Tom Morello and Boots Riley rage as one in Street Sweeper

The album came together over the last year, with Morello writing and producing, Riley in charge of the lyrics, and Moore on beat patrol. Morello had one secret weapon in the sidelines too. Steve Perry — yes, the very Perry from Journey — did some backing vocals on the album. "I don't know how it happened," Riley says. "It was like all of a sudden, 'We're going to have Steve Perry come in and do this part,' and I was like, 'All right, cool.'" (For his part, Riley calls Perry a "nice dude.")

With 12 debut songs wrapped, Riley is already working on lyrics for the next Street Sweeper record, as well as blueprinting the beginnings of a new Coup album. That's when he isn't sketching out new methods for fixing the corporate greed crisis. The next step on that latter front, Riley says, is to create radical unions, ones "that can immediately force the corporate elite to choose between making no money and making less money, so the wealth is divided more evenly."

EKA Photography

Riley and Morello: Fierce funk-metal.

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More About

• Boots Riley
• Tom Morello
• Steve Perry
• Rage Against The Machine
• Wall Street

Between Tom Morello and Boots Riley, Street Sweeper has some heavy Rage, riffage, and radical thinking on its side. Sounds like the militant left-wing thinkers of this country have a brand-new mosh pit in this partnership.