When Tom Morello arrived on stage for his only European solo appearance this year and said, “Now I’m going to let you know what the hell we’re doing here,” he was alluding to how secretive the promotion surrounding this show has been. It was said it would be a talk with some performance and that was about it.

But who doesn’t like surprises? The intimate surrounds of Bush Hall in London proved a platform for a show that - contrary to the headline - was not plainly an album playback, nor was an ordinary performance. It had a bit of everything: Morello demonstrating his evolution as a guitarist, him singing, an indepth interview about the album The Atlas Underground. There was a song in honour of Chris Cornell – even a recording session happened; you truly have to see this show live if you’re a fan of rock.

Other highlights included a stage invasion for ‘Killing In The Name’, hearing about him once working as an exotic dancer when he first moved to LA, and his later years playing with the E Street Band. Then there was the presence of a Fuck Brexit sticker on the back of his guitar at the end of his rendition of Springsteen’s ‘Ghost of Tom Joad’, which was just one of many moments where he expressed his astute political beliefs.

Post-gig, people were walking home going, "This is the coolest thing that ever happened to us, dude". The intimacy of the night is personally what we feel truly did it for people: to see Morello who is arguably the greatest living guitar player up close and personal is an undeniably exciting experience. But there was depth to the night that deserves to be revealed. Therefore, here’s some of the things we found interesting about the new album as revealed at Bush Hall.

Social justice ghost stories theme draws cohesion from eclecticism

It was a great touch to have a Q + A – or a “grilling” as Morello liked to call it – with Virgin Radio journalist Eddy Temple Morris in addition to an introduction to the album led by Morello: Morello gave anecdotes before playing each track from the album for the first time in public. It was a truly thorough approach that got to the heart of the album.

Most impressive was the compelling lyrical theme that’s brought cohesion to the record – on a record where this was at threat on paper due to so many heads being involved. Collaborators listed on the credits include Marcus Mumford, Portugal The Man, Steve Aoki, Gary Clark Jr, Wu Tang Clan – and that’s just the tip of the iceberg. But what we get thanks to good chemistry and belief from everyone involved in the record, is a vision well executed. Morello’s noble lyrical theme that manifests spectacularly with naturally poetic writers on the record.

This was mostly likely helped along by his clearly strong ability to communicate what he wanted - and in addressing the audience at Bush Hall we got a flavour for the type of conversations going on to create the album. Tom Morello told us London audience:

“The idea [of The Atlas Underground] was to create a sonic conspiracy. [It’s] to bring together diverse artists of different genres, ethnicity, ages and genders to create a musical work of solidarity and harmony in a time at a time of great division. It goes further: “I love rock n’ roll for the sake of rock n’ roll but I’ve always aimed to have more substance and lyrical substance. So, the lyrical thread that runs through the record is: ‘social justice ghost stories’. It’s the idea that the fallen heroes and martyrs that have passed the undeemed and unnumbered, who have been killed by injustice, find voice through these songs. This is in order to inform the struggles of the present, and also shine a beacon towards a more just and humane feature.” 

The EDM/guitar mash up on the album is nailed

Especially since Tom Morello sees himself as the DJ in Rage Against The Machine - a role he assumed by practicing guitar in a non-traditional way - if anyone is to play guitar to rib-rattling electronic breaks, you’d want Morello. Plus, embracing the more modern genre is a way for his social justice ghost stories to reach a more diverse audience. Long may his message prevail in clubs as well as pubs bedroom, academy’s, arenas, and beyond.

Of the intertwinement with electronic music, Morello told us: “Musically, I wanted to aim high to forge a new alloy. Something that would combine my Marshall stack fury with huge EDM drops in a way that hadn’t been really curated before. It was in Knife Party, Bassnectar and Skrillex - all of whom are great R.A.T.M fans by the way - that there was the same kind of tension and release in their music. I thought well what if we replace some of your synthesisers with my guitars and try and forge something brand new." The LP's sonics has gone on from there.

