Tom Morello becomes honorary Italian citizen
Rage Against The Machine‘s Tom Morello has become an honorary Italian citizen and been given the keys to his ancestral hometown.
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The guitarist was the subject of a ceremony in the town of Pratiglione last weekend (July 23), where mayor Giovanni Trucano presented Morello with his citizenship.
It was revealed that the star’s great-great-grandfather Carlo left Pratiglione to live in the United States in the late 1800s.
Morello said on Instagram: “I just became an honorary Italian citizen & received the key to the city of the Morello ancestral hometown of Pratiglione, Italy!
“Bands played! Children frolicked! Dozens of Morello cousins partied! The mayor wore blue! Awesome guitar statue erected in town square next to the memorial for local partisans who died fighting the Nazis! Grazie, Pratiglione!”
Last year, Morello and Rage Against The Machine had to cancel dozens of reunion tour shows in the wake of de la Rocha injuring his leg onstage in July.
In a following interview, Morello then said that Zack de la Rocha performing injured is still “more compelling” than practically all frontmen in the history of music.
“Well, the irony is that I had just recovered from a ruptured achilles,” Morello said of the incident. “I was in rehearsals on crutches. I recognised the gait. But Zack toughed it out that night. And for the next 17 shows, he was more compelling as a frontman sitting on a box in the middle of the stage than 99 per cent of the frontmen in the history of all time.”
The band, who first announced their second reunion in 2019, were set to kick the tour off in March 2020. Ongoing complications surrounding the COVID pandemic, however, forced the tour to be rescheduled several times over. The most recent pushback came in January and February 2022, where half of the US leg was postponed from April to July and the other half was pushed into 2023.
However, after playing 18 shows with an injured de la Rocha last year, the band have since cancelled any remaining dates.
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Will Richards
NME
