Stressing that he is not bitter his band has not yet made the cut, the Rage Against the Machine guitarist gives executives credits for letting him 'have a voice at that table.'
- Oct 8, 2021
AceShowbiz - Rage Against the Machine guitarist Tom Morello is convinced "systemic" failures are limiting the number of bands inducted into America's Rock & Roll Hall of Fame.
But Morello isn't bitter his own Los Angeles-based band, which has been nominated for membership three times since it first became eligible in 2018, has not yet made the cut.
"I don't think that anyone in that room is like, 'I hate Rage Against the Machine. I don't think they should be in,' " he said on Tuesday's (October 5) episode of the "Tuna on Toast" podcast, lamenting that many great bands are still left out - because "only x number can get in a year."
He is grateful, though, that he was asked to confer with the Hall of Fame's executives "because I complained so much about how horrible the Rock & Roll Hall of Fame was... To their credit, they let me in to have a voice at that table."
Tom, who also played with Chris Cornell-fronted Audioslave, helped induct The Clash in 2003 and Kiss in 2014, and has since "advocated for a number of bands that have gotten in that might not have otherwise had that voice."
But the system itself is flawed, he argues, "For me the problem is, it's systemic in that there's many more bands that deserve to be in the Rock & Roll Hall of Fame than can be, just simply because of procedural stuff."
"And then every year there's a new number [of bands] that are available to be nominated, and so that takes up chairs at the table. And then some artist who got in with one band gets in as a solo artist, which takes up a chair. And so it's, like, I think procedural stuff, which is stopping the right thing."
