Lance Lopez
He’s one of the most hotly tipped blues guitarists around – but Lance Lopez paid his dues backing legends such as BB King and mentor Billy Gibbons. We join the Texan tornado to settle the Gibson-versus-Fender dilemma and learn how this connoisseur of Brit
There’s something joyous in the Supersonic Blues Machine album, as well as hard-hitting. Do you feel the blues has been a redemptive force in your life? “Absolutely. The beautiful thing about the blues is that it’s so personal and so emotive and it taps into that place. I’ve definitely found it to be healing and absolutely redemptive. And to hear Walter’s struggles about coming through his illness and learning to play guitar again… you’re thinking to yourself, ‘Wow, this is Walter Trout. How does Walter Trout have to learn to play guitar again?’ But he did it. And I think that was also part of his healing from his illness. I truly believe that. That drive and that inspiration to get back to where he was truly healed him physically as well.
“Blues is a music of survivors. It literally is – it’s either about having survived something, or what you’re going through at the moment that you’re going through it. But we didn’t want to make an entire record of minor key, slow, sad blues songs, because a lot of it was about what we had recovered from. And you shouldn’t listen to the blues and feel worse than when you started!”
How did you first discover the blues? “Well, I was born in Louisiana and I was surrounded by blues, but I had no idea. I can remember riding with my father in the car with the windows rolled down and halting at a stop-light and seeing an old black gentleman sitting on his front porch with a straw hat and the Dobro and the slide, playing and singing, and people on the front porch with him were drinking and laughing. And I was just like, ‘That was the greatest thing I’ve ever heard in my life.’ And didn’t know what it was, just that it was the greatest thing I ever heard. So, just regionally, we were surrounded by it and I had no idea – I was just drawn to it.
“Upon moving to Dallas, my mother actually took me to see BB King, who was playing with Stevie Ray Vaughan. When we got there everybody was wearing these t-shirts that said ‘SRV’ and I went, ‘What does SRV mean?’ I had no idea who Stevie Ray Vaughan was and he actually came out and played some Hendrix and I thought, ‘Wow!’, because he was the first guy I’d ever seen cover any Hendrix music back then. And then when BB King and him played together I said, ‘Okay, man, this is where I need to head.’
“But actually what I did, the very next day I went and I put my electric guitar down and started over on acoustic and started to listen to Robert Johnson and Son House… so I started over on country blues and I worked my way through the whole lineage, and that began a long study of country blues and Delta blues. And that was late 80s or early 90s, so there was no internet or any of that back then – you had to go to record stores and stuff like that. That was when the grunge thing was happening and starting to kick off and I was asking for records from the 1930s! So, I was like this weird little kid listening to Blind Willie McTell and all those guys.”
You started out playing a Strat but now you seem to gravitate more to Gibsons… “Well, I was a Stratocaster player all through my youth. But there were some nudges that I received, the first one being from BB King. I opened a show for BB King in 2000 or 2001, something like that. I was using a Strat then and BB commented that I should really consider trying a Gibson guitar and I said, ‘Well, I actually have a couple of Les Pauls and a Flying V,’ and he said, ‘Well, I’d be interested to hear you playing them.’ And so that was kind of like, ‘Wow.’ At that time, the standard issue for Texas blues was a Stratocaster from ’57 to ’62 kind of era and a Super Reverb or a Bassman. That dominated Texas – that’s what our sound primarily consisted of – and if you came in with a Les Paul it was a weird thing! But I was the kid that did sometimes show up with the Les Paul and they’d be like, ‘What are you doing with that thing?’ and I’d be like, ‘Well, it’s because of Jeff Beck and Jimmy Page.’
“And then the next nudge came from Billy. I was out doing shows with ZZ Top and he would help me dial in my Marshalls and we’d look at the guitars I had with me on tour. And when I switched over to my Flying V or a Les Paul or something, that’s when he would say, ‘That’s it – that’s you.’ So, now, if you listen to the Supersonic Blues Machine album, there’s all kinds of guitars on it. But for an all-round guitar, my R9 is just rock solid.”
You’re a connoisseur of British blues tone. What are your favourite amps? “My workhorse amp is the Marshall JCM2000 DSL100. That’s what we have as backline here in Norway. Jeff Beck turned me on to that amplifier in 2001 when I played a show with him in Germany. I had all these old Plexis and he was like, ‘Oh, man, this is so much easier to use and you don’t have to kill everybody with volume.’ And I was totally floored with that amplifier and how versatile and consistent it was. So, that’s why the DSL100 is my workhorse amplifier and that’s always the first choice if I have to hire backline.
