Latest / The Real News Podcast / Tom Morello wants you to rock out and fight fascism

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Tom Morello wants you to rock out and fight fascism · The Real News Podcast

• 0:00
  Speaker 1: We are here, Power of the People, first festival, sold
• 0:02
  Speaker 1: out immediately. People are excited about it. What kind of
• 0:06
  Speaker 1: power are we bringing?
• 0:08
  Speaker 2: When you are, you're an artist, you talk about politics,
• 0:10
  Speaker 2: a lot of folks here not shy about sharing their
• 0:13
  Speaker 2: political opinions. We're dealing with fascism, it's here. What can
• 0:18
  Speaker 2: an event like this do? What potential does an event
• 0:20
  Speaker 2: like this do?
• 0:21
  Speaker 3: Yeah, I think the first thing I can do is
• 0:23
  Speaker 3: prove something that I know to be true, which is
• 0:25
  Speaker 3: that courage is contagious. Without even speaking hyperbolically, this is
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  Speaker 3: a festival of peace, love, justice, and music. It is
• 0:33
  Speaker 3: a festival of peace in a time where war is celebrated.
• 0:36
  Speaker 3: It is a festival of love and solidarity in a
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  Speaker 3: time where hatred and division are rife. It is a
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  Speaker 3: festival of justice in a time where injustice is the
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  Speaker 3: norm both on our city streets and abroad. And in
• 0:48
  Speaker 3: a time where artists are censoring themselves or being censored,
• 0:51
  Speaker 3: on this stage today, the artists are going to play
• 0:54
  Speaker 3: exactly what they want to play, and they're going to
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  Speaker 3: say exactly what they want to say.
• 0:58
  Speaker 2: Now, for someone who saw this line and was like, oh, cool,
• 1:00
  Speaker 2: it's all my favorite bands, but I don't really care
• 1:02
  Speaker 2: about politics. I'm not a politics person. Somehow they managed
• 1:05
  Speaker 2: to get to 2026.
• 1:05
  Speaker 3: Yeah, yeah, yeah.
• 1:07
  Speaker 1: What do you want them to take away from this?
• 1:09
  Speaker 1: What's the ask?
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  Speaker 3: Yeah, yeah. Well, first of all, the first thing we
• 1:13
  Speaker 3: have to do is put on a great fucking show.
• 1:15
  Speaker 3: You know, and people can enjoy that and take away
• 1:18
  Speaker 3: my experience over the course of doing shows like this
• 1:21
  Speaker 3: and making music, compelling music with a political message. for
• 1:24
  Speaker 3: decades is that people sometimes are drawn to the experience.
• 1:29
  Speaker 3: They're drawn to the spectacle. They're drawn to the rock.
• 1:31
  Speaker 3: And then they're exposed to a different set of ideas
• 1:34
  Speaker 3: than they have been otherwise. Some of them will, and
• 1:37
  Speaker 3: sometimes you're preaching to the choir, the choir needs preaching to.
• 1:40
  Speaker 3: The choir needs their spines strengthened, steeled, and wind in
• 1:44
  Speaker 3: their sails. Sometimes you're talking to people who now finally
• 1:47
  Speaker 3: recognize Their own anger and their suspicions about what they
• 1:51
  Speaker 3: think about the world reflected back to them. And sometimes
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  Speaker 3: people are just there for a good time. But you
• 1:56
  Speaker 3: know what? This is one more piece on their chessboard
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  Speaker 3: they're going to have to contend with.
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  Speaker 2: A little Trojan horse situation. Now, the artists here, I
• 2:04
  Speaker 2: guess people are kind of coming from all over the place.
• 2:06
  Speaker 2: But clearly, you're not, there's not a lot of people
• 2:08
  Speaker 2: on stage who are going to be, they'd probably be
• 2:11
  Speaker 2: happy to play with Macklemore.
• 2:12
  Speaker 1: How cool is that?
• 2:13
  Speaker 3: You better, if you don't be, some stuff might happen
• 2:16
  Speaker 3: that you might be surprised by on that front. Yeah, yeah.
• 2:22
  Speaker 2: But why do you think so many big artists Yeah.
• 2:25
  Speaker 2: Are still so scared to speak out for what's right.
• 2:28
  Speaker 2: Like just all this unfold.
