Gary James' Interview With
Lance Lopez



When he was only 14 he was playing in bars in the French Quarter of New Orleans. In 2000 he and his band toured Europe, which led to opening shows for the likes of Steve Vai and Jeff Beck. In 2001 he opened for B.B. King in Texas and he and his band were awarded the Blues Band Of The Year Award at the Dallas Music Awards. Between 2008 and 2011 he toured Europe extensively, playing large music festivals and opening shows for ZZ Top, Whitesnake, Def Leppard and Rod Stewart. Speaking of ZZ Top, he became good friends with Billy Gibbons and the rest of the guys in the band. The gentleman we are speaking about is Mr. Lance Lopez. On July 14, 2023, Lance released a new album, actually his first in five years, on Cleopatra Records, titled "Trouble Is Good". Lance Lopez talked to us about that album and a whole lot more.

Q - As a Blues guitarist, what are you doing in Nashville? Is there a Blues scene down there? Are you doing session work?

A - That's a great question Gary. Nashville was an odd choice for me to move to. I was looking actually to move to Austin as well, having been in Dallas, in deep Texas, and Louisiana, between Shreveport and Dallas for many years. Those were looking at almost viable options. Not to mention I have been in a band in Los Angeles and they were trying to get me to move out there. It was actually on a flight to Europe that Robin Ford told me, "You need to move to Nashville." That's where the seed kind of got planted. I thought if Robin Ford was suggesting this, that you move somewhere, I would listen to what Robin had to say about it. That began the ball rolling. So then it was like, "Austin or Nashville? Which move do we make?" I had tons of friends in Austin and I had a lot of friends moving to Nashville at the time. Pretty much everybody that I know or knew that I worked with in Los Angeles are all here now. It was real interesting. The Blues scene since that time, with an influx of people coming, especially from the West Coast and some from the East Coast, have begun to create the Blues scene, not that there was not one, but I've seen it begin to grow up and change. Venues have become available to play here. You've got a lot of great guitar players here that love to play Blues. So it's got a little hub now of great Blues / Rock players, great Traditional Blues players. It's been really interesting to see.

Q - Your CD, "Trouble Is Good" was released on July 14^th, (2023). What's happened since then. Have you done a lot of road work? Is a tour in the offing?

A - Well, yeah. We've been doing some piecemeal touring in the Fall, since the release of the album. We really wanted to give it a little bit of time to get out and be available for people to enjoy it. We've been following it up with a lot of regional dates. We just did a Mid-West run last weekend and we're getting ready to head up to the East Coast. We've been doing some of the piecemeal touring and not so much of the go out and do the long, three week run. It's one thing I've enjoyed about coming back to touring after COVID and doing it that way. That is kind of a Nashville way of doing it, and it's been made really easy to do it that way here. But anyway, that's kind of what we've been focused on. After the first of the year, 2024, we're expecting to do way more.

Q - Is there a bigger market for the Blues in Europe than in the United States?

A - I think there always has been a different level of interest I would say. On a broad mainstream level, which is why we were delivered this great music that we were in the mid to late sixties, from the UK and various other parts of Europe and England, listening to the original Howlin' Wolf and Muddy Waters and Elmore James and everybody from Chicago. I think it's definitely been retranslated back and forth. It's really an interesting thing to see. It's interesting to see British players play Texas style guitar back to me. It's probably just as interesting to them to see me play Jeff Beck licks back to them. (laughs) I think there's always been kind of a regional style of Blues. I think that's one of the great things about it having that level of interest overseas. It has created what it has going back and forth.

Q - In one interview you quote Johnny Winter, who said, "The Blues will always be around. People need it." Do you believe that and why do people need it?

