Rage Against The Machine Talk About Their Rise In The L.A. Music Scene, L.A. Rising, & How This Might Be Their Last Show

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When navigating the hormonally-induced rage and insecure emotionalism of the average teenage experience, mid-’90s pubescent Angelenos were lucky to sublimate their first socially-enlightened stirrings with a powerhouse local band like Rage Against The Machine .

“ This is actually, probably, the last show we're going to play.
” Timmy C Likewise, Rage Against The Machine embodied the transformative, dynamic energy of a city in its own “teen” years–Los Angeles. Rage’s intense rock polemic, combined with their brash political overtones of old-school punk, underground hip-hop, and cocksure metal easily made them both a representation of fearless youthful revolution and unmitigated hope for the future.

No matter what the corporate drones would perpetually decide to dictate.

Twenty years after all four members of Rage first met, a more “taut” Rage Against The Machine are still diehards to their city of origin, and as evidenced by the July 30th début of Los Angeles music festival L.A. Rising, still possess the inspired ideas that galvanized a generation of like-minded counter-culture underdogs.

Three-quarters of Rage Against The Machine sat down and schooled Kevin & Bean about starting out in Los Angeles from “humble” beginnings, the vision behind L.A. Rising, and how they might never play another show again.

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It seems mystifying that a band so ubiquitous with the Los Angeles rock scene has not “technically” played  a show (besides the benefit show at the Palladium last year) in the city since 1999 and that their massive L.A. Rising performance at the Coliseum in Inglewood will be the band’s first since then–and maybe the last. “ The one thing that Los Angeles itself does not have is its own festival show. And LA Rising is Rage Against The Machine's show.
”

More than likely, the mystery-shrouded band is simply donning their usual guises of cheeky provocateur, but according to the band who only has their L.A. Rising date scheduled for 2011, one never knows: “This is actually, probably, the last show we’re going to play.”

If this really is Rage’s last show, bringing a new music festival, L.A. Rising, to Los Angeles proper is an àpropos way for a band celebrating their twentieth reunion and renowned for their music-minded sets, political leanings, and frustratingly long hiatus’, to go out with a bang–albeit not a literal one:

“The one thing that Los Angeles itself does not have is its own festival show. And LA Rising is Rage Against The Machine’s show. It’s not like there’s a festival that hires Rage Against The Machine to play a show.

“This is Goldenvoice who has been friends with us since pre-Rage Against The Machine days and have been our first bookers of Rage when we were playing Club Lingerie.”

“This is our show…We wanted to establish something in our hometown, like at Ground Zero at the Coliseum. We’ve got a very special relationship with this city.

“We want to establish a festival show that’s going to have great band, sort of diverse genres, and was going to be an activist/charity-oriented event as well.”

Rage got to cull together their own dream bill which includes well-known bands like Muse and Rise Against, combined with the seemingly atypical choice of Ms. Lauryn Hill, the “rockin’ espanol” of El Gran Silencio to honor the heritage of many of the city’s residents, and a controversial unknown named Immortal Technique.

Rage Against The Machine explained the thinking behind all their choices, while also schooling Kevin & Bean on Ms. Lauryn Hill’s ability to handle herself at a rock show when they said that the environment will be too full of “testosterone and it’s the summer and it’s the attitude and it’s the angst and it’s a Rage crowd.

“I don’t know how many people are going to be up for doo-wop-diddy-do-that-thing or whatever.”