“As far as rigs that I use at home go, I have a few things. First, there’s the Bogner Helios 100 that’s basically a Plexi with all of Reinhold Bogner’s knobs on it, so it has a switch that toggles between JTM45 and Super Lead 100-style tones. And he’s also packed the amp with all of the mods he did for Van Halen and George Lynch and Jerry Cantrell. Reinhold knew that I was a hardcore vintage Plexi connoisseur and he also knew that I struggled to get a Plexi to sound good in a small club, where even a 50-watt felt very loud. It was cool that it was a head where I could have an amp that sounded like a JTM45 with a little extra gain on it, but if I was in a big room I could get it to sound like a Super Lead 100. And it’s a good 100 watts – it’s not like my old 1970 Marshall Super Bass, where it’s so loud you can’t hardly be in the room with it.
“The next of my go-to amps is the Scorpion, which is built by Mojave Ampworks in California – actually, it was Billy who hooked me up with Victor Mason. At the time, Billy was using a rack-mounted version of the Scorpion. It’s a very cool amp that’s based on a 1968 Super Lead 100, but it has a 100-watt transformer that’s rigged to run at half power. So, it’s a 50-watt amp that has what they call a dampener built into it, which is one of the best alternatives to a traditional attenuator I’ve ever heard. That was the first amplifier that Billy introduced me to as a means to get that Marshall-style sound in a club where volume issues are dominating. And that has remained a cornerstone of my sound.
“And then there’s the relationship with [amp-maker] Doug Sewell from Dallas. I’ve known Doug many, many years and he was a Fender-style amp builder, because he was based in Texas, where Super Reverbs were so popular. It was really cool when he went to PRS and started building EL34 amps and that really excited me, so another amp that got used a lot on the record is his PRS Super Dallas. And it’s a really great 50-watt amp, with two EL34s. I actually have a cabinet for it loaded with four 10-inch Greenback Celestions. I found that to be a very interesting combination.”
What are your favourite speakers for blues-rock tone? “I love Alnico Blues and I love Greenbacks, and I’ve actually been using Creambacks. For my Helios, I have a 212 that I take out that’s an open-back like a Bluesbreaker and I’ve got a 65-watt Creamback Celestion on one side and a Vintage 30 next to it. That’s a really cool combination. And then in my 412 cabinet, I have two 65-watt Creambacks plus two 75-watt that are in an X-pattern. I like the Creambacks because I can push them. If I run a drive pedal with lots of low end, using the neck pickup of a Les Paul, they won’t blow it. Because I’ve blown a lot of Greenbacks! Don’t get me wrong, the Greenbacks are fantastic with a Les Paul – but you gotta just plug straight in and turn it up. But I’ve tried that with pedals and then... there goes the Greenback [laughs]!”
Billy Gibbons has been a real mentor to you. What’s the best advice about guitar playing that he’s given you? “Oh, man, it’s always about striving to get the best sound you can. Because it really doesn’t matter what you play, or how fast you play… if it doesn’t sound good then it’s not gonna be good. That was always the number one thing. And then he said, ‘You gotta play what makes you happy – you gotta be able to play with feel and with heart, and it has to make you feel good.’ Thirdly, Billy would say, ‘Your playing’s gotta have groove and feel.’
“A lot of that boiled down to making sure that you got a groove established in the song and that what you’re playing lead-wise should also groove – instead of just flying off the handle and throwing lots of notes out. Because when I was a young man, that’s what I was doing [laughs]. But Billy saw me as a kid and he said, ‘You gotta groove’, and I’m thinking like, ‘What, a funk groove?’ But he said, ‘Go listen to You Don’t Have To Go by Jimmy Reed.’ So I listened to Jimmy Reed and it was like, ‘Ohhh, that groove.’
“That’s when it started to make sense – and then it was about putting the lead patterns around that to where it was just interweaving with the groove and not just blowing over the top of it. Tone, playing with love and groove… those are really the three main insights that I’ve got from Billy. I’m just so grateful to have the relationship that I’ve had with him and now to be involved in a musical unit with him is just awe-inspiring.”
“Billy saw me as a kid and said, ‘You gotta groove. Go listen to ‘You Don’t Have To Go’ by Jimmy Reed’. So I listened and it was like ‘Ohhh, that groove’”