Many of life’s greatest questions stay unanswered: What’s the which means of life? How are the Giza pyramids so exact in measurement? Why does Tom Morello by no means reduce the strings off the headstocks on his guitars? At lengthy final, we’ve the reply to that final query, straight from the person himself.
The reply got here as a part of the Rage Against the Machine axeman’s 2021 look on The Howard Stern Show the place the the legendary radio character secured a solution to a longstanding query, as has been his knack all through his many years on the air.
The brief and lengthy reply to all of it principally boils right down to the truth that these unfastened ends of strings simply look actually cool. The dilemma for Morello, nevertheless, was that the coolness needed to be earned.
“By the best way, why do you not reduce your strings? Why do you all the time have your strings protruding? I really feel prefer it’s an accident,” asked Stern (transcription via Guitar World) after engaging Morello in conversation about his pre-Rage Against the Machine group Electric Sheep.
The guitarist clarified that the move was “no accident” and that he “did not reduce the strings as a result of I assumed it seemed cool.”
READ MORE: 10 Most Memorable Rage Against the Machine Activist + Protest Moments
Other musicians in the area had a different opinion though and weren’t bashful about expressing their thoughts directly with Morello.
“I used to be shamed by a musician pal. He mentioned, ‘Who do you think you are? Do you think you’re within the baddest band on the town?’ I assumed, ‘I’m positively not,’ so I reduce my strings,” he relayed. Certainly, this was before his band went on to pen the iconic line, “Fuck you, I will not do what you inform me.”
Eventually, there came a time in his life where he felt comfortable letting his strings hang out. “Years later, once I was in Rage Against the Machine, I used to be within the baddest band on the town and so I let my strings go,” he beamed.
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