Tom Morello is a legend, there's no other way to describe him, and his BIGSOUND keynote presentation was exactly the stuff of legends.
The Rage Against The Machine guitarist (just one of his many, MANY credits) kicked off the near hour long presentation speaking about his time spend in Australia over the years - including noting that his one and only drug experience of his life was after accidentally eating a hash brownie on a beach in Perth - and swiftly moved into his early life with his single mother, Mary Morello, living in Libertyville, Illinois. Morello spoke of his father, Kenyan diplomat Ngethe Njoroge, who was one of the first three Kenyans to go to university in America. “I didn’t meet him until I was 30 years old,” he shared.
Morello shared how his early life experiences - racist slurs from children at his kindergarten, having two KKK members throw a noose at him in a parking lot and telling him to get in their car at 15, and more - had shaped who he is as a person and how it influenced his activism from an early age.
From there, it was stories of the high school newsletter that nearly got him expelled, an introduction to punk music through the Sex Pistols, starting his first band with Adam Jones from Tool in high school, and going on to become the first person from his town to be accepted into Harvard University that led him to practice guitar for eight hours every day and helped shape him into the musician he is now.
"I didn’t have control over any of that, but I had control over that guitar and no one was going to stop me," said Morello about the "chips" on his shoulders that helped push him along as a musician. He shared about how Rage Against The Machine was born and the band's progression to Audioslave with Chris Cornell ("Chris, your light will never be outshined").
He also shared his respect and admiration for Bruce Springsteen and his E Street Band and what it was like to play with them for a few years ("He’s the only friend I have that I subscribe to a fanzine about," he said of Springsteen.)
Morello wrapped the keynote with, of course, a call to arms encouraging viewers to "stand up for your planet before it’s too late", remember that "being on the right side of history sometimes means being on the wrong side of the law" and to "head out and confront injustice wherever it rears its ugly head".
Even if you don't love his music, you will love his enthusiasm and his story. Head to the BIGSOUND delegate portal to catch it if you missed this remarkable keynote.
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