One of Rock’s Most Famous Guitars Inspires a Signature Model
As the co-founder and lead guitarist of both Rage Against the Machine and Audioslave, Tom Morello has been responsible for some of the most iconic and hard-hitting electric guitar riffs and solos in history. For the vast majority of his musical career, he has performed on his legendary “Arm the Homeless” guitar, an instrument with a story as unique as its sound. Now, in a collaboration with Fender, Morello has released a signature Arm the Homeless guitar model, allowing his fans and fellow guitarists to play virtually the same instrument he’s been shredding on for decades.
The Arm the Homeless guitar is most famous for the homemade artwork that graces its body—four smiling hippos and the provocative words “Arm the Homeless” scrawled in black and red marker. Widely known as a vocal political and social activist (the music of Rage Against the Machine is full of politically loaded lyrics and serves as a rallying cry for the disaffected), Morello added the words to his guitar one evening before a concert at the Whiskey in early 1992. The aggressively political statement stood in sharp contrast to the band of smiling hippos on the guitar, and the motif became an instant classic with fans, the majority of whom were drawn to Rage Against the Machine as much for its political statements as Morello’s guitar licks and Zack de la Rocha’s legendary rock-adjacent rap skills.
Signature Style
What most fans of the band missed, however, was the fact that Morello’s guitar had a far bigger story than a couple of happy, chubby animals and an angry missive protesting an oppressive, disenfranchising society. The Arm the Homeless guitar had been custom built from a bunch of random parts that Morello found in bargain bins, shaped as much by his budget as by his musical aesthetic.
In fact, Morello has stated that, when the guitar was finally assembled by Performance Guitar USA, it was the worst guitar that he had ever played. He ended up swapping out numerous parts over the next year in pursuit of something that actually worked the way he wanted it to, but ultimately gave up and simply decided to play the guitar as it was. And as it turned out, Morello credits the guitar’s idiosyncrasies with the development of his signature style and creation of some of the band’s most timeless classics, like Bulls on Parade, Bombtrack, Sleep Now in the Fire, and Guerilla Radio. He even refers to the guitar as his co-collaborator in creating these songs.
The technical specs on the Arm the Homeless guitar are as baffling as they are impactful. The neck was a random part pulled from a used bargain bin in an off-brand store, and was a bit thinner than most electric guitar necks—a feature Morello claims helped shape his playing style. He added a Gotoh whammy bar that quickly loosened (and remained loose), adding to his signature sound. The guitar has two EMG pickups, with the pickup in the neck position being a single-coil pickup in a humbucker housing. A three-way switch is used effectively as a kill switch, and the toggle switch is a heavy duty unit that can stand up to excessive use. The guitar also has a Fathead Sustainer on the headstock, which Morello claims never actually did anything useful.
Years of Tinkering
Of course, all of these features are the result of years of tinkering, with Morello claiming that the guitar was tweaked dozens of times over the years. The only part that remains from the original build was the wooden body, which features the iconic Arm the Homeless art.
Numerous guitar brands have approached Morello over the years about making an official signature Arm the Homeless guitar model, but he was reluctant to do so largely because he didn’t think it would be possible to recreate the Frankenstein’s monster nature of the guitar. But after numerous years of discussions with Fender—and around 25 iterations as they sought to recreate the extremely unique (and arguably flawed) neck)—Morello and Fender have finally released an official Arm the Homeless model, complete with the legendary artwork and virtually all of the technical features of the original. In fact, the replica model is so similar to the original that Morello claims he’s been using it for the past few years on tour without anyone noticing. Indeed, he maintains that the only way to identify the original is through some tooth marks on the headstock from when a dog chewed on it years ago.
Commitment to Social Activism
The Arm the Homeless signature model is available from Fender and Morello for $1,699.99—and in keeping with Morello’s commitment to social activism, a portion of the proceeds from sales go directly to the teen homeless shelter Covenant House, as well as the Midnight Mission shelter in Los Angeles, where Morello and his family regularly volunteer.
Morello says that it only makes sense that the sale of the model would help benefit social activism, considering the message the original has helped spread over the years. “If you’re going to put ‘Arm the Homeless’ on a guitar, I want to make sure there’s a component of giving back,” he explains. “I want to make sure there’s a Robin Hood factor to this, as well—that while we’re making this guitar for fans and collectors who want this thing, we’re going to be able to give back to people who are in need.”