After making their debut (full audio) earlier this week, the supergroup Prophets Of Rage has just revealed what may actually be their true purpose: protesting the Republican National Convention. According to a feature in Rolling Stone, the band will be “rocking furiously in and around the RNC,” according to Tom Morello.
The band features three-fourths of Rage Against The Machine, as well as Chuck D from Public Enemy and B-Real and DJ Lord from Cypress Hill. Tom Morello has always been quite vocal in his political activism, and Prophets of Rage seems to be his newest medium.
“Well there’s a thing called the Republican National Convention in July, and that will be a perfect place for a band like Prophets of Rage to cause a ruckus, and we will be there on the streets, in the field,” Morello said. “We have a venue and there may be venues that will be spontaneous venues, it’s hard to say. This is the kind of thing you don’t broadcast to the local authorities prior to arrival.”
Morello also talks about how music and politics are closely intertwined. “My view is that progressive, radical change always comes from below, not above. So even if you stake all of your hopes for you and your family on hope, well sometimes that doesn’t work out. If you stake it on this xenophobic, fear-based racism, that’s not gonna work out either,” Morello said. “The underlying problems are systemic. The songs that we’ve been writing about for decades attack the system, not the individual candidates. How people change the world, it starts around people’s kitchen tables, it starts in their classrooms, it starts wherever people talk about making a world we want to one day see.”
It all goes back to the band’s mission statement: Dangerous times demand dangerous songs.
The group’s next performance will be at the Hollywood Palladium in Los Angeles, CA, tonight.