The Nightwatchman

Tom Morello was born in 1964 in New York, but grew up in Libertyville, in the white suburbs of Chicago. Her mother, Mary Morello, is the founder of Parents For Rock & Rap, which fights music censorship. His father, Ngethe Njoroge, took part in the revolt against British settlers alongside the Mau Mau in Kenya. His great uncle, Jomo Kenyatta, is Kenya's first elected president. With such a background, young Morello studied brilliantly and graduated in political science from the prestigious Harvard University in 1986. He enlisted as an assistant to Californian Senator Alan Cranston, a position he left very quickly.
But what fascinates him as much as political struggle is music. After a first aborted experience with guitar, at the age of 13, he resumed in the early 1980s and even formed a band with Adam Jones (future Tool guitarist to which he would present Maynard James Keenan and Danny Carey later) called Electrical Sheep. At the time, he was a fan of The Clash and Devo, but also Black Sabbath and Led Zeppelin. In 1988, he recorded an album with Lock Up , an ephemeral glam rock band. He later met rapper Zack de la Rocha and founded with his friend Tim Commerford and Bard Wilk, Rage Against The Machine, a committed band with whom he recorded 4 albums, including one cover, and one live from 1992 to 2000. He perfects an atypical and creative game, rich in original sounds, which makes a lot for his fame and that of the band.
After Zack's departure, the three surviving musicians began to jamm with Chris Cornell (singer of the late Soundgarden), on the advice of the famous producer Chris Rubin, which led to the formation of Audioslave in 2001. The band, more polite, flirts with its three albums oscillating from heavy to pop rock, Morello looking for more good melodies. Meanwhile, he created Axis Of Justice with Serj Tankian (Singer of System Of A Down ) in 2004. This is an activist radio program accompanied by concerts in the months following the re-election of George W.Bush (including Maynard James Keenan, Flea des Red Hot Chili Peppers or Chris Cornell). Axis Of Justice advocates for human rights, economic justice and peace, but also specifically for the abolition of the death penalty, the release of the American black activist Mumia Abu-Jamal or the right of immigrants. Morello also embarked on his own solo project, The Nightwatchman , starting with small acoustic concerts at the same time. In 2006, he was honoured with the Human Rights Award for his activism, and was arrested a few months later during an LA protest in favour of immigrant hotel workers' rights.
Freed from all obligations vis-à-vis Audioslave , whose split was formalized in February 2007, he found the Rage Against The Machine for a series of concerts including at the US Coachella festival. Then, in April 2007, he released the first album of The Nightwatchman, One Man Revolution, a folk album that evokes a legacy of Bob Dylan's protest songs to Bruce Springsteen. By depriving himself of his effects, whammy pedal and scratches in mind, Morello thus reveals a warm voice and compositions of simplicity not without political resonance. He also joined the Dave Matthews Band on a European tour in the spring of that year.