Here's Tom Morello with his first signed band, before RATM, before Audioslave before the Nightwatchman - this is Lock Up with "Nothing New"
This was before Tom had really developed his own signature style of guitar playing, but what's shown here is that he was originally a shredder just like many bands who came to L.A. to get signed in the late 80's, early 90s.
Lock Up was originally signed to a 3 album deal with Geffen Records, but after the main comment after the first one was that they were a "warmed over Chili Peppers" the label dropped them cold. From the LA Times.
Contracts in the music business are largely meaningless. Morello's
pre-Rage band, Lock Up, released on album for Geffen Records in 1989
before being dropped. Morello said he went out of his way to ensure that
the band's contract guaranteed that the act would be allowed to record
at least two albums regardless of the results of the first. When Morello
pointed this out after being cut, he said the label responded with
this: " 'We know it's guaranteed but you don't have enough money to sue
us.' That was my welcome to the music industry."
I suppose that's both a blessing and a curse as it allowed Tom to form Rage Against the Machine, but then again a lot of bands - including the Chili Peppers - don't really begin to reach their full potential until the 4th or 5th record. For Springsteen that was "Born to Run", for Prince that was "1999", even for Bon Jovi "Slippery When Wet" was their 3rd record. THe Peppers themselves didn't hit until their 4th album "Mother's Milk" featuring their first hit, the Stevie Wonder cover "Higher Ground". They didn't become a national act until their next album "Blood Sugar Sex Magic" which featured both "Give it Away" and "Under the Bridge", but then that's the music business - which is all about hedging bets
There was a time when labels would back an artist even if they didn't really begin to pay for themselves for a decade or more - see Goo Goo Dolls - and then with other artists they give up before even begun.
Here's another clip of Lock Up doing "24-Hour Man" apparently on a TV Show in Brazil.
I actually attended what was probably the final Lock Up show at the Club Lingerie in Hollywood, which also the only Lock Up show I had a chance to see. It was pretty ironic because I'd actually discovered the band by accident, I didn't realize at the time that both Tom and I were members of the Black Rock Coalition which was having meetings at UCLA at the time. I didn't even remember him a few years later when I ran into him at a Ronnie James Dio show at the House of Blues, but he remember me. We chatted for awhile about Lock Up and that final show. I mentioned that he hadn't played what was probably the best song on the album "Peacekeeper" at the show and he said "That song Jams".
SO as a result, still even more years later - I've covered it myself as a part of this Kickstarter Project, but it does Jam. Last year Tom made an appearance at the LA Occupy Camp where I gave him a copy of my cover on CD. I blogged about that on my main site back in May.
