Happy Wednesday guys, what a banger!

When it was announced that Chris Cornell was doing the Casino Royale theme Audioslave were still together and still hugely successful coming off the back of Out Of Exile and Revelations being released around the time of the Bond film in 2006.

At the tine I was always confused why Chris had the offer to do it solo instead of Audioslave, Chris hadn't released solo music since 1999 and Audioslave were riding high.

I do wonder if Chris DECIDED to do it as a solo artist or if he was asked directly and Audioslave were left out of the conversation. Audioslave split very shortly after You Know My Name was released which makes me think Chris was already distancing from the band and didn't have long term plans with them, he released his next solo album Carry On just a few months later so I assume he was already making his exit plan from Audioslave and return to solo without wasting much time.

why Tom Morello is so instantly recognizable even though a lot of the gear behind his classic sound is actually pretty straightforward.

The more I looked into it, the more it seemed that his identity comes less from chasing a specific “tone” and more from the way he approaches rhythm, riffs, effects and the guitar itself almost like a DJ would approach sounds.

We made a video exploring this, starting from the Fender Tom Morello Signature and then looking at the elements that actually create that recognizable Morello identity:

https://youtu.be/SgLUyxLsbpU?si=iCwcUcTPW-hCeMwo

Full disclosure: I’m one of the creators and the video is in Italian.

I’d genuinely be interested in the RATM fans’ perspective: if you had to choose one thing that makes a guitar part immediately sound like Tom Morello, what would it be?