Fire Down Below

"Armed with just his phone and extensive network of musical cohorts, Tom Morello takes the electric guitar into uncharted territory on The Atlas Underground Fire."

- By Joe Bosso

When rage against the machine were forced to reschedule their 2020 reunion tour to 2021 — and then to 2022 — Tom Morello found himself at home for the longest sustained period of his adult life. While dealing with family demands, the guitarist also experienced something he had encountered before: a seemingly incurable case of writer’s block. “It was a drought in my head, like, ‘I’ve got nothing,’” he says. “For the first four months or so, I was completely uninspired.”

A breakthrough came from an unlikely source, however, when Morello read a Kanye West interview in which the rapper boasted about recording vocals for a new album straight to his iPhone. Taking the same approach, Morello set his phone on a folding chair in front of a Marshall half stack, started playing riffs and assorted noises, and before he knew it, the spark of creativity had returned. “It sounded great,” he says. “I began sending these riffs and licks to producers and artists around the world, and that was the genesis for my new record.”