Tom Morello teams with Imagine Dragons' Dan Reynolds, the Bloody Beetroots on “slamming” new song, Stand Up
Incendiary new protest anthem combines big riffs with colossal electronic production
Tom Morello has unveiled a new song, Stand Up, with proceeds going to the NAACP, Know Your Rights Camp, the Southern Poverty Law Center and the Marsha P. Johnson Institute.
The track, which alternates a crushing, Rage Against the Machine-like chorus electric guitar riff with electronic-tinged verses, is a collaboration with Imagine Dragons front man Dan Reynolds, producer the Bloody Beetroots, and artist/activist Shea Diamond.
Morello addressed Stand Up, which features lines like “When I call the police will they just kill me? Will they just kill you?” in a press release, stating:
“I grew up in the tiny lily white, archly conservative town of Libertyville, Illinois. When I was a kid, someone hung a noose in my family’s garage, there was occasional N-word calling, etc, etc. On June 6 of this year, there was a Black Lives Matter rally and march in that same town that drew over 1,000 people.
“It seems that the times, they are a’changin’. I was so inspired that night, I reached out to Dan from Imagine Dragons. The Bloody Beetroots and I had conjured a slamming track and within 24 hours Dan had sent back a completed vocal.
“We got Shea Diamond, a Black transgender woman with a long history of activism, on the track and the coalition was complete.”
You can check out Stand Up above.
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Morello recently made headlines when he surprised the 10-year-old girl behind a viral RATM cover with the gift of his signature Fender Stratocaster.
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Rich is the co-author of the best-selling Nöthin' But a Good Time: The Uncensored History of the '80s Hard Rock Explosion. He is also a recording and performing musician, and a former editor of Guitar World magazine and executive editor of Guitar Aficionado magazine. He has authored several additional books, among them Kurt Cobain: Montage of Heck, the companion to the documentary of the same name.