Rage Against The Machine

"Rage Against the Machine would be perfect for Strength." That's what Kathy Reilly, Rage's publicist, told me. I guess she thought, since some of the band members used to skate, and they tend to play to the younger "extreme" audience, they somehow fit into the mold of what a Strength band should be. But the fact of the matter is, Strength is a non-political forum, and, as you should know, Rage is the poster-band for political awareness, which I guess is as good a market for a band to attack since no one else is really messing with it. But I like to think that Strength readers, like myself, don't care about what happens around the world, as long as it isn't affecting us. Sure, some matters do require protest; matters like the increasing price of cigarettes, the closing of sex shops in Times Square, the legalization of marijuana, and even a reduction of the drinking age in America. These are matters that strike close to home for me, and hopefully, you, the reader, as well. So, if this interview gets too political, put it down and go get a beer. But I do feel Rage is worth interviewing because not only did they kind of get the ball rolling on the whole played-out Rock/Rap fusion thing, but all of their songs are funky and hyped by a serious bass line. And that, in my eyes, is their strength—not their political views. So I spoke to Tim, their bassist...

Hey. What's up, Tim? What are you up to?

You know, just hitting up some interviews. It's alright. This is only my second one.

Oh, that's too bad. I was hoping that you already did a bunch, and you were getting bored, because I wrote a song to sing for you.

What do you mean?

It's an impromptu number that I figured would make you happy if you were bummed on doing so many interviews.

Well, this is only my second one.

Can we just pretend then?

Yeah, go ahead. Play it

Ok, here we go. [singing in high pitch girl's voice] "Rage Against the Machine, you're so crazy. You guys are so nuts. So poli-tical, don't be sad by all the interview-ew-ew-ews. YEAH!"

Dude, you are out of control.

I wasn't done. You cut me off.

Oh. Sorry.

[spits out a final drum roll] That's it.

Right on.

Yeah, that was off the dome.

Cool.

I'm glad you enjoyed that. If it was later in the day, you'd probably enjoy it a lot more.

Oh, yeah. Maybe. I kind of liked it though, man. I can appreciate the self-confidence that it would take to step up like that.

If it was a bigger audience I wouldn't even try it. I get nervous. From one musician to another, do you ever get nervous?

Oh, yeah. Definitely. That's my job, dealing with my insecurities. It's weird. It's definitely something you can't learn in school, that's for sure. Maybe you can. But it is a hardcore thing and it would seem like it gets harder with a bigger crowd, but it doesn't. It gets easier. Small crowds are where it gets real personal, and you have that kid that's standing in front of you, staring. And maybe I'll hit a bad note, or something stupid will happen. I'll look up, and there will be this kid looking at me going, "You're an idiot." It sucks. It's hard to deal with. All I can do is close my eyes. Look at somebody else and try to forget about it.

I'd just play like Jim Morrison did, with his back to the crowd.

I do a little of that too. A little of that, a little of this—anything that'll break up the monotony. That's the thing... if you're playing a lot of shows at the same venue, like we just played at Roseland NYC... the last time we were here we played five nights in a row. That was a learning experience, playing the same place over and over and over, and you find yourself running the same moves and doing the same things. You start questioning whether there's that kid that saw more than one show that's like, "These guys suck! They just keep doing the same shit."

At least you're not gay like Bad Religion. They open up every show with, "This is our 666th show!" Gay.

No, we don't do that. Every show, we come on and Zach goes, "We're Rage Against The Machine from Los Angeles, CA." And I kind of like that.

Have you ever seen Bad Religion come out like that?

Yeah.

I was on a tour for a week and every night they'd say that. All I could think was, "These guys are so gay."

We haven't played that many shows. We're nowhere near 666. We're at around 350. I couldn't believe it. I sat there and counted every show we did since '92—it was like 350. I thought it was gonna be more than a thousand. That tripped me out. In nine years, it's only been 350. That's like... nothing. Bands do more shows than that in one year.

Yeah, you guys better get cracking. Use Elvis as your model. In Vegas, he was doing five shows a day for six weeks straight— every day. And this is toward the end when he was hooked on all the drugs. Maybe that helped him. I don't think so. He was forgetting all the words and slurring his speech. One time, during those six weeks, he tore the ass out of a pair of pants because he was so fat. He tried to do a karate kick and the ass just ripped open. But the girls were still digging him. You must get a lot of groupies, huh, Tim—or are you married?

