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Tom Morello combines music, activism in Street Sweeper Social Club
Social activist and legendary rock guitarist Tom Morello is prepared to play for any crowd with his band Street Sweeper Social Club , featuring The Coup 's Boots Riley.
"We're still brand new as a live band, but within our first 20 shows, we've played at the School of Rock in front of 11-year-old kids, we've played at Sing Sing maximum security prison in front of hardcore inmates, and we played in front of goth teens on the NIN/JA tour," Morello, of Rage Against the Machine and Audioslave fame, said via telephone from San Francisco where his band was opening for Jane's Addiction and Nine Inch Nails. "So I think we're pretty much ready for anything."
But there is more to Street Sweeper Social Club than just playing live, he said. Morello has three specific goals for the band to accomplish: feed the poor, fight the power and rock out.
"It's a social club and you can join it if you text the word 'street' to 94553," Morello said. "The guy who ran Obama's texting campaign is running this campaign for us. We give people free Street Sweeper music. We help them plug into local homeless-advocacy organizations and food banks in the area where they live. Every once in a while, Boots Riley just calls people up at random to invite them to a show or invite them backstage. You'll never know what happens. It's a way to directly communicate the music and the activism of the band without any middle person--or even a computer. Just go straight to your phone."
The funk-heavy Street Sweeper Social Club, which releases its self-titled debut June 16, has been a long time in the making, as Riley and Morello first crossed paths years ago.
"We met each other back in 2003," Morello said. "We were playing a series of anti-globalization shows with Billy Bragg and Steve Earle. Over the course of the next five years of, like, countless benefits shows and protest shows, I've played guitar on a Coup record, and Boots has opened up for [Morello's solo project] The Nightwatchman tours twice going around North America. So, during that time, we became good friends. I also realized what a great lyricist, rapper and frontperson Boots is. So when Audioslave met its demise, I got together with Boots and made him an offer he couldn't refuse."
Finding time to balance Street Sweeper Social Club, Nightwatchman and Morello's reunited original band, Rage Against the Machine, was a trick.
"That's a good question," Morello said with a laugh when asked how he managed to juggle all three. "Street Sweeper came in the midst of me doing The Nightwatchman stuff and the occasional Rage Against the Machine concert, and Boots working on his life as band leader of The Coup. We'd have a recording session here; an overdubbing session there. All of a sudden, we got a call from [Nine Inch Nails'] Trent Reznor asking if we wanted to go on tour this summer. I'm like, 'I guess I better finish mixing the record.'"
