The past few days have seen Tom Morello teasing new music on the way. On Wednesday morning, the Rage Against the Machine guitarist unveiled a new bit of older music — a thunderous cover of AC/DC’s “Highway to Hell” with Bruce Springsteen and Pearl Jam’s Eddie Vedder Fun fact: the trio previously performed the song together several times in 2014 during Springsteen’s Australian tour.
The single comes from Morello’s forthcoming Atlas Underground album called The Atlas Underground Fire. The collection follows the 2018 rendition, The Atlas Underground.
“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 said in a statement of the cover.
Check it out below.
The new Atlas Underground album will also feature Chris Stapleton, Damian Marley, Bring Me The Horizon, and Phantogram. The album, for which Morello recorded guitar parts on his phone, was made remotely.
“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,” Morello said. “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.”
Continuing, Morello said, “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.”
The Atlas Underground Fire is out on October 15. Pre-order it here.
The Atlas Underground Fire tracklisting:
Harlem Hellfighter
Highway to Hell (featuring Bruce Springsteen and Eddie Vedder)
Let’s Get The Party Started (featuring Bring Me The Horizon)
Driving to Texas (featuring Phantogram)
The War Inside (featuring Chris Stapleton)
Hold The Line (featuring grandson)
Naraka (featuring Mike Posner)
The Achilles List (featuring Damian Marley)
Night Witch (featuring phem)
Charmed I’m Sure (featuring Protohype)
Save Our Souls (featuring Dennis Lyxzén of Refused)
On The Shore Of Eternity (featuring Sama’ Abdulhadi)
