By Rebecca Carter

Not to discriminate, but when you think of a tribute band comprised mostly of men who can look back…way back… on their 20s, you probably picture a band covering The Eagles at some less-than-hip venue that serves an Early Bird Special. This, however is not the case for Age Against the Machine.

The Rage Against the Machine tribute band (Joey Calabria ~ vox, Bill Bracken ~ guitar, Tim Lowman ~ bass, Deek Diedricksen ~ drums) was first conceived about 10 years ago. “I was jamming with some other friends who were all in their 50s and one of them said jokingly, ‘We should call ourselves AGE Against The Machine,” explained Joey. “We all laughed for a bit…but I thought it was a great name for a Rage tribute. It took 10 years for it to surface. Why? Everybody in the band figured, “We’re old to be doing this sh*t! But I guess my voice sounds a lot like Zack’s [De LaRocha], and I’ve been told it time and time again with my other original projects over the years. So that’s why we started playing Rage songs.”

But Rage songs aren’t all the band plays. They have recently branched out to do their own original material, and even had a song chosen by the WWE for their arena entrance music. “Not that long ago the WWE and one of their ties to Sony Records actually requested a few originals…which we had been planning to do anyway, but just hadn’t had opportunity to focus on it,” explained Deek. “That WWE call of interest served to light a fire under our collective asses to start writing some originals.”

“The WWE wanted a Rage-like band to record this arena entrance song and they went online searching for Rage tributes,” recalls Joey. “I guess they said we were the most authentic one, even after looking overseas. From there, we received the bare bones of the song, put our ‘Rageness’ to it and changed a few things up, and next thing we know it’s debuting in England in front of a 17,000 person sold-out crowd. A mere month later it’s all over the wrestling channels and number 11 on the Billboard top 200 compilation CD chart.”

And as for upcoming projects, Age is staying in the limelight. “We just recorded a track with Hasbro, believe it or not, that’s been running in a series of G.I. Joe toy commercials, and will be included in this summer’s live-action G.I. Joe movie,” Joey shared. “And besides recording more music for the WWE, we also have close to two dozen shows booked for 2009 including New Brunswick and Nova Scotia.”

For more info, check out bostonrage.com or myspace.com/ageisrage.
And be sure to catch the band on Fri, June 19th @ JJ’s Sports Bar and Grille in Northboro.