Tom Morello is very passionate about the Rock N’ Roll Hall of Fame. Indeed, it seems the absence of one band has left him particularly vexed - no, not Rage Against The Machine (they were inducted in 2023), but Iron Maiden.
That much is clear from an interview Morello gave to Sirius XM’s Eddie Trunk last week. He stated his intent to get Iron Maiden their long-overdue place in the Hall: "I will chew my leg off like a coyote in a trap if I can't get Iron Maiden in,” he said. “While there are many other deserving acts, Iron Maiden for me is the last, most egregious oversight in the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame."
He continued: "Iron Maiden is like the gold standard of metal bands and they're not in the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame. I know Bruce Dickinson said he doesn't really care. Well, I care as a fan. I care very, very much about it. So I'm gonna do all I can to get, (using) whatever limited influence I have, to get Iron Maiden in the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame."
Morello does have some influence – he’s actually on the organisation’s nominating committee. The guitarist first got involved several years back after a conversation with Jon Landau, Bruce Springsteen’s manager and one of the Hall’s executives, about its credibility.
“My argument was this,” Morello recalled “If you're a little league player, your dream as a young baseball player is to have such a career that you would end up in the baseball hall of fame. I said, ‘A lot of young rock and roll guitar players have no respect for the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame. None of their favourite bands are in it’.”
The Rage man insisted that the Hall needed to be “a place that everyone who loves rock and roll aspires to be in because their heroes are there. And you don't have that right now.” Landau was impressed by Morello’s passion and invited him get involved. “To his credit, he put me in the room.”
Iron Maiden have been eligible for the Hall since 2004 and understandably have been a bit sniffy about an institution that seems to regard them with such disdain. Back in 2018 Bruce Dickinson memorably described the Hall as “an utter and complete load of bollocks”, an institution that’s “run by a bunch of sanctimonious bloody Americans who wouldn’t know rock ’n’ roll if it hit them in the face. They need to stop taking Prozac and start drinking fucking beer.”
Whether Morello’s passionate intervention on their behalf shifts the dial remains to be seen...
