Tom Morello praised the Japanese band Babymetal

Rage Against the Machine and Audioslave guitarist Tom Morello has been a fan of the Japanese heavy metal band Babymetal since their self-titled debut album was released in 2014. Four years later, while recording his collaborative solo album The Atlas Underground, he reached out to the group to see if they were interested in participating.

However, they weren’t available at the time. Now, in 2025, Morello appears on their song “METALI!!” from the album Metal Forth. In an interview with Metal Hammer, the musician talked about the band, explaining why he loves them.

Tom Morello praised the Japanese band Babymetal

“I’ve been a fan of Babymetal since I first heard them. I reached out to their management when I was making my Atlas Underground album [in 2018], which was a collaborative work with various artists, and at the time they were unavailable, and I was disappointed. Later on, they reached back out to me, asking if I was still interested in collaboration. Of course, I jumped at the chance.”

“(…) I love heavy riffs, and the Babymetal Metali!! song has a collaborative heaviness that I think in many regards fits very well in my riffology catalogue. I also shredded some solos on the track. (…) I love what they have brought to the metal scene. It is an absolute breath of fresh air to have a band that has a completely different spin on a genre that often runs on the same cart tracks,” Tom Morello said.

Babymetal was formed in 2010 in Tokyo, Japan and their current line-up has the singers Su-metal (Suzuka Nakamoto), Moametal (Moa Kikuchi) and Momometal (Momoko Okazaki). During their career the band released five studio albums which had other special guests like Alissa White-Gluz. They also performed live a few years ago with Judas Priest’s Rob Halford.