No, I'm not married. I'm single, but it's not the same as in Rage Against the Machine as it is being in any other band in rock. It's like our philosophy is different than anyone else, and we're all about rock 'n' roll and politics. It's not sex, drugs, and rock 'n' roll. It's not love songs and ballads and shit. It's serious. When we go on stage, it's like, the only thing I've been able to compare it to is when I was on a football team in a locker room. There's not really any groupies in the locker room. It's just us, stretching out, getting our thing going, then we get in, do our thing, and leave when it's over. We don't really try to sit around and enjoy some sort of after-party.

So, basically, you're saying the groupies you do see aren't hot, big-breasted chicks showing you their tits. They're more like little bull dykes in sweaters showing you their diaries?

Uh, I don't see any hardly, man. I don't see any. I really don't. I don't know what a groupie looks like. It's weird. Like I'm telling you, we're not like anybody else.

I don't understand why you'd even bother making music then, if you don't get any groupies.

I hear ya. I wonder. I see other bands that have that kind of following. Like, the other day I found out that the drummer from the Foo Fighters, Taylor, was going out with that actress, Minnie Driver. I'm like, "Whoa, man. How come we can't hook up with any kind of actresses or models?''

But you can! You just need to flex some skills—like, "Do you know who I am?"

I hear you. But I just don't have that kind of skill. When it comes right down to it, I just don't have that kind of meet-and-greet sort of vibe happening.

Anybody can do it, Tim. Look at that fat fuck from Smashmouth. He's hooked up with Janine The Porn Queen now.

Well, see. That doesn't interest me.

The porn stars don't interest you?

Nah, man.

What's the matter with you, Tim?

It's not that I don't... I'm definitely sexual, but I'm a feminist, man. I look at pornography and it's not empowering women.

Tim, you need to look at it as a healing tool for couples on the rocks.

Maybe. It definitely has a bright side and that's probably it right there. But the down side is—take gay porn, take Playgirl magazine, for instance—the majority of the audience who reads that magazine are men. So, with that in mind, you can then make the assumption that most pornography is geared towards men. It's not really geared towards couples, it's geared towards a man. You see women in compromising situations in pornos all the time. Like I said, it's not empowering and it's nothing that I'm into. I feel weird when I do look at a magazine or I turn on the internet. That's kind of the joke around the band. We call the Internet, the "Internut." Busting internuts. Because anytime you get on it, no matter if you are looking for information on Peru or mountain bikes, you are going to get porno.

I don't see the problem with that, but that's me. Have you ever found any pictures of your heads put onto naked bodies?

No, I haven't come across that yet, but I've seen pictures of our heads on our own naked bodies before. We did a show in Philadelphia at Lollapalooza naked.

What ever happened to that Lots-of-Losers tour?

There's so many annual gigs that they're not as special as they used to be. That's what we're trying to do—to think of a new, bigger tour that we give a separate name. But it has to be something different than what we've seen. It's all the same.

Rage is a really political band, to say the least. Do you really think you can make a difference in this world?

"Well, yeah. The other day, you turn on CNN and, all of a sudden, there is a kid in Indonesia climbing up a flagpole to rip down the Indonesian flag, and he's got a Rage Against the Machine T-shirt on. There's all kinds of differences to be made. This is now our third generation of high school students to get into us, that's how I see it. Every four years, we put out a record and we appeal to a ninth grader and, four years later, that ninth grader becomes a twelfth grader and a new record comes out. Now we're dealing with the kids from '91 that are graduating from college. When Presidents are elected, the reason they don't build schools is because they won't see results in their four year tenure. So we build the schools every time we go on stage. And it takes time before that ninth grader becomes an adult, but it's happening.

But, don't you feel, with all these kids ig themselves and kids around them, owadays, in some aspects, are smarter than ever, but overall have never been more stupid?

I feel like I listen to Rage Against the Machine for the politics and for the aggressive, extreme music—and for working out and doing my thing. I think that's a good assessment of our crowd. There's kids into it solely for the aggressiveness of it, and I can appreciate that. So, if there's at least one kid who takes the time to research the lyrics and figure it out, then it's worthwhile. But I know there's a lot more than one. I see them at every show. There's kids that know more about political situations being addressed in our music than I do. Hell yeah, kids are smart. And I think if I was in high school and I had Rage Against the Machine, I'd be able to raise my hand in my history classes and question what I was learning— without question.

Word. Ok, then let's wrap this up.

Ok. I just want to say, skateboarding has been a huge part of my life. Zach and I have known each other since fifth grade and that's all we used to do is skateboard. It leads to good things. It's an extreme sport and, I feel, Rage Against the Machine is an extreme sport too—and it works. I'm down with an extreme lifestyle; it's an important thing. And skateboarding just might lead you to extreme politics. It did with me.

That's an extremely good way to end it.