Credit: Tom Morello
Meeting your heroes is one thing, but playing alongside them is another altogether. You might be delighted at the prospect of getting to play alongside someone so revered, or you might be quivering in fear. Tom Morello knows a fair amount about how to approach this exact situation.
Having wowed audiences with his novel approach to guitar playing in the 1990s, a significant part of what propelled Rage Against the Machine into the spotlight, more opportunities were bound to come his way from the wider world of rock music when the band reached their end in 2000.
Someone with such an electric playing style was bound to have caught the attention of other musicians, and even if it were with a view to collaborating rather than forming a new project, people would surely have been jumping at the chance to have Morello on board.
Of course, his main pursuit after Rage Against the Machine’s disbandment was Audioslave, essentially reforming the same lineup he had been working with in his old band, but with Soundgarden’s Chris Cornell on vocals instead of Zack De La Rocha.
However, that didn’t mean that he wasn’t open to the idea of working with others, and when Audioslave called it a day in 2007, perhaps the biggest opportunity of his career would land in his lap, one that he couldn’t possibly turn down.
As a self-confessed Bruce Springsteen superfan, being asked by The Boss to make a guest appearance at a show in Anaheim in 2008 was arguably a dream come true for Morello. He’d previously made his love for Springsteen known via a cover of ‘The Ghost of Tom Joad’ on Rage Against the Machine’s final album, Renegades, but being asked to play the song with Springsteen live was another prospect altogether, and one that he would undoubtedly have dreamt about.
Following this one-off appearance, one thing would lead to another, with Morello eventually being called upon to deputise for E Street Band member Steven Van Zandt on a tour of Australia in 2013 when he had other commitments. On top of this, he’d also end up performing on eight songs for Springsteen’s 2014 album, High Hopes, as a result. But the real question is, how did he manage to hold himself together throughout his time working with his idol?
Further reading: From The Vault
In a 2014 interview with Ultimate Classic Rock, he went into greater detail about his time playing alongside Springsteen. “I try not to over-intellectualise it,” he said, humbly discussing his involvement on both the tour and album. “My number one job is to not mess it up. The E Street Band is one of the greatest live bands of all time without me in it. So don’t fuck it up, first and foremost.”
As for having Springsteen as a literal boss, Morello said that his instructions were easy to follow and hard to misinterpret, making for a straightforward relationship. “When Bruce gives me the nod, blow the roof off the joint,” he added. “That’s the way I look at it.”
Arguably, he probably didn’t hold himself together at all, but he took the entire experience on face value, and can now look back on it with pride, having achieved something he had always hoped could become a reality.
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