Tom Morello Shades Guitar Center CEO: ‘I’ve Never Really Considered Myself a Serious Musician'

Guitar Center's newest CEO, Gabe Dalporto, is under fire from rock n' roll legend Tom Morello, perhaps best known for his work in Rage Against the Machine.

Dalporto recently spoke with Music Inc. Magazine where he divulged his future plans for the instrument retailer giant. In the interview, he deemed himself a great fit for the job.

"I feel like being a musician and a being a customer, I understand the Guitar Center customer on a different level. He reflected on his time visiting and shopping at the store as a child.

"I remember going into Guitar Center with my father and being blown away by all the gear," said Dalporto. "My dad's eyes would light up, and we would just totally geek out on the equipment."

Another comment from Dalporto triggered Morello's response.

Dalporto described what he believed to be a failure on Guitar Center's part: forgetting "who the core customer was." He elaborated saying that the chain's "core customer is the serious musician - the gigging artist or the passionate player where music is a big piece of their identity."

He reflected on the retailer's past and present, saying that "that's the customer that we've historically served in the past."

"Over the years, we've evolved significantly into serving the beginner and entry-level customer - which is great - but if you walk through a GC store, you're going to see an awful lot of $300 guitars and $300 digital drum kits," he said.

Dalporto then lamented on the issue of "premium products." He implied that buyers searching for an instrument with a higher price tag will have a more difficult time finding what they want.

"We have some premium product, but we don't have enough, and it's very hard to experience our premium product because we have our best guitars locked on the top row where you can't easily get to them," he said.

"So, if I'm a serious musician and I walk into a Guitar Center, it doesn't feel like the right place for me anymore.

Dalporto elaborated that a customer deserves the same experience he had as a child, when he ogled at the massive displays of instruments which he describes as a "playground."

This experience, he says, means that the store must have a "much more premium assortment that's more easily accessible."

These "premium products" are what led Morello to take to X and respond to Dalporto's remarks.

"Rage Against The Machine won our first grammy for "Tire Me", a song on which I played a guitar costing 40 Canadian dollars. Though admittedly I've never really considered myself a 'serious' musician,'" tweeted the award-winning musician in response to a snippet of the interview, posted by Guitar World.

In 2021, Morello posted a picture of a Marshall amp and a guitar, writing in the caption about the low price of the instruments-which earned him a Grammy for the track, "Tire Me."

"This guitar/amp combo was used to record 'Tire Me' on @rageagainstthemachine's Evil Empire album which came out 25 years ago last week. The guitar, which I'm not even sure is made out of wood (plywood?) cost 40 Canadian dollars at a Toronto pawn shop and the amp is a 20 watt solid state practice amp I had in my apartment. The song won our first Grammy," reads the caption.