By now, most people have likely read Tom Morello’s Rolling Stone op-ed regarding Republican Vice Presidential hopeful Paul Ryan. In case you didn’t, the guitarist responded to Ryan citing Rage Against The Machine as one of his favorite bands (yeah, we were surprised to hear that as well). And to say the least, he wasn’t too pleased about Ryan’s shout out, saying (among many scathing things) that “Paul Ryan’s love of Rage Against the Machine is amusing, because he is the embodiment of the machine that our music has been raging against for two decades.”
Many Rage Against The Machine fans have applauded Morello’s op-ed. However, there are a handful who also weren’t too fond of his remarks, including All That Remains’ Philip Labonte. In fact, the singer (a staunch libertarian) even went as far to post the following tweet, making it clear how he feels about the Rage Against The Machine guitarist:
“Tom Morello is a communist and a fool. He’s also had the wool pulled over his eyes by the system.”
As you would expect, the tweet caused a mini debate via Twitter, even launching a discussion between him and God Forbid guitarist Doc Coyle. Labonte would go on to clarify that just because he disagrees with Democrats doesn’t mean he’s agreeing with Republicans, as well as saying that “I’m not saying he’s dumb, I’m saying he’s a fool for the statist perspective that our government is good w a democrat is in office.”
There’s undoubtedly going to be as many people who disagree with Labonte’s views as those who agree with him (and vice versa in regards to Morello). We’ve been trying to stay neutral in regards to politics (though it’s been somewhat hard in some scenarios), but with the presidential elections right around the corner, it’s fair to say that this won’t be the last political debate we hear coming out of the hard rock community.
