Charly Lopez has released a new album made partly alone during lockdown, party in studio with other talented musicians.
"Feels Good To Me" come out on December 21st in digital format and is the second solo album recorded outside of his band Alvacast.
The album’s songs were built as a way for other musicians to enjoy performing them with Charly. “I was hosting several jam nights where my friends came and played with me. It started to bother me that we were always playing the same old covers, so I thought I could offer them to play my songs as well. But my rock songs are not easy to jam on unless you really know them. My rock songs have stops, rhythm changes, transpositions, so you really need to learn them before you can jam on them. So I thought: what kind of songs can I write for my friends to be able to jam on them? the answer was 'blues songs'. You know, in the rock community, lots of musicians get sued for playing riffs that are very alike. That's not the case in the blues community, as many songs share the same riff and chord progressions and everybody is cool with that.
So I had some blues backing tracks that I converted into songs and I’d worked on over the years, but they were left half finished so I started thinking about doing something with them. Each jam session, I’d start playing some of these songs and my friends were able to jam on them, and the audience liked them too! It was a lot of fun.”
The catalyst for the new work was the recording of a song he wrote in 2005 called "Esta Noche". That song went very well over the years in live performances, but he never recorded it. Until music producer Allen Merrill from New York opened a recording studio in Costa Rica and invited Charly to test it with some recordings. Three of the 6 songs in this album were recorded, mixed by Allen Merrill at Papagayo Music Studio in Costa Rica and mastered at The SoundLAB in Long Island, NY. The remaining 3 songs were recorded, mixed and mastered by Charly in his home studio in Costa Rica.
Allen Merrill also produced and released a compilation album called "Musica Genial" that included Lopez's three songs plus 11 songs from 7 other music acts from the Guanacaste region.
For two of the songs that Lopez recorded at Papagayo Music Studio, received collaboration from some of his finest musicians friends. On "Feels Good To Me" he had Marc Lebel on bass and backing vocals (from Montreal), Isabel Lamarche on backing vocals (from Montreal), Joe Hrbek on sax, Mike Shannon on drums and the very Allen Merrill on synth. "Good Life" counted with the collaboration of Pitilo on drums and Warren Alani on piano. The rest of the tracks are "Hard To Take", "Safe" and "Funny Hats, Short Skirts" in which he played all the instruments.
The totally solo home-recording approach is now commonly used by musicians – especially during lockdown – according to an article appeared in The Guardian.
As most musicians, Lopez has also been obliged to cancel his 2020 tour because of the coronavirus pandemic. His previous solo album was "Un Vaso De Vino" in 2012. "I should have kept recording solo albums but I was more focused on my live tours and stuff with Alvacast. Now it's the time and I hope people will appreciate my album, I put a lot of hours of hard work on it and I am very satisfied, as this is also my first time as an engineer and producer."
The album is scheduled to be launched at his website on Monday December 21st, 2020.
Short Bio
Charly is the singer of the Uruguayan band Alvacast. International Rock singer, he also plays guitar and sings in Spanish, English and French.
From hard rock classics to soulful ballads, his range and vocal style can really grab you.
Born in Montevideo, Uruguay in 1964, he moved to Montreal, Canada in '91 and he became a Canadian citizen in 1997.
Today he resides in Alberta and Costa Rica.
He recorded 4 albums in Uruguay with Alvacast in South America between 1987 and 1991. He also recorded a CD in Canada in 2005 with the Canadian band "Tears For The Dead Gods" and a solo album in 2011 (see Discography here).
In 1992, Charly moved with Alvacast to Montreal, Canada, and toured part of the country. The band broke up in 1994 and Charly toured Canada and the US East Coast until 2005 with Up The Irons, Canada's most popular tribute to Iron Maiden.
In 2005 he recorded a CD with "Tears for the Dead Gods" and began to travel also in Central America, mainly Costa Rica and Panama.
In 2011 he recorded a solo CD called "Un Vaso De Vino" (A Glass of Wine) with songs in Spanish and English.
In 2013, Charly opened for Trooper at Drayton Valley Omniplex Arena and Barrhead Arena with his band The Electric Storm.
About Charly Lopez
In 2015 Charly performed in Canada and Austin, Texas, for in March to fly to Uruguay for the celebration of Alvacast's 30 years, with 2 concerts, one at MMBox in Montevideo and at Punta Rock Fest (Punta Del Este).
Charly shared the stage with Canadian folk legend Valdi in British Columbia, and won a competition in Edmonton to perform at the prestigious Boonstock Music and Arts Festival, Alberta, which also featured Slash from Guns'n'Roses and Sebastian Bach from Skid Row. Charly played an electro-acoustic set on the Ax Music Stage.
Charly worked with producer Ronnie King from California. Together they produced 1 song for the radio, a song from their latest CD "Un Vaso De Vino" called "Until The End Of Time".
He shared the stage with many Canadian artists such as Trooper, John McGale, Paul James, Chuck Jackson, Valdi, Donnie Walsh, SAB, and with American artists such as Jeff Baldori.
In March 2015, Charly gave a series of concerts in South America with his band Alvacast.
In June and August 2015, Charly was invited as a guest of Sonny Wolf in Austin, Texas.
Charly is currently working on new songs, some of which are songs written by Alvacast, songs that were never finished. It also has material for a Hard Rock CD and a Blues-Rock CD.