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  Speaker 3: Yeah, I wouldn't I would not say, first of all,
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  Speaker 3: I don't think it's fair to sort of ghettoize artists
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  Speaker 3: as different from any other category of worker. People are
• 2:37
  Speaker 3: scared to speak out as students. They're scared to speak
• 2:40
  Speaker 3: out as journalists. They're scared to speak out as carpenters,
• 2:42
  Speaker 3: et cetera, et cetera.
• 2:43
  Speaker 2: Artists.
• 2:44
  Speaker 3: Also are sometimes afraid to speak out. A concert like this,
• 2:47
  Speaker 3: I got to say that one of the things, the
• 2:48
  Speaker 3: real turning point in booking the show was, you know,
• 2:52
  Speaker 3: sometimes it's hard when you're like kind of making your
• 2:53
  Speaker 3: way through managers. Like this is a show where people
• 2:55
  Speaker 3: are not being paid money. This is a show where,
• 2:57
  Speaker 3: you know, it's inconvenient. Oh, now you can't play the
• 2:59
  Speaker 3: DC market because you've, you know, done this already. But
• 3:01
  Speaker 3: it was the ice murders of Alex Preddy and Rene
• 3:04
  Speaker 3: Good that really turned the tide and artists started calling
• 3:07
  Speaker 3: me and going, I heard you're doing a festival. Like,
• 3:09
  Speaker 3: can I be involved in some way? Where I think
• 3:11
  Speaker 3: there was a real feeling that, you know, their preconceived
• 3:15
  Speaker 3: notions of stuff they could take for granted, their own safety,
• 3:18
  Speaker 3: their family safety, democracy. We're really being threatened in a
• 3:22
  Speaker 3: significant way. They're like, we want to do what we
• 3:24
  Speaker 3: can with what we've got. The good news is what
• 3:26
  Speaker 3: we've got is a lot of great rock and roll,
• 3:28
  Speaker 3: a lot of great hip hop, a lot of great
• 3:29
  Speaker 3: folk music, and a lot of great heavy metal.
• 3:32
  Speaker 1: Man, okay. So I was looking through the lineup. I
• 3:34
  Speaker 1: was like, this is all the bands that Tom likes
• 3:37
  Speaker 1: to hang out with.
• 3:38
  Speaker 3: Yeah, yeah, yeah, exactly, exactly. Yeah, exactly. Well, yeah, over
• 3:44
  Speaker 3: the course of time, these are the people that say
• 3:46
  Speaker 3: yes when you ask them to play a charity show. Yes,
• 3:48
  Speaker 3: when you ask them to play at the barricades or,
• 3:51
  Speaker 3: you know, some sort of protest. So those are the
• 3:53
  Speaker 3: ones that raise their hand. We're happy and honored to
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  Speaker 3: have them here.
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  Speaker 2: And for folks who are maybe a little bit more
• 3:59
  Speaker 2: on the hardcore heavy metal, a few more decibels.
• 4:02
  Speaker 1: Who are more familiar with your other work?
• 4:03
  Speaker 3: Sure, sure, sure, sure. Plenty of that today. I mean,
• 4:05
  Speaker 3: don't worry. Don't worry. I'm here for a reason. Yeah, yeah, yeah.
• 4:09
  Speaker 2: For folks who are involved in those scenes and maybe
• 4:11
  Speaker 2: didn't get tickets to this or didn't speak to them,
• 4:14
  Speaker 2: but they're still, they're down.
• 4:15
  Speaker 3: Yeah.
• 4:16
  Speaker 1: What do you want to see people in the broader
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  Speaker 1: music space?
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  Speaker 3: Well, first of all, we have a global free live
• 4:21
  Speaker 3: stream that people can watch everywhere. Right on. It's not
• 4:24
  Speaker 3: 10 hours of free for you to watch it. You
• 4:26
  Speaker 3: can tune in and out as you as you choose.
• 4:29
  Speaker 3: But for people in those scenes, I mean, just again,
• 4:31
  Speaker 3: I wouldn't get wise to say like is. The people
• 4:34
  Speaker 3: who own and control this world do not deserve to.
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  Speaker 3: And the only way that change happens is average, ordinary,
• 4:42
  Speaker 3: everyday people who have had enough standing up in their
• 4:45
  Speaker 3: place and time. Sometimes music can remind you of that.
