Straight Shooter

Championed by Billy Gibbons. Mentored by Johnny Winter. Shattered by addiction. Back with a candid new solo album, Texas gunslinger Lance Lopez recounts his rocky road from hell to redemption…

- Henry Yates

Lance Lopez wouldn’t wish his lowest ebbs on his worst enemy. The alcoholism that gripped him as he debuted aged 14 in the clubs of New Orleans. The addiction that blighted his role as teenage sideman to the blues titans. The demons that pursued him through a misfiring solo career. Yet as the 40-year-old Texan reminds us in a rough as asphalt drawl, it’s those same hardships that fed into Tell The Truth: his sixth album that many are tipping as Lopez’s breakthrough, driven by tough, candid songs and fiery Les Paul work that runs with the heritage of his home state. “The underlying theme,” he considers, “is coming out of darkness, back into light.”

Let’s go back to the start. What was the lure of blues?

“I remember being five years old, pulling up to a stop light in Louisiana. The window was down, and there was this old black gentleman sitting on the porch playing slide. I remember thinking, ‘This is the greatest thing I’ve heard in my life’. I was always drawn to the players from the late-60s and early-70s: Eric Clapton, Jimmy Page, Jeff Beck, Alvin Lee, Leslie West. But growing up in the 80s, that wasn’t cool. Everybody was two-hand tapping, playing Crazy Train; I wanted to play Mississippi Queen. But in June 1990, we moved from Louisiana to Texas, and within a week, we saw Stevie Ray Vaughan and B.B. King jam together in concert. That’s what started it. I went back and studied country blues and Chicago electric blues, got into Robert Johnson, Son House, Otis Rush, Buddy Guy, Magic Sam. All the way, y’know?”

You started in the New Orleans clubs, then backed up Johnnie Taylor, Lucky Peterson, Buddy Miles. What are your memories?