Rage Against The Machine guitarist Tom Morello has praised attempts to get his band to number one.
It has been a year dominated by economic turmoil. Facing record breaking debts banks across the world defaulted, forced governments to plunge public money into a black hole of economic excess.
Which has left the public sector stretched, and unemployment queues growing larger every day. Unsurprisingly, some of us are not looking forward to a Christmas spent making every penny of our unemployment benefit last as long as possible.
Perhaps poetically, the current front runner for this year’s Christmas number one slot is Rage Against The Machine. The band who once forced the New York Stock Exchange to shut its doors, their track ‘Killing In The Name’ is outselling its nearest X Factor driven rival thanks to a guerilla web campaign.
Now Rage Against The Machine guitarist Tom Morello has revealed his joy at the campaign. “A little dose of anarchy for the Christmas holidays is good for the soul” the musician told BBC 6Music.
“I love the independent spirit of the British rock fans,” he explained. “Your country has a great rich history of cutting-edge, exciting rebel music.”
“Whether it’s the early Stones and The Who, or The Clash and The Sex Pistols, or Prodigy and The Muse, I think that people are just fed up with being represented every Christmas holiday, being spoon fed some overblown, sugary ballad that sits at the top of the charts.”
Morello then commented on the ubiquitous nature of the talent show itself. “The one thing about the X Factor show, much like American Idol, if you’re a viewer of the show, you get to vote for one candidate or the other but you don’t really get to vote against the show itself… Until now!”
Continuing, Tom Morello revealed that he was planning on donating any royalties from the stunt to charity. “Me personally, I am going to donate part of my proceeds from the sales to an organisation in the UK called Youth Music, which is the UK’s largest children’s music charity.”
“My hope is that one of the results of this whole thing is that there will be a new generation of rockers who will take on the establishment with the music they write.”
