Earlier this month, Rage Against The Machine guitarist Tom Morello announced his second solo album The Atlas Underground Fire. The album is set to drop on October 15th and will be featuring an extensive list of guest stars, including Bruce Springsteen, Eddie Vedder, Bring Me The Horizon and more.

In a recent interview with Loudwire Nights, the legendary guitarist revealed some more details about the making of the album. The record will be the sister record to Morello’s debut solo album The Atlas Underground. The genre bending album connected multiple different artists from different genres.

Morello revealed throughout the interview that the project helped him work throughout the hard times, especially during the pandemic and lockdowns last year. “During the last year, where much of that year has been spent in lockdown, for me it was a real life raft.” One unexpected inspiration for his new album came in the form of the eccentric hip hop artist Kanye West, according to NME.

“I read an interview with Kanye West, who was bragging about the fact that he had recorded vocals for two of his albums on the voice memo on his phone. And I said, ‘Well if it’s good enough for vocals on a Kanye West record, maybe I can record guitar riffs into my phone,’” Morello says. “I just bypassed all the microphones and set my phone on a chair, hit the red dot, and all of a sudden was sending these riffs to engineers and producers around the world — to Springsteen, Eddie Vedder, the Bring Me the Horizon guys and Damian Marley — and created this like, global community of collaborators that, in the midst of a very, very stressful time, was a tremendous lifeline and a way to create.”

Morello’s band Rage Against The Machine will be hitting the road next year, kicking off their tour in El Paso, TX.