The Pulse of Radio reports: RAGE AGAINST THE MACHINE guitarist Tom Morello chose not to comment when asked by MTV.com about rumors spreading lately that RAGE is in the studio at the moment recording a new album. Morello was questioned during a shoot for "The Bright Lights of America", a new video from political punk act ANTI-FLAG. Morello plays a cranky sports coach in the video, which is taken from the title track of the Pittsburgh act's newly released eighth album. Morello called ANTI-FLAG "the best punk rock band of our era."

RAGE reunited last year for a series of concerts and festival appearances that continues in 2008. But the group has not announced any official plans to record new music.

Morello is also heading up this spring's politically oriented Justice Tour, which will feature him performing as his political folk alter ego THE NIGHTWATCHMAN, along with special guests from bands like TOOL and INCUBUS. The trek gets underway on April 15 in Los Angeles.

Morello says he's watching this year's presidential election closely, but told us he's not ready to commit himself to a candidate: "While Barack Obama and I share some eerie similarities, both having Kenyan fathers and white Midwestern mothers, and having attended Harvard and both being devastatingly handsome, it's kind of eerie. But I'm not a Democrat; the Democratic Party is about 10 miles to the right of my politics."

Meanwhile, Morello showed up on Monday night (April 7) at the Honda Center in Anaheim, California to jam with Bruce Springsteen and the E STREET BAND on Springsteen's "The Ghost of Tom Joad", which RAGE AGAINST THE MACHINE covered on its 2000 collection of covers, "Renegades."