Is Fender working on a Tom Morello ‘Soul Power’ Telecaster?

2020 held a lot of surprises, but one of the gear world’s biggest shocks was the arrival of an official signature guitar from Tom ‘I don’t do signature models’ Morello: the Fender ‘Soul Power’ Stratocaster. And now that door is open, it seems Fender could be lining up another collaboration with the Rage Against the Machine guitarist – but it might not be the model you expect.

In a new video posted to his social channels, Morello tears through the main riff from Lightning Over Mexico, taken from The Catastrophists EP, his new collaborative effort with EDM mainstays The Bloody Beetroots. But the guitar he’s using for his playthrough is most definitely not his go-to ‘Sendero Luminoso’ Telecaster.

With its double-bound black-finished body and mirror scratchplate, the guitar in Morello’s hands is essentially a ‘Soul Power’ Telecaster, minus the Sharpied slogan – such a guitar never existed during his tenure with Chris Cornell-fronted supergroup Audioslave, and points towards a new collaboration with Fender.

Other notable features include a killswitch mounted on the guitar’s lower horn, a six-saddle hardtail bridge, non-locking Fender tuners, The Atlas Underground sticker and what appears to be a Fender Vintage Noiseless bridge pickup – of course, two VN single coils previously appeared in the SP Strat.

Sure, it could be a one-off custom job. But given Fender CEO Andy Mooney has previously stated that Morello has signed on to recreate all his guitars, we wouldn’t rule out all-new designs, either.

And while the ‘Sendero Luminoso’ Telecaster is the guitar that lit the drop-D flame in Killing in the Name and a host of incendiary RATM and Audioslave jams, it was nothing more than a stock 1982 Tele – an all-new Telecaster offering is arguably a more enticing proposition.

Suffice to say, we’re looking forward to Morello’s future collaborations with Fender, and we’ll be bringing you more news on the ‘Soul Power’ Telecaster as soon as we have it.