Watch the video for Tom Morello's anti-ICE protest song, "Pretend You Remember Me"

Morello was recently called out by Disturbed frontman David Draiman for his support of controversial rap trio Kneecap.

By Emma Keates  |  July 15, 2025 | 4:55pm
Screenshot: Tom Morello/YouTube
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Watch the video for Tom Morello's anti-ICE protest song,
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Rage Against The Machine guitarist Tom Morello has released an impactful new video for “Pretend You Remember Me,” a song he told Billboard was in “direct response to what we’ve seen happening, the state terror we’ve seen happening in this country of mass agents tearing families apart.” The video opens with a clip of Native American activist Leonard Peltier, who received two life sentences after he was convicted of killing two FBI agents in a 1975 shootout; President Joe Biden commuted his sentence to indefinite house arrest shortly before his departure from office in January.

“No human being is illegal,” Peltier, whom Morello wrote “has become a friend over the years,” says at the beginning of the video. “Every inch of this country is stolen land,” he later says, interspersed with clips of protests against ICE and various administrations’ press secretaries. 

“Like anybody else, I’m all in favor of violent criminals being arrested—but I think we should start with the violent criminals who the International Criminal Court is seeking for their wars overseas rather than hard-working people who are just trying to make a decent life for their families here,” Morello said of the inspiration behind the song, which he released in collaboration with the Coalition For Humane Immigrant Rights Los Angeles, a nonprofit that provides legal and other resources for the city’s immigrant community. “If you support anything, let it be justice.”

Morello’s activism also recently found him in hot water with Disturbed frontman David Draiman, who expressed his anger with the guitarist after he voiced his support for controversial Irish rap group, Kneecap. On a recent interview on The Strombo Show, Morello praised the staunchly pro-Palestinian trio as “clearly the Rage Against The Machine of now.” That drew the ire of Draiman, who has vocally supported Israel. “Shameful. Truly. Wish I could say I was shocked,” Draiman posted on X. “Guess my family doesn’t count, when it comes to my ‘friend’s’ virtue signaling for those who support terror, and incite Jew hatred.”

The criticism doesn’t seem to have deterred Morello, who said “playing this music at this time felt like it was absolutely appropriate to do” after he heard Rage Against The Machine songs “blasting out of every car” at the Los Angeles ICE protests in June.

The musician is also gearing up to release what he calls his first “solo rock album,” which he expects to have out next year. The album will still have “some shredding guitar solos on it,” he told Billboard. “On the one hand is the big Morello riffage of Rage and Audioslave; on other hand is a kind of Springsteen, Darkness On The Edge of Town vibe. [‘Pretend You Remember Me’] falls comfortably in between those.”

You can catch Morello on tour in Canada throughout the rest of the summer and fall.

 
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