Painting the town Red

Tom Morello, guitarist of Rage Against The Machine, is wearing a 'Poseur' cap and I might as well be wearing one that says 'Buxom Blonde', so inappropriate is the tag.

He's outside Dublin's Westbury Hotel signing things for a gang of fans who have been loitering there for over four hours. Their presence prompts one of the hotel's middle-aged guests to ask the woman in 'Bookings' what all the fuss is about.

"A band called Rage Against The Machine," she replies, shrugging. "I've never heard of them."

"Me neither," says the greying, grey suited man.

Oh, but the teenagers outside have heard of Rage Against The Machine alright. And today - the day of the band's sold-out-faster-than-you-can-say-their-name gig at the Tivoli Theatre - they're eating, drinking, sweating, and shitting Rage Against The Machine, not to mention walking around with band member's names scrawled on their flesh.

A male in his late teens says with complete seriousness, "I'll never wash it again" as Tom signs his forearm. "Take a picture," a girl insists to a friend. "Did you get my letter, Tom?" another fan inquires.

The American is perfectly accommodating as cameras click and posters of his band are shoved in front of his face, but the encounter leaves him a bit flustered. As we stroll down Grafton St. he admits to mild shock at the band's Irish reception.

"My grandmother is Irish so I was in Ireland when I was fifteen," he says, "but we were just out in the countryside seeing castles and doing rural things like that. I never imagined, though I hoped, that we would come here with the kind of support from people that we've had so I find it pretty staggering. I don't know what good having 'Tom' written on some guy's neck is going to do him in the days to come, but that's one of the things that I'm always happy to do because when I was young and wanted people's autographs and they didn't comply I always thought it was a real snobbish thing.

"One thing that's important to us is for our 'fans' to recognise that there's no difference whatsoever between band and audience and that putting 'rock stars' on a pedestal is really worthless and void of any kind of substance. Breaking that whole rock star myth is one of the things that is important for us to do. But at the same time people like to have contact with the musicians whose records they like and there's no problem with that."

This isn't Beatlemania revisited, mind you. Rage Against The Machine's audience is fairly left-of-centre and still relatively limited in size, consisting of more hardcore punk and rap devotees than crush-ridden teenage girls. Selling records is a means to an end for Rage Against the Machine and not, as it is for many bands, an end in itself. They've welded hard rock to hip hop and use it as a vehicle for a hardline socialist message. And whether it's the message or the riffs that draw you in matters little.

"People who listen to our music probably cover the whole spectrum," says Tom, "from those who get off on the aggression or the energy of it where the message is secondary to those who draw on it exclusively for the political content and merely tolerate the guitar solos. The message is obviously at the forefront of what we do and driving that home is very important and if people are lured in by the riffs and later succumb to the ideology then that's fine with me."

At the Tivoli later that night, it's clear that this luring process is working well. Lead rapper Zach De La Rocha barely has to utter a word during the band's biggest single, 'Killing In the Name Of', so thorough is the audience's knowledge of the lyrics, and a surprising majority seem to know the band's eponymous debut album inside out.

But looking around, it's hard to believe that these people - mostly teenagers - fully comprehend the actual agenda behind this band. "Fuck you, I won't do what you tell me"; "We've got to take the power back"; "Fight the war, fuck the norm" - all fine rallying calls of rebellious youth, but this crowd certainly isn't thinking concretely about the fundamental flaws of democracy. This is a radical, leftist band playing to an audience who no doubt ignored any Socialist Worker Party posters they passed on the way to the gig. What is the point that Rage Against the Machine want to get across to this crowd anyway?

"I don't think that you can distil it into one rhetorical catch phrase," Tom says. "We try not to indulge in the same kind of politics-as-theatre that our candidates do in our presidential election but having said that I'll do it.

"It's basically about questioning assumptions, you know whether it's from musical ones about genres of music that were mutually exclusive being brought together in a seamless context, to individuals with really diverse ethnic backgrounds playing together in a band in a cohesive way, to extrapolating that to a societal level and questioning the basic assumptions and fundamental tenets of the state ideology like, in our case, that America is the home of the free and is a participatory democracy - things which we're taught to take for granted and which I think are basically untrue.

"For example, at home we're taught from day one that America is the land of the free, and all about the freedom of choice and the free market economy and the civil liberties we supposedly have. Then you look at what that means in reality and it's that some people under the system in which we live, are free to choose between Lambourgines and Porches and Mercedes, while others are free to choose which garbage can they're going to have their meal out of. That's what the freedom boils down to for a lot of people."

Tom has asked to see Trinity and we enter the main courtyard before realising that there's not a whole lot to see there. "It certainly is lovely," he says facetiously, before continuing his train of thought.

"One thing I can't stand," he asserts, "is bands with this vague feel-good liberalism business where you have an Amnesty International booth at your shows and all of a sudden you're the great populist heroes. We like to talk and act in concrete terms."

Part of what that involves is making listeners aware of issues important to the band and ways they can be acted on through handing out relevant literature at gigs and providing an address through which fans can receive same in the album sleeve.