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  Speaker 3: And that's what we're hoping to do on a day
• 4:50
  Speaker 3: like Power of the People. I have never felt safer
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  Speaker 3: at a concert in my life because there are 40,000
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  Speaker 3: people here who think the same way I do.
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  Speaker 1: Power to the people.
• 5:00
  Speaker 3: We don't like Donald Trump.
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  Speaker 1: He can kiss my ass and their asses as well.
• 5:05
  Speaker 2: And we love Bruce and we love Tom Morello and
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  Speaker 2: we love good music and we're thrilled to be here.
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  Speaker 3: Woo!
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  Speaker 2: Woo!
• 5:11
  Speaker 3: Another thing we're doing today, which I try to do
• 5:13
  Speaker 3: at my own shows too, is on this day and
• 5:15
  Speaker 3: on this night, creating a little bit of the world
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  Speaker 3: that we'd like to one day see. A world of
• 5:21
  Speaker 3: joy and solidarity and celebrating resistance and fun and people
• 5:25
  Speaker 3: from 15 years old to 85 years old, like having
• 5:30
  Speaker 3: a communal experience that makes you glad that you're alive
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  Speaker 3: and feel that this is worth fighting for.
• 5:36
  Speaker 2: Why does it feel important to you as someone who's
• 5:38
  Speaker 2: been on the left in the progressive world for a
• 5:39
  Speaker 2: long time to focus on joy?
• 5:42
  Speaker 1: Because we don't always have a lot of fun.
• 5:44
  Speaker 3: Sure, sure.
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  Speaker 1: You know, we're not known for.
• 5:46
  Speaker 3: Lord knows we don't have a lot of fun. We've
• 5:48
  Speaker 3: all been dying to get over the years. Well, I mean,
• 5:52
  Speaker 3: every inch of the Power of the People Festival, we've
• 5:56
  Speaker 3: emphasized that there are no long, dreary speeches. I've had
• 5:59
  Speaker 3: to turn away hundreds of dreary speakers. Well-intentioned, but dreary
• 6:03
  Speaker 3: speakers are like, And even the Freedom Village, we've tailored
• 6:09
  Speaker 3: it in a way with some incredible local organizations and
• 6:11
  Speaker 3: national organizations. There's also free ice cream. There's also Shepard
• 6:14
  Speaker 3: Fairey DJing. We want that to be a place that
• 6:17
  Speaker 3: feels welcome and awesome and realizing these are the people
• 6:19
  Speaker 3: who are doing the real work, but there's community in
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  Speaker 3: that and it's a welcome place. And like I said,
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  Speaker 3: the reason we concentrate on sort of joy and fun
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  Speaker 3: and rock and roll and kick-ass music Because that's the
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  Speaker 3: world that we want to make. We want to make
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  Speaker 3: it so it can be like that beyond the confines
• 6:35
  Speaker 3: of this concert.
• 6:37
  Speaker 2: And to you, what does a successful result look like?
• 6:40
  Speaker 2: Do you want a specific amount of people registered to vote?
• 6:42
  Speaker 2: Do you want a specific amount of people buying stuff
• 6:44
  Speaker 2: from Red Emmas?
• 6:45
  Speaker 3: Yeah, yeah.
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  Speaker 1: You've got to shout them out.
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  Speaker 3: I think that the... Whether or not the concert's successful,
• 6:52
  Speaker 3: first of all, let's hope nobody falls off the stage. Really,
• 6:54
  Speaker 3: like the basics. We've put, you know, there's 17 members
• 6:59
  Speaker 3: of the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame playing on
• 7:00
  Speaker 3: the stage today. It's a concert. It is a once-and-forever lineup.
• 7:04
  Speaker 3: It is a once-and-forever lineup. So one thing I'm hoping
• 7:06
  Speaker 3: is that people have a... fulfilling, artistic experience, whether you're
• 7:12
  Speaker 3: on the stage or you're off the stage. And then
• 7:14
  Speaker 3: if you're not careful, you just might learn something. If
• 7:16
  Speaker 3: you're not careful, you just might be motivated to do
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  Speaker 3: something tomorrow. If you're not careful, you might be motivated
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  Speaker 3: to do something more than just vote in three weeks.
