bar the strings. Plus, I don't have monster sized hands like Gilbert, Buckethead, Vai, and some of these other freaks of nature that have hands the size of Texas.
A big part of the "heaviness" of Morello's riffs is the lack of low end thickness in his tone. It gets him out of Tim Commerford's way so that the bass and guitar blend together to make 1 super huge sound.
Holy crap, that is so damn liberating... to just basically say to yourself, "This is it, I'm no longer going to continue to spend time and effort (and money) to chase after tone. This gear I have, the tone I have now IS going to be my tone. From this point on 100% of my time and effort is going to be about playing." That approach to tone is something that has never occurred to me. It seems like I've always tried to sound like, well, several players all wrapped into one tone, all the while tweaking knobs and settings, buying new gear, adjusting pickup heights, trying out different strings, etc...In one statement from Tom I'm now thinking that I'm done with all that, time to just play!!
@@cameronfarris7171 That mindset stayed with me for a several months before me deciding to try new gear, which lasted a few years. I then got new gear again about 1.5 years ago. I don't tweak anymore, the current setup I have is the best I've ever played through and don't see a need to change anything anytime soon, if ever.
It's super interesting how the artists think out of the box but the internet "pros" are always shitting rules. "You can't play heavy stuff on a single coil strat" "you can't use this pedal after/before" etc.
Cause the "internet pros" are full of shit. I followed this one guy on Instagram who shit all over active bass pickups and said bass players should never use them EVEN THOUGH LES CLAYPOOL, FLEA, RUDY SARZO, TIM COMMERFORD, PIGGY D, VICTOR WOOTEN and a plethora of other bass players use EMG/active pickups. Internet pros can suck my ass. Update: to be fair, I have and still learn from watching other bass players on RU-vid. People who post well made covers of songs I wanna learn or employ the right techniques at the right time really help myself and other bass players out, but beyond that "internet pros" who give you "pro tips" are the ones full of shit. You're your greatest teacher. Experience is priceless. do gigs, give the songs justice, learn from your mistakes and what it really takes to put on a good performance. That shit you cant learn from a video.
Yep. "No buffers before a Fuzz". It might be true for many germanium fuzz face pedals, but I've tried a Booster/Buffer in front of silicon and hybrid Ge/Si Fuzzes with no problems. A buffer *after* a BC183 Fuzzface can sound rad. And every modulation, except for chorus (but not always) sounds better before gain imo. Rotary being the main exception. I love heavy sounds with Teles and P90-equipped axes. There are no rules, no hard & fast answers - only better questions. I discovered *the* heaviest sound by running a treble booster>Big Muff>Compressor. But you can't run Compressors after gain! Poppycock, says I.
After watching the rig rundown on J. Mascis....holy shit. Mascis has like 20 pedals running through two different kinds of amps simultaneously and Tom Morello's guitar sound destroys his. It was shocking enough that Jimmy Eat World use so many pedals they store them off stage.
And the model of that "single coil disguised as a humbucker" is the EMG H (if you're interested: www.emgpickups.com/guitar/humbucking/active-humbucking/h.html) Edit: Also for bonus points, Tom's bridge pickup on Arm the Homeless is the EMG 85 (www.emgpickups.com/guitar/humbucking/active-humbucking/85.html)
A few bands do actually. As Cities Burn uses one and they maintain a heavier sound with the bass. Circa Survive, if you consider them heavy, use them. If you want a heavy sound that's not as muddy, a tele is a way to go.
I grew up absolutely idolizing Rage and Audioslave as a young teenage kid in the mid-2000s. I would have *absolutely* shit my pants had I seen this 15 years ago and would've watched it repeatedly. Seeing him unabashedly go through all of his old riffs and old solos from all of his bands with no objections just makes me so happy (I feel like a bunch of players would feel weird about paying fan service to the degree that Morello does--you could probably walk up to him in Guitar Center and ask him to play an old classic riff of his, and he'd probably just grab the first Squier he saw hanging on the wall and rip into it). And I get sad to think he was in a band with Cornell and that is all permanently gone now. If you can't tell, this little video totally gave me a bunch of feels. So awesome to see.
The interviewer definitely avoiding audioslave questions and songs on purpose and letting Tom add just a little did only one little snippet of like a stone because I bet he's still devistated and reeling
"Perhaps the heaviest music, is often very quiet" Love this guys passion for all things music! damm this guy is a guitar hero......are you listening Rick Beato! His name is TOM MORELLO. And so polite, to boot.
