In order to understand why Phoenix named their new album Bankrupt!, it might be worth considering an unlikely vanity purchase – the recording console used on Michael Jackson’s Thriller.

As Pitchfork report, the French band mixed their latest album on the Harrison 4032 solid-state recording console, originally used on Jackson’s 1982 record-busting LP. According to The New Yorker, the band managed to find the console on, of all places, eBay. Guitarist Laurent Brancowitz snouted out owner Clayton Rose on the auction site and, after some deliberation, decided to buy it. According to singer Thomas Mars, the process seemed too good to be true:

“The most mysterious part to me was that no one else– no nerd or music engineer or memorabilia freak– seemed to want it. There was something a little spooky about him [Rose]. He was very pushy. It seemed like a scam. “

As it happens, the band managed to haggle Rose down from $32,000 to $17,000. The rationale? Phoenix “liked the idea of working with a consecrated artifact, as well as having something strange upon which to fixate between albums.” The band also reveal that the working title for the album was, fittingly, Alternate Thriller.

Bankrupt! is out in April. Earlier this week, the band announced a host of North American dates, including a headline spot at Coachella.