Tom Morello has added an EMG pickup set to his ever-growing collection of signature guitar gear – and it brings the sounds of his most famous electric guitar into the hands of modders.
The TM set marries an EMG 85 in the bridge with an EMG H in the neck. It is the same pairing that has powered his ‘Arm the Homeless’ guitar for decades, and the first time this combo has been made readily available as a set.
They’re even stamped with the classic EMG logo to match the vintage ’80s gems they’re based on.
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As you’d expect from ‘buckers with Morello’s name on them, the 85 offers growl and bite aplenty. The active pickup is said to still retain clarity, though, and promises an “expansive low-end body that sounds great for clean tones.”
Morello chose it for its “sustain for solos and power for big riffs” when he was modding his right-hand axe in the late 1980s. But the H is where things get a little more unusual, as it delivers a classic single-coil sound, despite being a humbucker.
In that, Morello says there’s a lesson to be learned.
“Some of the greatest riffs of all time are done with a single-coil pickup,” he observes. “To me, it was the springiness of that sound, and the way that [Rage Against the Machine drummer] Brad Wilk and I play together, that created a heaviness that was very unique.
“A lot of times, guitar players think they have to have the most manly, alpha, distorted sound in order to be heavy,” he continues. “That’s not the trick. It’s the tone, and the chemistry of the people you play with. This pickup has made fields of people bounce up and down over the course of the last three decades.”
Interestingly, Morello’s ‘Arm the Homeless’ guitar was actually a disaster to start with, but then it changed rock history in a dramatic turn of events. Fender has since recreated it as a signature model, arriving after Morello put his name to a Neural DSP plugin in 2023. He also has a namesake overdrive with MXR.
The EMG TM signature set for Tom Morello is available now.
See EMG for more.