I've heard him say It before, but the story of Tom just making do with his guitars, and amps. Not really giving a shit about what they're like Is very inspiring. I'm planning the next guitar purchase, and It's way too easy to over think the process. You can't be too precious about these things.
That’s the difference between someone who plays guitar and loves playing it and someone that collects guitars and joins bands for getting hookers and blow. Tom Morello and guys of his skill could play a piece of firewood through a transistor radio and still make it shred.
Thank you again Premier Guitar. Rigrundown is such a great idea. It is so inspriring to hear great musicians talk about their gear, their music, their life. Thank you and the great musicians again for letting us take a look in their "kitchen".
Wow...after all these years...so many Tom Morello tone secrets!!! Even on the hippo guitar, he sticks to the neck pickup almost exclusively; and that its a single-coil disguised as a humbucker??? Mind blown.
I love the way he forced himself to quit fidgeting with his gear, and just make music. There have been times in my life when I had no money for gear, and times when I had a lot of money for gear. At this point I recognize that it was whether I had ideas or not that really mattered if I could do anything interesting. I’m also a photographer, and the same thing applies to my work. Run What Ya Brung.
This is legitimately the most inspirational tone video I've ever seen. "I got my best settings and that was the end of the conversation." That is completely awesome. Make it work with what I'm giving you. And a 50 watt 4x12 is so restrained for when he did it in the 80's-- people were rolling up to small clubs with full stacks. So, the most limited (in terms of gear) guitar player is probably the most innovative since Hendrix. I've heard J. Mascius say he won't use alternate tunings because he needs restrictions. Food for thought.
"this is my sound, I'm gonna stop loosing time on it, these are my tools, now I'm going to work with them"... now this guy is my favourite guitar player.
It's funny, I didn't realize that Morello preferred the neck so heavily but since I got my first tele about 2 years ago I think I've played in that position > 80% of the time. It really is an incredible and versatile sound. The tele is just sounds so bright already that even in the neck position it remains articulate where a lot of other guitars might lose their clarity.
Dan Alexander I love teles and I really rate Dimarzio twang kings , both neck and bridge are amazing I love my set , the middle setting is heavenly too which is often a position that gets neglected
Tom maybe the most creative guitar player I`ve ever came across when it comes to create sounds. It's mindblowing how many sounds he gets out of this rather small setup...
What's interesting is he almost has two distinct personality types in one person. On one hand he's very academic, business minded, and i'm assuming plan oriented, but on the other he has this wild, crazy inventive, off the cuff, bombastic artistic sense, you typically only get one or the other. One of my favorites, and a big inspiration to me growing up! thanks for the rundown.
Well, it totally makes sense. He's a Gemini after all. That would also explain why he's got so much nervous energy and why he talks so fast. John F. Kennedy (another Gemini) was just like him: he talked really fast.
@R. Ortega seven written words by you, venting your opinion, and you still had to edit that? man, you must be sour. maybe try focusing your energy on something sustaining, furthering yoiur beliefs, instead of slandering someone who has an outlasting success as an artist made possible through activism of a worldview that you are refusing so much.
@@seriouscatisserious You mentioned two completely different things that are not even related to each other. I'm not here to convince anyone of the validity of astrology, I'm just humbly sharing (an action that is often sadly forgotten nowadays) with whoever studied the subject my two cents on Morello's outward personality, or better yet: my perception of his outward personality (based on this video).
This is incredible! Thank you so much for this. This is one hell of an artist, with lots of talent, tons of creativity and just so much charisma. This is such an inspiration, motivation, especially hearing his workout routine, how he approach things, how he creates his own world without listening to "you can't do that" kind of people. He is living proof that there's always room for creativity and new things. As Victor Wooten says... You can play wrong notes as long as it feels good... Big bow and thank you. All the best for whole Premier Guitar, commenters, Tom.
man, i love how passionate, excited, and thoughtful he is e: like he’s explained the toggle killswitch thing in so many interviews and he explains it here as if it were the first time someone asked about it. wholesome
He also plugs the effects chain through the effects loop of the amp, not a single tubescreamer, fuzz, just modulation and time based effects. Great pioneer and imaginative man, digitech owes him a lot... smart, creative, and a gentleman.