"We pass out this thing that is like an eight step programme of how to beat censorship at the retail level by stirring up trouble in your home town," Tom explains. "There are over three thousand record shops in the United States that refuse to sell 'parental advisory' stickered albums to minors. That is, seventeen-year-olds can't buy the Tool record or the Rage Against The Machine record or the NWA album or whatever.

"And I mean to me it seems obvious, but it's apparently lost on a lot of people, that censorship is really a smokescreen. And if these people were really involved in the welfare of young people, they would first of all tend to fight parental abuse and neglect - between thirty and forty percent of people, before the age of 18, have been severely abused or neglected by their parents and that is something that is debilitating for the rest of their lives - as opposed to objecting to the word 'fuck' in a song. There is no scientific evidence that any lyric from a rock record has ever adversely affected the behaviour of any individual or group. Period.

"The battleground for censorship is record stores and so far they're only getting pressure from one side. Tipper Gore, for all her wealth and might that she wields, doesn't buy albums. It's the 30,000 kids every day at Lollapalooza who buy albums and through boycotts of specific retailing offenders of censorship they can break it.

"All you've got to do is be a little angry and have the courage of your convictions and have a couple of friends in order to really bring any given record stores to their knees. This is something they're not expecting at all. And it's something that can be fun too. All you're asking them to do is the right thing."

Fun. Now there's a subject that doesn't come up too often (though Tom does have his own Fishtails pinball machine). Doesn't all this weighty political talk become a bit of a drag for the band? What about music as pleasure?

"Whether or not we take all the fun out of it," Tom says laughing, "the fact that all music is political is a truism and you can't escape that, whatever the consequences. But for me a band doesn't have to be overtly leftist to be worth listening to. There are a lot of bands that encourage a free will and independent anti-authoritarian attitude which is really good - bands from the Chili Peppers to Jane's Addiction to Fishbone which aren't spouting, I don't know, Marxist dialectics in their lyrics, but are still very progressive bands. They engender a real healthy questioning of authority which is good. What we try to do is maybe a little bit sharper point on it."

I nip into a newsagent on Dame Street to buy some batteries and Tom narrates our stop on my tape. "We are now looking at the magazine rack," he says in a mocking tone that makes his deep voice sound almost subterranean. "Pictures of a ghoulish Bono dot the cover of the RTE Guide."

Rage Against The Machine themselves have dotted many covers since their swift rise. The band were signed by Epic on the weight of a self-released tape which sold over 5,000 copies at lives shows and through a fan club, and their first year together involved supports for Ice T's Body Count, Public Enemy and Pearl Jam. Their original blend of rock and rap aside, the band's intelligent and articulate political arguments made them desirable subjects.

In addition, Tom's innovative guitar-playing provided an in to musicianship-oriented magazines like Guitar and Musician, making Rage Against The Machine one of few current alternative rock/rap acts to receive widespread attention from such publications. But even with these magazines, Tom makes a point of keeping the political angle of the band on the list of topics for discussion.

"I read those magazines when I first started playing guitar," he says, "and I was certainly a member of that twisted guitarist sub group of lost geeks and wannabes, so I enjoy those kinds of interviews and can weave a fanciful web of tying my guitar playing and politics together. I think there are parallels between what I try to do with my guitar playing - which is to look outside of the tunnel vision of what is accepted as good guitar playing or whatever the traditional boundaries are and stepping outside that - and what we are looking to do in a political realm, which is step outside of the traditional boundaries there. With my own playing, concentrating on the eccentricities has been the thing I've tried to do to find my own voice."

Tom has succeeded in finding that voice and manipulates his guitar in a way that mesmerises. Listening to the album it's hard to accept that "No samples, keyboards, or synthesisers were used in the making of this recording," as the liner notes point out, but seeing is believing. He pulls out a lead and uses it as a pick. He changes the tone of strings in the middle of songs. He's a right-handed player but will pluck strings with his left while flicking power switches and effects on and off with his right. Like his politics, his guitar playing demands attention.

As we wait to cross Dame St., I suggest a stop in one of Dublin's many fine pubs. "I'm not so much interested in pubs," Tom responds, "as I am in scenic splendour."

(I told you he'd never been in Dublin before.)

We walk through Temple Bar and peek into the Rock Garden which Tom reckons is "a cosy alternative hangout," then head for the river discussing U2 mania and that night's exodus to Cork.

"This is the River Liffey," I declare, as we cross Ha'penny Bridge.

"Great, will you take a little picture of me by the river, uh, whatever," Tom enthuses as he hands me a camera frighteningly similar to my Dad's. "This is one of the most ancient, instamatic, working man's cameras around," he points out, as if I hadn't already noticed.

I tell him that I made the big move from 110 to 35mm film a few years ago, but he seems proud of his photographic device and later, over fish & chips, says that he used to taunt Vernon Reid from Living Colour about his hi-tech, new-fangled camera. Tom holds up his proud possession, points at it and says "You talk the talk, Vernon, now walk the walk." Then in advert-speak: "The camera of the people - the Kodak Electrolux."

