Tom Morello is best known for his work with Rage Against the Machine and Audioslave, which often led to some interesting and innovative guitar playing. Some of his tricks include pedals, feedback, tapping, and other strange noise methods. Guitar techniques not normally used in everyday guitar lessons like these.
Detractors of the guitarist like to say he does everything but play the guitar! Humor aside, his methods may be strange at times, but they are certainly unique. Here are some Tom Morello guitar tricks and how to replicate them!
Drop D Tuning
Of course not all his songs use Drop D but many of the 90’s hits were in this tuning, that will be one essential part to copying his sound, especially the Rage Against the Machine era. Like many guitarists of that period he loves to use heavy power chords and riffs on the low bass strings.
Tremolo Bars
A Floyd Rose is the best to get some of his intense bends that he does, but any whammy bar system can help with those times of screeching effects. If you have the Floyd Rose, the locking tuners will help keep the strings in tune. Especially if you want to play in loud and crazy manners, your strings need to be prepared to move more than normal!
Use Weird Objects As Picks
Ball point pens, nails, screws, and just about everything including the kitchen sink can be used to pluck those strings. Scrape, scratch, slide, and pick with everything out of your desk drawer or toolbox!
And as far as picking, he can be very rough on the strings, he’s doing more than plucking them. He mutes, slaps, and hits them to get more grit and sound out of them, he is not gentle at all with the strings, body, or fretboard! His playing can easily be described as aggressive!
Scratch the Strings
Just as a DJ will scratch a record player, Tom Morello does the same to his strings across the pickups. If you mix it with a whammy pedal and kill switch it will sound just like a HipHop scratch. It is quite an annoying sound if you don’t get it right so make sure you practice the timing!
Just like the different picks above you can mix that method in with scratching or maybe even a slide. The weirder you play your strings the better chance you will get the right sound!
Amplifiers and Pedals Used By Tom Morello
He is most known for a Marshall JCM800 amp for his heavy sound and use of pitch shifters for moving across many notes at a time. For the most part his gear is not that different than other alternative and hard rockers of the 90’s, he just uses his in a rougher and more intense manner. If you want overdrive like he uses you can try his custom Power 50 MXR pedal.
He is also a big fan of Digitech Whammy pedals that allow him to harmonize his notes. Any pedal that allows you to add more intervals to your notes will be helpful in capturing his sound. Just remember that harmonizers are like delays in that we want to keep the playing simple or it can get muddled in the wrong way. Except when you want that sound! Sometimes Tom uses the whammy delay to purposely detune the notes!
His social media videos are filled with Digitech Whammy pedal riffs, he really likes that effect! Other pedals he uses are Electro Harmonix Pitch shifters, an EQ pedal for slight boost, a phase 90, and tremolo pedals at low settings. He also uses long and short delay pedals depending on which he may need, but usually it is for some intense staccato delay sounds!
The Kill Switch
He uses a toggle switch that can shut the bridge pickups down, this allows him to kill the sound of the electric guitar to add to the rhythm. You may have to experiment on your guitar on how to get the toggle switch to kill as much of the sound as possible. Strike the strings and then toggle back and forth, even as you’re playing new notes it will sound cool. By using this method you can create staccato, stutter, and other rhythmic and volume changes. It can also be used to make the notes seem faster than they really are.
Jack Tapping
One of the more controversial Tom Morello guitar tricks is pulling the cable out of the guitar and tapping the jack. Now in the wrong situation you could potentially do damage to your amp so maybe this is one you should start slow on. Keep your gains and levels down low to avoid feedback. And most of all if you are going to jack tap, make it sound funky, not ear piercing!
Annoy the Neighbors
Tom Morello’s playing is controversial, loud, and quirky. If you really want to play his guitar tricks there is a good chance you will annoy your neighbors, family, or roommates. His style of metal is politically charged and dealing with heavy issues, so it’s no wonder his playing is so in your face at times! Playing a nice riff on guitar is fun, but it doesn’t get as much attention as feedback, squeals, drastic pitch changes, signal squawks, and a heavy and loud tuning. Tom pushes the limits of what is normal, so try the same to be like him!
Be Creative
You may want to play like Tom Morello, but you don’t have the right amp, an old Digitech whammy, or a kill switch. What can you do? Well the key point to remember about his playing is creativity. His playing styles are a mix of funk, punk, and metal mixed with any kind of strange sound he can make. That is the best way to copy his style, just get weird with your playing. Try different ways to alter the pitch, scrape the strings, cut the signal on and off to the beat; just turn your body, the pedals, and even the cables into an extension of the guitar. Everything in your rig setup is a potential part of the song!
If you truly wish to copy Tom Morello’s guitar tricks you will need some specialized guitars and pitch shifters that can handle his specific style of playing. But if you don’t have that you can still play in his style with a thoughtful and unique approach to your effects. In fact if you really want to replicate his style, just find a new use for a pedal or guitar pickup, that will be the best way to honor his guitar legacy!