Awyeah, finally! I saw Rage Against the Machine live when I was 15 in the summer of ’97. They were my favourite band at the time and a big part of my young life. The lyrics, the intensity and Morello’s awesome riffs and wacky solos, which sounded like nothing I’d ever heard before. After the concert me and some other kids waited outside their hotel, hoping to catch a glimpse of them and maybe get an autograph (if we were lucky) before they drove off to their next festival gig. Tom Morello saw us standing there when they left the hotel and came over to talk to us. He told us that he'd noticed us jumping around during the concert and asked us what we thought about the gig. After a while and some high fives and autographs, some people from their entourage told him to get on the bus. It seems like such a small thing and he didn’t have to do it, but when you’re young these things matter and make a big impression on you. I might not be a kid anymore, but he’s still an inspiration - I'll try not to buy more guitars! - and he seems like a great, down-to-earth guy.
Tom Morello is possibly one of the most down to earth artists around full of genuine and unique dexterity. Never knew he was this much of an energetic guy 🤘🏽
Thanks PG! Chris handled the interview amazingly like he and Tom were old band mates. Best RRD to date guys! He and Bollinger seem to have the most insiteful questions. Glad to see the artist show chops during the rrd
That dude was (still is) my hero growing up! Always loves talking and playing guitar in all the interviews I have seen. Tom Morello for President. Thanks Tom!!!
It’s always appreciative when the artist themselves breakdown their gear. And let’s face it, no guitar tech was going to be able to take us through this rig except for morello himself.
Love how Tom made a riff while on a lesson and then uses that to make the biggest song ever. Also, Tom’s Tape Recorder should be in a Museum for Musicians.
This video is amazing, looking at Tom using years-old gear, which was bought used to start with, to play in shows and touring is inspiring. Not only it shows how purchasing the latest gear does not make the show better, but it also shows how Tom being socially active reflects in him not hoarding money to buy cool shit, while talking about sharing the wealth of the righ in the songs.
I've been a fan of Tom since I saw him with Lockup at Cal State Northridge opening for an English act Desolation Angels. My friends band Lord were also on the bill. My friend and I were very impressed by his originality. Everyone including myself were trying to shred like Eddie Van Halen and George Lynch. Tom can shred with the best but is such and individual. Probably one of the smartest men in music if not the world. I also like to listen to Tom speak. I always come away with new knowledge.
Loved that. Tom's such a humble guy. I love your reaction to when he just starts playing this iconic riffs... Your face is how we all feel watching that.
Finally!! i have waited for this forever.. now, i already knew all of this, but this was the one episode that i have been missing for a long time. only down part was it would have been more cool if it had been during the POR tour to feature more of his guitars. but anyway, thanks PG
I've always been more a fan of Tom Morello's approach and creativity than of his music, but this is one of the better rig rundowns I've seen. He's clearly a genius.
Love this guy ---- Harvard grad..........super smart dude. Rockstar god............but, comes across as the most humble / down to Earth dude on the planet. You are a monster guitar player Tom. Keep on rocking.....
Love Tom. A real guitarist’s guitarist. A lot of people don’t realize how good of a player he is because they hear the effects and think that’s all it is, when the effects don’t color his sound as much as his attack, timing and groove does. I read an article long ago where Dimebag himself made sort of a thinly veiled slight towards Rage and Tom - funny thing is it was either right before or around Far Beyond Driven... And what pedal was Dime using to get a lot of those nasty textures on that album...? I like to think at some point Dimebag acknowledged, and maybe he did, that he and Tom Morello had a lot more in common than he was willing to admit or hear for himself....
Quite possibly the most interesting guitarist in music. The people that think he is over rated have probably never really listened to his music. A true innovator. I like how he didn't want to sound like other guitarist and made his own unique sound. He could afford to buy any piece of gear that he wants, but still uses the same setup for 30+ years.
@@bucket303 yep and I'll bet you good money he never tried the phaser or wah in front of the amp. I'm guessing he read the inputs and outputs of his amp, went "oh so that's where the pedals go" and he was DONE.
On the first Rage record he had it in front of the amp. It sounds like a normal wah sound. From empire on, the tone changes to more of a filter effect you get from putting it in the FX loop.@@FrankHerfjord
I find it amusing how so many guitarists feel the need to chain three different Strymons on their pedalboard with 10+ effects, in order to sound like everyone else, while Tom needs a Digitech whammy and an old DD-3 to make something absolutely unique. Limitations breed creativity.
Love this guy! If it wasn’t for Tom Morello I would had never picked up the guitar, and fast forward 20yrs later! I still love playing my Guitar out of all 7 instruments I play!! Keep rocking out and thank you for helping find my favorite instrument!!