Our next photo opportunity arises at O'Connell Bridge. "I'm not going to take a picture of O'Connell," Tom says, looking away from the statue, "but I will take a picture of that Bailey's Original Irish Cream thing up there." (Bailey's, it turns out, is Tom's drink of choice and while on tour, he's given a bottle a day as his part of the band's rider.)

He aims the camera at the sign. "Hmm, let's see, nope, no greenery, I wanted some greenery in my shot."

We head towards the Garden of Remembrance in search of greenery.

One of the most striking things about talking to Tom is how closely his arguments and personal experiences echo lyrics of Rage Against the Machine songs, lyrics written by rapper Zach de la Rocha. The critique of Eurocentric teaching curricula on 'Take the Power Back' would have been on Tom's mind when earning his degree in Social Studies at Harvard, where only recently an African-American Studies department has started to make an impact.

A discussion of life in Los Angeles leads us to the same criticisms of network news as found on 'Bullet In Your Head'.

"California is a necessary evil to a certain extent," Tom says. "There are things that you get very accustomed to, like the 80 degree temperature every day. But there's also the intense, incessant police brutality and that goes on, not just in South Central and East LA but everywhere. It's just this brutal authority run amok.

"Fortunately it's a city of how many millions of people so if you know the right ways to avoid them you can. But on the side of their cars it says 'To Serve And Protect' and no one believes that. 'To Harass and Intimidate' would be more appropriate. They're an organisation that inspires fear and loathing among the majority of the people."

Tom doesn't see the problem being resolved too easily.

"I think we scratched the surface during the LA rebellion after the verdicts last year, I guess that was almost two years ago now," he says. "And that kind of resentment still boils beneath the surface and it was only through a shrewd manipulation of the media that it didn't blow into greater proportions.

"Because when it was going on, it wasn't just in Los Angeles it was in San Francisco, and Chicago, and Atlanta, and New York City and Washington DC and Seattle where inter racial groups were destroying government property and police property in the streets of the major cities of the country. And how it was portrayed on the news was black thugs running wild in Los Angeles stealing VCRs and stuff like that.

"It's no accident. The major networks are not run by these objective purveyors of the truth, they're run by a few corporations who have a vested interest in a particular party line."

What about Rage Against the Machine party line. With such hefty issues being dealt with in a controversial manner, it seems likely that the band members themselves would differ on what they wanted to put across to their listeners.

"The differences we have are more about what route to take," Tom argues, "whether or not to make a video, would that be a compromise, things like that. Or if we did, would it be potentially subverting that medium of MTV for our own purposes, and if so, is that worth making a rock video."

The band, of course, have made videos - one for 'Killing In the Name' and another for 'Bullet in the Head' - but they've been banned in most places. That doesn't seem the most logical route to take for a band who want to reach as broad an audience as possible.

"There are limited forms in which they can be aired," the guitarist insists. "There are some countries and some clubs where you can say 'fuck' and people aren't worried that the moral fibre of society will instantly be torn. We're actually in the process of working on/not working on a video for 'Bombtrack' which combines some conceptual footage with live stuff from a Brixton Academy show and we're debating over it, making sure that the conceptual content is powerful enough, challenging enough and revolutionary enough to justify making it a rock video for MTV. It's a trade off."

Strange that Rage Against the Machine are so concerned about MTV when they don't have any qualms about signing to a major label.

Tom presents the band's view on the subject as we walk back down O'Connell street: "I'm not into the preaching to the converted, self-righteousness of going the indie label way. My problems with major labels are that they manipulate artists to meet marketing demographics. That's what the problem is. I mean associating with a petty bourgeois indie label as opposed to a full on bourgeois major one makes little or no difference to me.

"The sort of pious finger-pointing that some alternative fans and rock journalists take is really immaterial. It's a stuffy middle class elitism. We're trying to do something that no band on any indie level has ever done, which is to effect some real substantive political change through playing in a rock band."

We cross a street and Tom, who is looking the wrong way, has a close encounter with an automobile. "I'm going to die on this Emerald Island," he says, joking half-heartedly. "Those 'Look right' and 'Look left' ones I'm sure were bought with the blood of many a tourist!"

But even a brush with severe injury doesn't interrupt his line of thought. "The ingredients that are pivotal to effecting that change," he continues, "have nothing to do with what label you're affiliated with. The first is reaching people from Prague to rural Illinois, where I grew up, to Dublin which a label like Epic facilitates and second, backing that up by personally engaging in activism and heightening consciousness on a real level. Sony just facilitates the distribution of our propaganda."

Propaganda? Strange choice of words, don't you think?

"I'm just honest," Tom concludes as we make our way to Beshoffs where we'll talk about Tom's failure as a French horn player and my glowing success on the clarinet.

"Any souvenir shops around?" he asks as we cross our last busy street. "I need to bring home something green for the relatives."