Following in the footsteps of bandmate Damiano David, Måneskin guitarist Thomas Raggi is gearing up to release his debut solo album next month, with a little help from Rage Against The Machine legend and all-round good dude Tom Morello. In this world-exclusive first interview, the two Toms take us inside new record Masquerade, its incredible collaborations, and bringing real rock’n’roll back to the masses…
Thomas Raggi and Tom Morello first met under unassuming conditions. “We were in the parking lot of the Roxy in Los Angeles,” Tom recalls. “Måneskin were playing there that evening. My wife and some friends were going to the show and they asked me if I might be able to facilitate some tickets, so I went along to the soundcheck. To be frank I hadn’t really heard of the band at the time, but when I looked into them, I found that one of the biggest rock bands in the world right now is from Italy. I thought it was such an interesting phenomenon…”
From that meeting three years ago grew plans to hang out; then a friendship; then intertwined creative paths that lead to Thomas joining Tom at his shows, and Tom featuring on Måneskin’s Gossip! single. It seems destiny, then, that the duo should be dialling into Kerrang! – Tom while on the road in Canada, Thomas from his Rome home during some downtime – to talk about their first fully-fledged collaborative album in a world-exclusive interview.
Marking Thomas’ first album released under his own banner, with Tom on production and creative duties, Masquerade is in many ways a solo album in name only, and more a communal celebration of rock’n’roll, pulling music’s great and good into its orbit for fleeting, thrilling fraternisation. So while you’ll hear Thomas rip through any number of guitar licks, as one would come to expect, you’ll also hear Tom grab his six-string to do likewise. The month-long recording sessions in Los Angeles saw Red Hot Chili Peppers and Guns N’ Roses legends Chad Smith and Matt Sorum swing by to pick up the sticks, and Hama Okamoto his bass. Vocals come from a cast as dizzying as Kasabian’s Serge Pizzorno, Jet’s Nic Chester, The Struts’ Luke Spiller, Franz Ferdinand’s Alex Kapranos, The Prodigy’s Maxim and alt.pop phenom UPSAHL – the latter pair, along with Beck, helped pen some of the songs. The eight-track collection – seven Thomas originals and a dizzying cover of You Spin Me Round (Like A Record) – is at once riotous, soulful and bluesy.
“You know that the younger audience that Måneskin has have already been exposed to the glory, the power, the sexiness, the appeal of rock’n’roll,” Tom says. “This project takes that even one step further in helping Thomas to forge a record that honours his influences and brings new, exciting rock into 2025 and beyond.
“It's an opportunity,” he adds, “to be a missionary for rock’n’roll.”
Going back to your first meeting, Tom, what impression did you have of Thomas?
Tom: “It was so encouraging and fantastic that a very young, talented guitar player like him was so interested in rock’n’roll and its history – and in the Rainbow Bar And Grill, and going to Guitar Center. I loved Thomas from that first meeting. He has such a rock’n’roll spirit and soul, which there’s not enough of these days. And that’s what began our friendship. In the aftermath of that meeting, Måneskin were living in LA making a record, and I came by a couple times to hang out and write songs with them. And that’s where I really realised that, like, this is a great band. I had so much fun jamming with them, and jamming with Thomas in particular. It really cemented for me that he is a guitar player who’s the real deal.”
Thomas: “It was amazing for me, because we really clicked from the first time we met. Tom was one of my idols when I was younger. I was super-inspired by him.”
Where did the idea of this record begin?
Thomas: “First of all, I had in mind the idea to bring lots of cool artists together in the same project. At some point I was thinking about someone to help take the control of the project, in its creative direction and its production. After the incredible experiences that I lived with Tom, I said, ‘Okay, he’s the right guy!’ I was 100 per cent sure about that. So I spoke with him, and I asked him to help me to create this rock revival record.”
And where did the songs come from?
Tom: “Thomas is an incredibly prolific person – there must have been about 40 really good contenders for songs for this record. It was a real challenge to even pare it down. He kept sending me more and more songs – I was like, ‘At some point you’ve gotta stop, man!’ We had a lot of very deep conversations before recording was even happening.”
The personality and character of your collaborators shines through. Did you go in search of musicians to fit your pre-conceived notion of each song, or did the songs take their form from the people you chose to work on them?
Thomas: “We had conversations to plan everything, and after that I had the opportunity to work with lots of incredible artists, some of whom I was friends with, like Luke from The Struts, and some that Tom introduced me to. We just tried to start jamming together, because our idea was to recreate a live atmosphere and a real rock energy. For my vocals, in the last six months I took some classes, in terms of lyrics and melodies, and I experimented in this new world and this new side of myself. Of course, my main focus is to be a guitar player. But I think that for any artist it’s important to evolve and to experiment with different sides of that.”
Tom: “It was about striking a balance. Which song would bring forward Thomas’ soloing? How do we feature these really great melodies he’s written? ‘Oh, look, Chad Smith is in town for the next three days, let’s see if he’s available!’ There was a large formative stage that we did [to plan things], and then a lot of it was live bullets flying. We have a really great chemistry when we work together, personally and musically. This is a Thomas record, but it's also a collaborative record. We've had fun on stage playing together, and we had a lot of fun playing together on the album.”
Was it essential to the ideas and goals that you had for this record that you recorded in a real studio with real musicians working in collaboration with each other, rather than just phoning in their contributions from afar?
Tom: “We recorded this record in Henson studios. I’ve done Rage Against The Machine and Audioslave records there in the past, so I am very, very familiar with the room. I know that it has a great live drum sound; it's just got a great vibe. It's a place where you can make great rock’n’roll records. We posted up in Henson and made a record the old-fashioned way with the musicians in the room together.”
Thomas: “I think that was very important to do it that that way, for what I wanted from the record. Just to have such incredible musicians in one room, it’s something great. You can feel the real energy. It was one of the main keys to do this record, absolutely. Tom even took me on a tour of the studio and showed me – ‘Here’s where we recorded our first Rage Against The Machine album… Here’s where we did The Battle Of Los Angeles.’ That moment for me was like… 'Wow, that's crazy.’”
From this time spent working together, what did you come away most admiring in each other, or learning from one another?
Thomas: “Tom is super pragmatic. I have this problem that I try to do my best every time. You know what I mean? So maybe I say, ‘Okay, this riff is the best, I have to play it again.’ Or, I had another weird idea. And Tom would say, ‘No, Thomas, it’s perfect. It’s great.’ Because, sometimes – and this is a very important lesson that I learned to work with him – you have the first input that is the best one. And so this is very important to keep in your mind.”
Tom: “Thomas is just a pro. I've been around a lot of bands in my life, and Thomas is a young man who is tremendously professional. He goes out there and he nails those takes. There’s an element to rock’n’roll that should be wild and free and crazy, but eventually you’ve got to go to the studio and record your song (laughs). There’s creativity to happen, and there’s a job to get done, and Thomas was so great and dependable and reliable in being able in the takes. He’s able to harness his inspiration through the talent in his fingers in a way that made it a real pleasure.”
What are your ambitions for the project? Could you see it growing into something that you revisit time and time again with new songs, new collaborators?
Thomas: “Of course, absolutely yes. This whole experience was super-inspiring to me, I would love to work again on other stuff, but I’m just looking forward to releasing this record to the whole world, honestly.”
Tom: “My ambitions are simple. This record, and Thomas’ work in the world, is a flagship for rock’n’roll for young people in 2025, but also to turn the next generation on to the greatness and the glory of rock’n’roll.”
Masquerade will be released December 5.
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