James Hall was in Los Angeles with his band in 2002 and riding in their van, when a sportscar with tinted windows pulled up beside them. The driver’s side window of the sportscar rolled down.

“And it’s Tom Morello,” Hall says, referring to the guitarist for Rage Against The Machine, the hugely popular rap-rock band Hall toured the U.K. with as Rage’s opening act six years earlier. “He [Morello] waves at us and says hi. What a f—ing star. You don’t expect to be remembered if you’re the opener. But man, he was that kind of dude.”

Although James Hall isn’t a household name, he’s the kind of musician that famous musicians remember. And the kind they want to be around.

Hall’s shapeshifting, stream-of-conscious zeal has been turning heads since the late ‘80s. Back then he was the frontman of Mary My Hope, an Atlanta alt-rock band that included soon to be Black Crowes drummer Steve Gorman and latter-day Crowes bassist Sven Pipien.

Texas born and Tennessee raised, Hall had initially been drawn to rock by the music of Bon Scott-era AC/DC and Ted Nugent’s “Free For All” LP.

Mary My Hope ran its course after one album and one EP, released on Silvertone, the label behind The Stone Roses’ crucial first album.

Next, Hall released his first solo album, via Indigo Girls musician Amy Ray’s Deamon Records label. He also played trumpet on Indigo Girls recordings.

Around 1996, Hall signed to Geffen Records, whose stable that decade included bands like Nirvana and Guns N’ Roses. Geffen released his solo album “Pleasure Club.”

Mary My Hope tracks, like “Wildman Childman,” evoked Jim Morrison fronting early Led Zep. However, Hall’s solo material, like the song “Illingess,” called to mind David Bowie carpooling with Iggy Pop and The Stooges.

Hall cut his next solo project, “Pleasure Club,” during a stint living in New Orleans. You can practically hear the Spanish moss and jagged nightlife in the album’s blues, reds and greens. The “Pleasure Club” LP is a lost ‘90s-rock classic that never was — but should’ve been.

A few years later, Hall formed a band called Pleasure Club. Along the way he’s toured with Better Than Ezra and recorded with Afghan Wigs.

For the last eight years or so, Hall has been leading The Ladies Of …, a band comprised of fellow Southern alt-rock cult heroes. The musicians have roots in bands of yore like Tuscaloosa’s Storm Orphans and Birmingham’s Autumn Lords and Stoned Cobra.

In addition to Hall on vocals and guitar, Ladies Of… boasts guitarist Jim “Johnny Blade” Troglen (a frequent collaborator of Brother Cane/Lynyrd Skynyrd guitarist Damon Johnson), guitarist Mark Patrick, bassist James Wahl and drummer Jack Massey.

On June 23, The Ladies Of … will drop their latest album, “Out Of Our Tenderness.” The lead single “Vouch For Me” wiggles like a sleazy electric eel, with Hall trying on “Ill Communication” style raps for size.

Recently, Hall checked in via phone from the Atlanta area. Edited excerpts are below.

James, what’s a vivid memory you have of being on the road with Rage Against The Machine?

To put it into perspective, we flew out to play, to open, that press promotional tour that Rage Against The Machine was doing for [1996 RATM album] “Evil Empire.” And the reason we got that tour, we basically submitted a bid for doing it.

Under our management’s direction at that time, it was just like, “Be ready. The way things go in that camp is they decide fast, and they move quickly. The more ready you are to go, the more likely it is that you’re going to get these opening slots.” And we got these opening slots, and it was great.

Now, there were young kids at the shows that weren’t exactly pleased with our definition of art or art-rock. [Laughs] You know, they were throwing s— on stage and throwing coins. There were some moments where it was difficult. And so we’re like, “OK, well do we cut out anything below 90 bpm [beats per minute] from our set?” We started taking a look at that. It’s like, “No, f— that. We’re doing what we do, man.”

We just continued to go for it, even if people were having a hard time with anything slower than a certain bpm. But the press loved that there was this kind of conflict with these aggro kids at the shows, because they thought I was crazy. I was coming out there with my horn [trumpet]. Well, I’ve been coming out front with my horn for 10 years at that point. Like, this was nothing new for me. Our music was perhaps a little much to kind of translate to a younger kind of British audience, but it was great to do that tour.

On “Vouch For Me,” the new song by your band The Ladies Of…, you rap pretty well. Why do you think you were able to do that without sounding ridiculous, as most middle-aged white rockers do when they rap?

I think as long as I can hold it into context, that I have been influenced by hip-hop. I’m old enough to remember when Run-D.M.C. were releasing [their hit 1986] “Raising Hell.” So it’s been around. That’s one aspect of it. And I think the second and perhaps maybe the closing argument for being able to do it, is to remember that in the big scheme of the rainbow America, I might not even be white enough for white America. You know, there’s a lot of talk about being Black enough, but I might not be white enough.

Having seen a The Ladies Of… show before, I love how uninhibited the band can be onstage, particularly you and Jim Troglen. Southern audiences can be very closedminded about bands that aren’t famous who try and entertain and have style. How did you first get comfortable letting yourself go onstage?

I think that in terms of being comfortable, performance wise, let’s not forget about Tommy Shaw [the Styx guitarist and Alabama native]. He was kind of like Alabama’s [version of David Bowie guitarist] Mick Ronson.

What was magical about Atlanta’s late ‘80s and early ‘90s rock music scene? There was your band Mary My Hope, The Black Crowes, Drivin’ N’ Cryin’, The Indigo Girls, all these great bands.

If the other side of youthful exuberance is naivety, then both of those elements were going on. [Laughs] Steve Gorman [soon to be Black Crowes drummer] was my R.A. at Western Kentucky University. So, you know, I got turned-on to Suzanne Vega, to the deep cuts on The Replacements’ [album] “Tim,” just because he was the resident assistant down the hallway from me my freshman year.

Steve was really, really supportive. And although he left to form Mr. Crowes’ Garden, which became The Black Crowes, his influence was still on me.

Being in Atlanta at that time, there was a lot of innocence there. It was a fairly small and dare I say narrow music scene, but there was something there. I played [iconic Birmingham dive] The Nick in 1988 … I remember even going over there before I played, watching Mr. Crowes’ Garden open up for The Primitons.

Also, for young bands Atlanta was somehow affordable at that point. You could have a gig, you know, bussing tables or sacking groceries, which I did, or serving food or preparing food, and you can kind of get by OK. Now Atlanta has grown to such a point that it’s really, really difficult for a band to find inexpensive house to set up as a home base and start getting creative.

There are aspects about Atlanta that are really prohibitive toward creative free-flow. But in truth, Mary My Hope was influenced by Rockin’ Bones, and Rockin’ Bones was influenced by Follow For Now, and Follow For Now was influencing all of us. Drivin’ N’ Cryin’, The Indigo Girls, all these bands were very familiar with each other.

For Mary My Hope, our odds of success were not necessarily all that great. We were pretty different for the time, because a lot of what The South, what North Georgia was, at that point in time was heavily influenced by The B-52′s and heavily influenced by R.E.M. A lot of bands were doing that. And that’s great. However The B-52′s, their job was taken, and R.E.M., their job was taken.

The Ladies Of… have a show June 1 at Huntsville’s Rocket Republic Brewing, address 617 Meridian St. N. Opening acts including Atlanta goth combo Darling Machine and local singer/guitarist Kam Jones of local art-rock band Hunnivega. Show starts at 8 p.m. Tickets are $12 advance and $15 day of show, via bestofhuntsville.com.

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