The Boss’ influence lives on

Rage Against The Machine’s symbiotic relationship with Bruce Springsteen is well documented, not least in the band’s cover of ‘The Ghost of Tom Joad’ on their incredible album Renegades, and through his multiple appearances performing on stage with the E Street band. Where Morello and Springsteen chime as friends is in their cherishing of Woody Guthrie and the Steinbeck novel Grapes of Wrath that spawned Tom Joad. They both find nobility in the Marxist ideology that runs through their material and others who wrote about the Great Depression.

The Boss and Morello also share a love for the story of Joe Hill that informed Steinbeck. Springsteen once performed the 1930 poem 'Joe Hill'; and Morello, with The Atlas Underground, makes an overt visual reference to Joe Hill:

“One of the main visual references on The Atlas Underground record is of the heart and cross hair because Joe Hill, my favourite guitar player - of which there are no recorded works - was executed by a Utah firing squad for a crime he didn’t commit. Hill was a member of the industrial workers of the world, a freedom fighter, and a poet laureate of the United States Working Class in the early 20th Century. He was executed because of his beliefs; because he took his convictions and put them in his vocation as a singer and a guitar player, and they killed him for it. So, when we’re singing social justice ghost stories on this record, it links to the chain of those who have perished and stories that are known and those whose stories are unknown. [When] they sat him in front of a Utah firing squad, they pinned cross hairs so the gunman wouldn’t missed, but what they realised is, what they killed on that day, spread seeds across the globe. When they killed him; they made me. So from that day to this day it’s those voices of the voiceless that we’re going to give voice to tonight.”

He then launched into a passionate version of 'Tom Joad' and revealed that Fuck Brexit sticker we mentioned before doing an encore for 'Killing In The Name' and inviting everyone on stage. Such a great finale to the night.

Vic Mensa’s track is the most powerful

Morello made Vic Mensa sound like a proper dude. “I had a very simple discussion with Vic before writing the song: I said ‘make a song that you can stand your ground to.’ Vic is a tremendous lyrical composer we were at my house working on the song and we spent a lot his time wondering around outside smoking a cigarette, and I was thinking ‘Vic, you’re wasting my time here, man, you should be working on the song. He writes nothing down, he was composing all the lyrics in his head. And of course as he came in to step in the booth, he did this:" 

[the song played]

Now, what we heard was one of the most visceral, heartfelt, fights against injustice we’ve heard on record in a long time that tackles the taboo subject of 911 that’s seldom challenged by musicians – though Killing Joke are perhaps most famed for it with their song ‘I am The Virus’ As for Mensa’s lyrical take on American hegemony and institutional racism here’s just on brilliant stanza:

“Ooh I can stand my ground to this shit
Tom Morello and Vic Mensa, we on time with this shit
Militant mindset, 9mm complex
Two middle fingers to the killers in the Congress
To live and die black, bury me in Chiraq
I cock back, pop five and lick his top hat
9/11 was a hoax, it was never hijacked
They sold our souls for oil to make us buy it back”

It’s time we fight for the change we want to see

Docility and indifference are largely prevalent in society, the number of people ready to join in protests is pretty low, and organisation among the left particularly disjointed at present, with far-right politicians gaining an increasing grip on the Western world. Morello is aware of this more than anyone, but has words of courage:

“Division is not always a bad thing: I don’t want to unite with Nazis. I don’t want to unite with racists. I want to punch them in the fucking nose. But how this record speaks to it and it’s a thread that’s running through all my records but more so on this one is that you are agents of history and recognising that the people in this room, the people listening to this record and the people walking by outside they don’t have any more courage, intellect or power than people who have changed the world throughout history. You are agents of history and you can either sit on the side lines and let somebody else steer the vehicle of history into a ditch or you can rise to the occasion to people who are no better in anyway than you are and build the world you’d like to see.”

Morello’s fight for justice is urgent and compassionate as it’s ever been. Let’s all take a leaf out of his book.