Tom Morello has shared what he thinks is one of the most crucial factors of making a good song: having “‘What The Fuck’ factor”
What exactly is ‘what the fuck’ factor you may be asking? Well, according to the Rage Against the Machine guitarist, it means having a certain shock factor.
Morello released his second solo album The Atlas Underground Fire last month and has spoken to Guitar World magazine about playing “unapologetically and uncompromisingly big rock ‘n’ roll”.
“That’s been the common thread through everything, whether it’s an Atlas Underground record or an Audioslave record. I need to feel a jam move air, but I also want it to challenge me,” he explained.
“Vernon Reid called it the ‘What the fuck’ factor, you know? Like, when you put on a record and you hear what must be a guitar but can’t possibly be a guitar, you’re like, ‘What the fuck?’
“I remember thinking about that over and over again as a young person, and as a young guitar player. Every record I make, I try to have as many ‘What the fuck?’ factors as possible.”
Elsewhere in the interview, Morello revealed that the inspiration behind his new album, which he created during the pandemic, came from an unexpected source.
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“Pretty frankly, it was a time of great anxiety and depression,” Morello told Guitar World. “Weirdly,” he continues, “inspiration came… from Kanye West.”
“He was talking about how he recorded the vocals to a couple of his big hit records on the voice memo of his phone,” Morello recalls. “And I thought to myself, well, I have a voice memo on my phone. Can I just record guitar riffs that way? So I did.”
Those riffs, he continues, “sounded kind of great, so I started sending them out to various engineers and producers around the world. And that was the genesis for The Atlas Underground Fire.”
Throughout the interview, Morello touched on the parts both West and the pandemic played in the creation of Atlas Underground.
“This is a record that was born of lockdown. From the time I was 17 years old to the time that the world shut down in March of 2020, I’ve had a nonstop creative motor on me of writing, recording and performing. And it all came to a screeching halt. I’ve gotta tell you, the guitar sounded pretty freaking great recorded with my voice memos app.
“For the first four months or so I was absolutely adrift. You know, I have a nice studio in my house, but I don’t know how to work it. Like, I don’t know how to move any of the buttons around. So I was like, ‘I’m not going to be able to play shows. I’m not going to be able to record music.’
“But then I was reading an interview where Kanye West said he recorded the vocals to a couple of his big hit records using the voice memo on his phone. So I did that.”
For more on this topic, follow the Classic Rock Observer.
