Lance Lopez is back and better than ever. Trouble Is Good is wild, hellacious, and packed with three essential influences – Jimi Hendrix, B.B. King, and the Reverend Billy F Gibbons. It does the music good.
Produced and co-written by Joey Sykes and full of no-holds-barred blues-rock intensity with life experiences to back it up, Trouble a serious guitar record.
Was Trouble Is Good recorded during the pandemic?
Yes, and that’s the whole thing about it – it’s a Covid-era piece. “Trouble is good” means being pushed in directions you normally wouldn’t have been pushed. I did most of the guitar tracks at home – all the lead guitar tracks and some of the vocals. I’d been talking about a home recording setup for years, but always focused more on touring, playing live, and working. Then, when I’d get home, I’d say, “We’ll do it next time.” That extended period of Covid downtime finally pushed me in that direction.
That was one of the good things that came from the trouble. Then, I also got a job repairing guitar amps and doing amp mods while I was making the record. I was working with Joey Sykes, who was tracking in L.A. and was sending tracks to me in Nashville, where I initially put guitar and vocals on.
You also had drummer Gregg Bissonette on a track.
Right. We made scratch tracks with friends, then once we’d get the idea, we’d say, “Hey, we really need to have a great musician play on the track.” For “Jam With Me,” we immediately thought of Gregg. He has a whole vibe and feel, and it was an honor to have him on the record.
What kind of amplification did you use?
I had my own collection of amps, and all the amps I was working on; I used a ’69 Marshall, a Bogner Helios 100, and added some Category 5 amps. I love the Category 5 TBR-50, which is a Bassman clone and has become one of my main amps.
I played through Buddy Guy’s Bassman, and had to have that sound. It’s perfect for the rooms I play. I was overcompensating with big amps in small clubs, and I forgot how perfect that Bassman is. I played a Category 5 TBR-50 in Nashville and it had the Buddy Guy thing with a reverb circuit. The TBR-50 came from Joe Bonamassa wanting a brown ’60s reverb tank in a Bassman. I love the speaker combination, and it got a lot of love on the new record. I also used an array of vintage Marshalls, like a 1970 Super Bass 100. But I’ve gone back to combos.
You also play resonator.
Oh, yeah! On the title track, I absolutely played some dobro. We wanted to do epic, three-part songs, and the title track was the Covid-era piece. Basically, if you lived through 2020, you had the blues (laughs). We wanted to embody that period, and that was our tribute. It was hard-time music for hard times.
Did your Firebird get much work?
That was one of the main guitars. At the beginning of the record, you hear the Blues Bird right off the bat – the Firebird tuned to open G. A lot of the bottleneck tracks were also it. On “Jam With Me,” I played slide on my white Flying V. Everything else was the Firebird – it’s a Custom Shop ’65 reissue, but the profile of the neck is a late-’50s Les Paul. Firebirds tend to have thinner necks, but I like fat necks and that one is perfect. The pickups are perfect, it stays in tune. It’s amazing.
What did you use on “Take A Swing?”
That was “The Creeker,” which is a Les Paul Custom Shop ’59 reissue. Billy Gibbons loves this guitar. I used two full stacks with four 4x12s. One was the Bogner Helios 100. The other was the Marshall Super Bass 100. As far as drives, I used a TC Electronic Mojomojo Overdrive, which I used like a Klon. The wah was built by Detrick FX; it’s called the 1969 Experience Wah, and it’s the best wah I’ve ever owned.
This article originally appeared in VG’s December 2023 issue. All copyrights are by the author and Vintage Guitar magazine. Unauthorized replication or use is strictly prohibited.
