{"id":1570,"date":"2025-07-11T13:02:03","date_gmt":"2025-07-11T13:02:03","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/1570\/"},"modified":"2025-07-11T13:02:03","modified_gmt":"2025-07-11T13:02:03","slug":"tom-morello-hails-kneecap-as-the-rage-against-the-machine-of-now","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/1570\/","title":{"rendered":"Tom Morello hails Kneecap as “the Rage Against The Machine of now”"},"content":{"rendered":"

Tom Morello<\/a> has said Kneecap<\/a> are \u201cclearly the Rage Against The Machine<\/a> of now\u201d, praising them for speaking truth to power.<\/p>\n

The guitarist and founding member of the Los Angeles band appeared on The Strombo Show last week, and was asked by host George Stroumboulopoulos which young artists he felt were embodying similar anti-establishment sentiments to his old band.<\/p>\n

He was quick to point to the Irish rap trio: \u201c[They\u2019re at] the top of the list,\u201d he said. \u201cI mean, they\u2019re clearly the Rage Against The Machine of now. Like, there\u2019s them and there\u2019s a gap to the next one.\u201d<\/p>\n

When asked to address the slew of controversies that have hit the band in recent months, Morello responded: \u201cWhat they\u2019re doing in their art is what people could probably stand to do more in their lives: to really speak truth to power. And, you know,\u00a0Kneecap\u00a0are not terrorists.<\/p>\n

\u201cWhat is terroristic is, you know, 20,000 dead Palestinian children. That\u2019s the story. Not some Irish rappers who don\u2019t like that that\u2019s happening. [That] should not be the story.\u201d<\/p>\n<\/p>\n

Kneecap have been in the headlines regularly this summer \u2013 their Glastonbury set was one of the weekend\u2019s most anticipated performances, and the BBC decided to pull their livestream coverage of it just hours before<\/a> they took to the West Holts Stage. In the set, they hit out at Keir Starmer, who had called for them to be removed from the line-up<\/a>, and reiterated their support to the people of Palestine<\/a>.<\/p>\n

Avon and Somerset Police later said they were investigating the set<\/a>, as well as Bob Vylan<\/a>\u2019s, under possible criminal charges.<\/p>\n

That investigation follows two others from London\u2019s Met Police \u2013 one into\u00a0Mo Chara allegedly shouting \u201cup Hamas, up Hezbollah\u201d and displaying a Hezbollah flag on stage<\/a>, for which\u00a0he appeared in court and been granted unconditional bail<\/a>, and\u00a0the other into alleged on-stage comments in which the band said \u201cthe only good Tory is a dead Tory\u201d<\/a>,\u00a0for which they will not face any further action<\/a>.<\/p>\n<\/p>\n

The band have consistently\u00a0denied supporting Hamas or Hezbollah<\/a>, and say they do not incite or condone violence, describing the legal action against them as \u201ca carnival of distraction<\/a>\u201d.<\/p>\n

They have also recently defended their actions on stage, arguing that it is not their job to \u201ctell people what\u2019s a joke and what\u2019s not\u201d<\/a>.<\/p>\n

Asked about whether he regrets the comments about MPs, Mo Chara\u00a0said: \u201cWhy should I regret it? It was a joke \u2013 we\u2019re playing characters, it\u2019s satirical, it\u2019s a\u00a0fucking joke. And that\u2019s not the point. The point is, that wasn\u2019t an issue until we said \u2018Free Palestine\u2019 at Coachella. That stuff happened 18 months ago, and nobody batted an eyelid.\u201d<\/p>\n

Most recently, the band have revealed that a poster for their upcoming show at Wembley Arena on September 18 has been banned from the London Underground<\/a>, as it was deemed to be \u201clikely to cause widespread or serious offence\u201d.<\/p>\n

\u201cHow petty can political policing and interference get\u2026\u201d the band wrote. \u201cSpeak out against genocide and they\u2019ll use every single angle they can to silence you. Join the IOF [sic], murder kids, fly to London and nothing happens \u2013 you\u2019ll be welcomed and applauded.\u201d<\/p>\n

They concluded: \u201cSee it. Say it. Censored.\u201d<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Tom Morello has said Kneecap are \u201cclearly the Rage Against The Machine of now\u201d, praising them for speaking…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":1571,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[53],"tags":[88,216,2022,2023],"class_list":{"0":"post-1570","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-music","8":"tag-entertainment","9":"tag-music","10":"tag-punk","11":"tag-rap"},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1570","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=1570"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1570\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/1571"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=1570"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=1570"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=1570"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}