A - Absolutely I believe it, especially anything that Johnny Winter talked about when it came down to real deal Blues I took to heart. One of the things about it is it's a working class music. It's a music that when you're done working a twelve hour shift at the GM plant you go down the street to your corner saloon and have two or three stiff drinks and you listen to the Blues or whatever else. Or there's a band in the corner, in my case for many, many years. I'm the guy in the corner, playing for those guys getting off work. That's what was great about Texas. They'd get off work at the oil field and you'd have a little roadhouse and we'd play a gig for those guys. It's that kind of music. As long as there are working class people all over the world, Blues is definitely going to exist.

Q - As I watch these award shows that come across the screen, I see Rap and Country acts. I'm not seeing Blues artists. Why do you suppose that is?

A - Interesting question, man. I don't know. I know that it's always been a genre of American music and culture. Yet, it is the cornerstone of Rock 'n' Roll, Pop music, and everything else. I think there's a big market for the Blues. I don't think the Blues is nonexistent. You have major artists today, playing theatres and large rooms, playing Blues and Blues inspired music, but it's just a level of what kids are gonna buy. Is my eight year old gonna come to me and say, "I want this shiny new girl that dances and raps, or do I want to come look at this old dude who looks like my dad and plays guitar and just stands there?" (laughs) What are kids gonna buy?

Q - Maybe it's time to get a girl in your act.

A - Yeah, maybe so. All that's good. That's cool. It is a great question, always, That's some of the things how revered it is in Europe and different parts of the world and how funny it is here. (the U.S.)

Q - When you were playing these bars in New Orleans when you were fourteen, your father was right there, watching over you, was he?

A - That's correct.

Q - Usually you have to be eighteen or nowadays twenty-one to perform in a place where alcohol is served. But if you have a parent there, that's permissible I guess.

A - Even when I was in a band, nobody even questioned me. That's the other side of it. Back in those days, as long as I had a ride to the gig and back, that's what it looked like. New Orleans is a different world now slightly, but as long as I was in the band back then, there we were. Interesting times.

Q - You say it's changed. How? They're a little bit more concerned about who's up onstage?

A - Probably. I would assume. I know some of the kids I've toured and worked with have had issues in the past, even with parents. Back in Texas if you walked in with your guitar with the band, you were just in the band. There was nobody stopping you, asking "Hey, what are you doing in here?" "I came in with the band." (laughs) I was onstage with the band. I was back off stage in the van with the band. When we did go to Texas there were times when my dad did support me very heavily. When I took my road gigs and did different things, my dad went with me. There was definitely no coddling of any sort. I saw some other guitar players with their dads. My dad was like, "Go out there and see if you can try to hang." (laughs) That's kind of how it was with my father.

Q - Your father was in the Army the same time Elvis was and he got to know Elvis pretty well. Did he stay in touch with Elvis after they both got out of the Army?

A - Yes. Absolutely. They actually knew each other before the Army from The Louisiana Hayride. Elvis lived in Shreveport for almost two years. A lot of people don't realize that. Elvis moved from Memphis to Shreveport and was there when he worked The Louisiana Hayride and when he was doing regional tours around Texas, Arkansas and Oklahoma. That's what bonded them, that they had The Hayride and got started together and remembered each other.

Q - Was your father a musician?

A - No. He just heavily supported it though.

Q - Was he in the music business?

A - Not at all. He was in law enforcement. So there was a big friendship there. It was very interesting. In December of '77 my family was due to see him in Shreveport at the Hearst Coliseum and I would have been a new born baby. He actually died a month and a half before I was born. That's what my mother still says today, that I would never get to meet him. What a loss. Growing up, that's what inspired me to play guitar. It was never like this big, iconic thing. It was just my dad's buddy and almost a member of my family just about. As I got older and saw him in movies it was pretty surreal. In the beginning, as a kid, I didn't even know what an icon was. It was quite an inspiration to grow up in that era. James Burton, Elvis' lead guitar player, his family lived at the end of our street. We had a lot of access to James Burton later on and that era of guitar playing. We were just sort of surrounded by it.

Q - You got to know the guys in ZZ Top pretty well, including "Wild" Bill Gibbons. Did he ever talk to you about some of the people he met along the way like Jimi Hendrix and Janis Joplin?

