Beartooth front-man Caleb Shomo is no stranger to fire and in this new collaboration with Tom Morello he truly embraces the flame.
Tom Morello brings his genre bending guitar style to this high flying track that truly embraces the inescapable energy of Caleb Shomo’s voice. Partner that with the video Final Fantasy footage and you’ve got ‘Everything Burns’. The song is featured in the latest installment of the epic series Final Fantasy XIV: Into The Mist. Tom Morello was asked how the collaboration came to be in an interview with Vice and said this.
‘First thing, I admit I am not a gamer. I’m more of a pinball player, Dungeons and Dragons man myself. But I am aware of the potency of Final Fantasy in the world over the decades.
And I thought it’s interesting where the DNA of my Rage Against the Machine riffs have ended up, and the fact that this person, who is legendary for his game compositions, was interested in doing a collaboration. I thought, well, let’s get on it now!
At the time — this is almost a year ago — Soken was like, “Can you come up with something in the next 36 hours?” I was working with producer Tyler Smith at the time, who called his childhood friend Caleb, the Beartooth vocalist, and we concocted Everything Burns.
It really was a lightning-in-a-bottle moment. It was, you know, the pressure forged a diamond. And then we were so psyched about the track. But I could not be more proud of the collaboration. Also, the song itself — even beyond the borders of Final Fantasy — it just works. Everything Burns is a sentiment that people living in 2025 can very much relate to, both as a reflection of our times and as a potential warning of things to come.’
Caleb Shomo was asked the same thing and he had this to say of the song and it’s origins.
‘I mean, dude, this whole thing for me has been so wild. Yeah. You know, growing up, I’ve definitely been in and out of gaming here and there. And even with Final Fantasy, that was a game very early on in my intro to gaming. You know, my friend actually had it on PS1.
I don’t remember which one it was, but I just remember it looked amazing and was way more complicated than I could understand at the time. But it had cool music. But yeah, the way it all went down for me is I got a phone call at 9 a.m. from my friend Tyler saying, “Hey, Tom Morello wants you to sing on his song. Can you do it right now?”
And I was like, sure, what do you need? He was like, “I need a whole lyric and melody edited and back to me as soon as you can possibly do it. I know you have a studio and you’re a producer. Is there any way you can do this right now?” I was like, absolutely. No question. Yeah. Literally, what else am I going to do? Say no?
So yeah, I finished taking out my trash, made a big old pot of coffee, and he sent me the instrumental. It’s like what Tom said — it literally was lightning in a bottle. There’s just no way this thing would have happened without all these kinds of magical pieces aligning for that one very specific moment. I mean, literally, it was 48 hours. Tom goes and does the instrumental with Tyler, I get the call, and in 36 hours, really, we had it.’
The full interview can be read here.
[Vice]
