Tom Morello announces star-studded 'The Atlas Underground Fire'

Album launches with classic cover and collaborations

Tom Morello has announced The Atlas Underground Fire, the follow up to his 2018 album, The Atlas Underground. The new project features a jaw dropping cast of collaborators including Bruce Springsteen, Eddie Vedder, Chris Stapleton, Mike Posner, Damian Marley and more. Morello’s insane guitar playing will be on full display taking the instrument into the future and forging an alternative/rock/EDM masterpiece with all-time legends and cutting edge firebrands.

Morello – co-founder of Rage Against The Machine, Audioslave and Prophets of Rage – will release this forthcoming album CD and orange splatter LP on October 15th by Mom + Pop Music. The album’s first single is a cover of AC/DC’s “Highway To Hell” featuring Springsteen and Vedder.

“Our version of ‘Highway To Hell’ pays homage to AC/DC but with Bruce Springsteen and Eddie Vedder, brings this legendary song into the future. One of the greatest rock’ n ’roll songs of all time sung by two of the greatest rock’ n ’roll singers of all time. And then I drop a shredding guitar solo. Thank you and good night,” Morello shares.

Morello is widely known as a barrier breaking guitarist who continues to push the limits and prove the transformative power of music. Throughout his remarkable career, Morello has collaborated with everyone from Wu Tang Clan to Johnny Cash. On The Atlas Underground Fire, as he did his previous effort, Morello took a path into new sonic territory with the project’s breadth of talented collaborators, transforming his sound. With his guitar leading the way, Morello continues to create powerful alloys of different genres.

The album, as testified by Morello, is a clear byproduct of very dark and challenging pandemic days. Recording guitars on his phone, the album was made both creatively and technically from his home studio in Los Angeles, while sharing files with collaborators around the globe. “During lockdown I had no access to an engineer so I had to record all of the guitar parts on the voice memo of my phone,” said Morello. “This seemed like an outrageous idea but it lead to a freedom in creativity in that I could not overthink any of the guitar parts and just had to trust my instincts.”

And while Morello is known as one of the world’s greatest social justice crusaders who has written songs that quickly became manifestos, he said the pandemic allowed him a freedom on this album to follow more of the emotions and anxiety of the times.

“This record was a life raft in a difficult time that allowed me to find new ways of creating new global artistic connections that helped transform a time of fear and anxiety into one of musical expression and rocking jams,” adds Morello.

To be sure, Morello isn’t done with social justice manifestos, and many of those threads can be found within this album, but unusual times created an altogether unique album.