A - That's interesting. I've never heard him (Billy Gibbons) called "Wild" Bill Gibbons. That's pretty cool.

Q - I didn't make that up. That's what some people call him.

A - Oh, they do? Wow! I never heard that ever. That's amazing. That's interesting. That's the first time I ever heard anybody say that. I've known him my entire life just about. (laughs) When we moved back to Dallas I met Gibbons really early on as a teenager. That's how we bonded actually. I was at a club playing Jimi Hendrix, or attempting to play some covers. I was there attempting to cover some Jimi Hendrix songs. There was a very nice Italian restaurant, and still is there today, in Dallas in lower Greenville Avenue called Terilli's. It's amazing Italian food. Gibbons was there with a friend, having dinner, at the Greenville Bar And Grill, which was a legendary place all throughout the '80s and '90s was where we were playing. He was next door and he heard me playing through the wall. He was having dinner. And so he got up from his dinner with his date and came next door. When I finished playing, the manager of the G.B.G. (Greenville Bar And Grill) grabbed me and pulled me offstage. I thought we were in trouble and they were throwing me out. He actually was taking me to meet Billy Gibbons. He said, "Someone wants to talk to you," and half way across the crowd I saw the silhouette of Billy Gibbons. The first thing he said to me was, "Jimi Hendrix was a friend of mine." He lowered his shades. And for a long time that's a lot of what we talked about. (laughs) Let's put it that way. A lot of really cool stories. So yeah, it was really cool growing up and having that accessibility and being able to learn from such a great icon like Billy Gibbons.

Q - You opened shows for some of the biggest names in the business. How did their audiences respond to your music?

A - Great question. For the most part, from what we saw, everybody always enjoyed it, especially on the bigger shows. I know for me, connecting with an audience, playing really fast, gunslinger licks as opposed to playing big chordal songs and real simple, long melodies was starting to work better. That's one thing young artists should always figure out. I figured it out going out and playing those large shows. I would come out gun slinging. Being mentored by some of the world's greatest guitar players and on tour with their band and then pulling me aside and going, "This works better for you." As a kid, that was the opportunity of a lifetime, to be kind of directed in that way. That was one of the reasons I would change guitars midway through. I was playing Stratocasters and Les Pauls and back and forth. I would change my entire sound and approach at one point for that reason. We began to play larger shows. We were opening for large Rock bands. It was a lot different from the first albums I made when it was just a big jam fest and shred fest and everybody just jammed out. I worked in some small settings in intimate clubs. When we began to go out with great bands we needed great songs. We needed to have great songs to be able to play in a big, loud amphitheater or arena or big room. One of the things I always tried to do was keep the Blues in there. We would go out with these big bands and to them we were like an old, straight up Blues band. But then when we would go to a Traditional Blues Festival we were like a Metal band. (laughs) We might as well have been Pantera. (laughs)

Q - You were going to schools, talking to kids. I don't know if you're still doing it, but what were you talking to kids about? The dangers of drinking and taking drugs? The only reason I ask is because Tom Snyder did an interview with John Lennon back in 1975 and asked him if he could influence kids not to indulge in drink and drugs. John said they wouldn't listen to him. They'd look at him and say, "Well, he came out the other side alright. Look at him now. I can do the same." It's a tough sell, isn't it Lance?

A - The best thing that I've ever done in my life is lead by example. I agree with John Lennon a hundred percent with that point. People stood over me all day long. In the depths and throes of addiction you can stand in front of somebody crying your eyes out and they're not going to stop with the addiction. It's an illness. It's the same with this. Lead by example. When the kids saw what I went through and came out of that, that was even more of a profound approach than saying to them, "Don't do this. Do that." They watched it happen and kids are smarter than I think we give them credit for. They watch by example, not by what you say. When they do see a story of recovery, and I think that should be promoted more than anything, recovery is possible and it's available and it's there for them for whatever age they're at. That's an accessible tool for them. That's all I'm gonna say about that, man. But yeah, good question.

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