TCB

Audioslave

Set it Off

Probably the only band with the requisite stones to take on a SXSW-eve slate of the Zeke reunion at Emo's, Michael Hall's Swollen Circus at Stubb's, and the Guided by Voices hoot night at the Mercury is raging garden of sound Audioslave, who lay waste to a sold-out Austin Music Hall Tuesday with Philly's Burning Brides. Guitarist Tom Morello, who when not blasting out "Set It Off" and "Exploder," runs nonprofit activist organization Axis of Justice with System of a Down's Serj Tankian, called last week from Detroit Rock City.

TCB: How do you make your guitar sound like turntables?

TM: You need a guitar with two pickups and two volume controls, and it has to have a toggle switch to go between the pickups. You turn one of the pickups to 10 and the other to zero; the toggle switch functions as a kill switch. Then you rub your left hand along the strings, which makes kind of a scratching noise.

TCB: Some of the lyrics on the album are pretty oblique. Do you ever ask Chris Cornell what the hell he's talking about?

TM: Timmy [bassist Commerford] actually does often ask what he's talking about. I like to enjoy the existential ambivalence of some of the lyrics, but Timmy will often directly ask what the heck the songs are about.

TCB: Who was the hardest-rocking band at Harvard while you were there?

TM: I was in four different bands four different years, all of which were grim cover bands. Probably it was my band senior year, a rock outfit with the awful name Bored of Education. We did a wicked cover of "Crazy Train." I think it was very surprising for the Harvard locals to see us playing Ozzy Osbourne at these kegger parties where they were expecting Prince's "Purple Rain" and "Louie Louie."