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  Speaker 3: As my mom, dear... Departed mom, Mary Morello, who passed
• 7:26
  Speaker 3: away at 102 years old lately. She said, you've got
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  Speaker 3: to fight the fascists every which way you can. She
• 7:31
  Speaker 3: voted at 100. She voted at 102. But she was like,
• 7:35
  Speaker 3: voting is just one day and that's easy enough to do.
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  Speaker 3: The real work starts the next day where you begin
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  Speaker 3: organizing and acting in concert with like minded people to
• 7:43
  Speaker 3: create the world that you'd like to one day see.
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  Speaker 1: And she was a union woman. You're a union man.
• 7:48
  Speaker 1: We're all we're all union folks here.
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  Speaker 3: Yeah.
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  Speaker 2: What would you like to see the labor movement doing
• 8:00
  Speaker 2: right now as we're dealing with, I mean, I'm getting
• 8:03
  Speaker 2: every email in.
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  Speaker 1: The world, go knock doors, go vote, go vote. Okay, sure.
• 8:06
  Speaker 3: Yes.
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  Speaker 2: Yes.
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  Speaker 1: And then what?
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  Speaker 3: Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah. I mean, well, first of all,
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  Speaker 3: I think that there still is a lot of hope
• 8:12
  Speaker 3: in the labor movement because like the thing that we,
• 8:15
  Speaker 3: we can do in the labor movement is stop the world.
• 8:17
  Speaker 3: I think that people don't realize what a powerful, powerful
• 8:20
  Speaker 3: tool solidarity is. And you can create any kind of
• 8:23
  Speaker 3: world you want when people just stop working. When the
• 8:26
  Speaker 3: gears stop, when the universities stop, when the carpenters stop,
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  Speaker 3: when the whatever, when the truck drivers stop. All of
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  Speaker 3: a sudden, your demands really, really matter because you can
• 8:36
  Speaker 3: stop the economy. You can cost shareholders millions and billions
• 8:39
  Speaker 3: of dollars by withholding your labor. A radical labor movement,
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  Speaker 3: I still think there's a room for that to be
• 8:45
  Speaker 3: something that can be very, very important in creating a
• 8:47
  Speaker 3: better world.
• 8:47
  Speaker 2: So is this Tom Morello officially coming out in favor
• 8:50
  Speaker 2: of the 2028 general strike?
• 8:52
  Speaker 3: Coming out in favor, please. How about the 2026 general strike,
• 8:57
  Speaker 3: the 2027 general strike, the tomorrow afternoon general strike?
• 9:02
  Speaker 2: I know I got to let you get out of here,
• 9:03
  Speaker 2: get back to rocking. But just mentioning this, this great
• 9:06
  Speaker 2: local co-op we got here, Red Emos. What are you
• 9:09
  Speaker 2: reading right now that keeps you excited, keeps you hopeful?
• 9:12
  Speaker 3: That's a good question. I got, I'm trying to, I've
• 9:14
  Speaker 3: got two, I've got two books back at the, at
• 9:16
  Speaker 3: the hotel. One of them is that I've been reading
• 9:19
  Speaker 3: with my son. It's a, it's like sort of, it's comprehensive, like,
• 9:24
  Speaker 3: the ideas of human beings. So from chartism to, you know, anarcho-syndicalism,
• 9:31
  Speaker 3: et cetera. It's like a paragraph on each, which we
• 9:33
  Speaker 3: read together. And sometimes he's bored and sometimes he's more
• 9:35
  Speaker 3: enthusiastic about it. But that's what I've brought to the
• 9:38
  Speaker 3: hotel with the family now. Really?
• 9:40
  Speaker 1: All right. I was not fishing for you to mention
• 9:42
  Speaker 1: my book. It's fine.
• 9:43
  Speaker 3: Yes. Your book features prominently in his library. Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah.
• 9:49
  Speaker 1: Well, thank you so much.
• 9:50
  Speaker 3: It's always great to have you. Thank you for your service.
• 9:52
  Speaker 3: And I appreciate you.
• 9:53
  Speaker 1: This has been Kim Kelly.
• 9:54
  Speaker 3: Tom Morello.
• 9:55
  Speaker 1: For The Real News Network.
• 10:01
  Speaker 3: Power to the people. Power to the.
• 10:07
  Speaker 2: People.
• 10:07
  Speaker 3: Power to the people.
• 10:12
  Speaker 2: Power to the people right on.
• 10:21
  Speaker 3: Make it easy, but take it.