"Joe Strummer was my greatest inspiration, my favorite singer of all time, and my hero."
Those were the words written by Rage Against The Machine guitarist Tom Morello after the death of Clash frontman Joe Strummer on Dec. 22, 2002. Seven years later, as a testament to not only one of the most influential players in the history of punk rock, but also one of the most renowned forces in music, I'd like to share more of Morello's stirring tribute...
While many of today's younger music fans may not remember or know the Clash, they surely know Rage Against The Machine - rest assured, as Morello recalls, there would be no Rage without the Clash, who he was introduced to while working at his high school newspaper.
A classmate was showing off his copy of London Calling, and while Morello didn't know anything about the Clash, he liked the album cover and asked to make a copy of the tape.
"This low-grade Dolby-suffering cassette tape burned its way into my head, heart and soul, and the Clash soon became my favorite band," said Morello. "At the time, I was playing in a punk rock band. Most of our songs were amusing, funny ditties with names like 'She Eats Razors' and 'Beat Me, Whip Me, Make Me Feel Cheap.' A week after my first listen to London Calling, I penned the first political song of my life, a song called 'Salvador Death Squad Blues,' a rocking commentary on the Reagan administration's egregious practices in Central America...
"The Clash pushed me into making political music and taking a political stand as a teenager... Later that year, I got the chance to see the Clash at the Aragon Ballroom in Chicago, and was totally blown away... The Axis of Justice motto - 'the future is unwritten" - is taken from a t-shirt I purchased that night...
"The Clash sewed politics into punk and rock and roll irreversibly, and Joe Strummer was the heart, the soul, and the conscience of the Clash...
"Throughout my time in Rage Against The Machine, journalists would always ask the question, 'what the hell is a band with the politics of Rage doing on Epic Records?' I would often answer with long and flowery sermons about spreading an important message around the globe. But I really could have answered with two words: The Clash...
"I was energized and politicized and changed by the Clash. And the reason I heard about them was because Dave Vogel bought London Calling at Musicland Records at the local Hawthorne Mall in tiny Libertyville, Illinios. And the reason Dave could get his hands on this album at a nearby mall was because the band was on Epic Records. If in the history of Rage Against the Machine we were able to energize or politicize one person in the same way that the Clash effected me, the decision to sign with Epic Records was not just well worth it, but was crucial...
"In the song 'White Riot,' Joe sang: Are you taking over, or are you taking orders? Are you going backwards, or are you going forwards? Write those lines down, put them on your refrigerator, and answer those four questions for yourself every day. I do..."
Read Tom Morello's entire, unedited tribute to Joe Strummer: CLICK HERE
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