Last night the newly reformed Rage Against the Machine performed at the Democratic National Convention in Denver. It was eight years since the band had played the DNC in Los Angeles in 2000, an event which sparked off violent conflict between protesters and police and which led to the ACLU condemning the LAPD's actions as a "police-orchestrated riot." While this year's performance went off without bloodshed, nobody is sure what the current state of the most overtly political pop band in history is. When I had the chance to speak to guitarist Tom Morello this month, he assured me that the band is offering no hints, flatly refusing to do press at all.

Since I couldn't talk Rage, I decided that this a fantastic opportunity to thank Tom Morello for the one definitive debt that I have to his former band, turning me on to Gabriel Garcias Marquez's One Hundred Years of Solitude when I was fourteen.

 

Looking back I was thinking about when Evil Empire came out and I was in junior high and had gotten a copy. I remember opening it up and seeing the liner notes, that sort of implied booklist. What I remember now is seeing One Hundred Years of Solitude and Joyce on it, you know, rather than Marx or something. And your nonprofit, Axis of Justice also has a booklist.
A rather extensive booklist.

So what have you been reading lately?
What a good question. I just finished a Joe Strummer biography called Redemption Songs. Hmmm. If they ever do a Cribs of my house they’ll see I have more bookshelves than cars. Which is the only reason to do it. Ever notice that? On Cribs? No one has a book. They’ve got more Bentleys than books.

I hear you. When people see my place they say it’s a sanctuary for lost books.
Ha! Yeah, oh, I just read an interesting book on Ralph Nader called Crashing the Party. That’s sort of it for me for right now. I’ve been touring. Although I usually do a lot of reading when I’m touring, but I haven’t done as much this time.

Any fiction?
I started in on Another Country by Baldwin, but that’s really heavy to read on tour.

It’s a good one though.
It’s a great one! But that doesn’t necessarily help you drift off with jet lag or anything. Oh Arthur Koestler’s Darkness at Noon is in regular rotation. Just read that again. I’ll dip into The Lord of the Rings trilogy and Adams’s Watership Down every so often.

I’m curious. In the Axis of Justice Booklist I noticed Grant Morrison and Marjane Sartrapi. I was wondering, is that coming from you? Are you a comic fan?
I’m a big comic book fan, though my predilection is the old Marvel and DC I grew up on. Not sure who put that other stuff in there. Every book on there wasn’t read by all four members of the band. Timmy C put something on there about Ford trucks, cause he’s a fan of trucks. It’s a pretty diverse list.

That’s interesting cause some of those old comics are non-politically political. They say Spider-man was listed in some college survey in the ‘60s as being a counterculture icon.
Yeah, yeah. As a kid my favorite superhero was Iron Man, who if you remember was the most fascistic of them all.

He’s a total dick.
Ha ha! I don’t know why as a kid I was so drawn to Tony Stark…well, wasn’t so much Tony Stark as I thought Iron Man had a really cool outfit. That goes a long way.

Any other comics you’re into, just for my own geekdom?
Well, when X-Men first came out…I was old enough I remember when X-Men changed from being the boring X-Men to the cool X-Men. That was a revelation. That was the coolest comic you could ever imagine. You remember Howard the Duck? Weird, that felt like a goldrush. I don’t remember now if it was good or bad. Oh, and Weird War Tales was one of my favorites. I liked the World War Two ones. And I collected the Avengers. At the time there was no website to go to, and there wasn’t a comic shop within a thousand miles, so you’d order from the back of a comic book from a guy in Ontario and hope you got “very good condition.”

That’s great, man! Thanks for taking the time to chat.
Sure, we’ll be seeing you in Philadelphia very soon.