Sage Against the Machine bandmates are native plant nerds by day, punk rockers by night

Besides, what am I gonna tell my landscaper, I forgot his name, I think it's Jose ... or, no, no it's Juan.

What do I tell my landscape designer, I remember his name ... his name is Ron,

and what about my landscape architect, he tucks his shirt in, his name is Sean ...

Then the music went berserk, and Sanchez and his bandmates were screaming, "I gotta kill my lawn, gotta kill my lawn ..." Everyone in the room joined in, jumping and screeching with the chorus: "Kill your lawn!"

The gig was cathartic for the audience and a giant high for the band. "After listening [to presentations] all day, it was sweet release," said drummer Hector Cervantes during a recent interview. "I know it sounds stupid, but that was our Super Bowl, the Super Bowl of plants. And I hope they'll invite us back for the next convention." (The convention isn't scheduled until early 2026, said California Native Plant Society communications director Liv O'Keeffe, "but we definitely want them back.")

Undoubtedly the band will be there anyway, because the six members of Sage Against the Machine, all huge fans of the '90s hip-hop, punk, metal, funk and rock band Rage Against the Machine, spend their days working with plants, primarily native plants at some of the most prominent organizations in Southern California.

Sanchez, a former Marine who started the now-defunct Nopalito Native Plant Nursery in Ventura, runs the Santa Monica Mountains Fund Native Plant Nursery in Newbury Park. He founded the band in 2013 with Evan Meyer, executive director of the Theodore Payne Foundation, when the two of them worked for the state's largest botanic garden devoted to California native plants, Rancho Santa Ana Botanic Garden in Claremont, now known as California Botanic Garden.

Meyer said their first gig was unplanned and totally improvised. He was playing background piano at a garden party when Sanchez came over, sat down beside him and began making up some lyrics. "We were friends. We started freestyling, and people thought it was funny," Meyer said. "And that's how it all started. Our first performance was in front of an audience, speaking to people who love plants. It was always meant to be music for our community of plant people."

Sanchez said they started playing during informal Friday night sessions at the garden "over $1 beers and tacos." Rico Ramirez, a certified botanist and arborist working for Caltrans, was an intern at the garden then and added his driving lead guitar to the mix. Ramirez's family is Indigenous Gabrielino Shoshone — his late grandmother, Ya'anna Vera Rocha, was chief of the Gabrielino Shoshone Tribal Nation — and he feels a deep connection to California native plants, especially white sage (Salvia apiana), "our most spiritual plant." Music has been a priority since he was a child, he said. He's classically trained in guitar, but his style now is more blues and metal.

"We're all very serious musicians who, behind the scenes, are entangled in botany and restoration," Ramirez said. "That's kind of our passion. We're playing music to express our passion."

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