Q: How do you reconcile being anti-corporate and being on a major label?
Morello: Rage Against the Machine sold fourteen million records of totally subversive revolutionary propaganda. The reason why is that the albums were released on Sony and got that sort of distribution.
You have two choices. I admire bands like Fugazi that take the other route. They are completely self-contained and independent. But if you do that, then you have to be a businessman. Then I have to sit there and worry about the orders to Belgium and make sure they get there. That is not what I'm going to do.
We've had, in Rage Against the Machine and Audioslave, complete artistic control, 100 percent over everything. Every second of every video, every second of every album, every bit of advertisement comes directly from us. I don't even look at it as a tradeoff. You live in a friggin' capitalist world. If you want to sell 45s out of the back of your microbus, God bless you. And maybe that works better, I don't know. I'll see you at the finish line.