The Alchemist, March 31, 2009, Vol. 2, No. 65
Valeri Lopez, Vol. 2, No. 65, Pages 3-4
Vol. 2, No. 65
ALCHY AWARD WINNER
BEST LOCAL BAND:
Valeri Lopez
and her Band Aides
The official winner of the 2008 Alchy Award for Best Local Band is Valeri Lopez and her Band Aides. Lopez was able to sit down for an interview recently, fresh off her return from California where she was both performing and recording. As for her Band Aides, well, Valeri doesn’t technically play with a band.
“When I put it on the poster once it was a joke,” she explained, “I think we only did that for one show.”
When she is in Corvallis she tends to play once or twice a month at local coffee shop and bar venues. These sets are acoustic and feature a varying repertoire of instruments including the guitar, banjo, harmonica, piano, toy piano, and melodica. Count in local musician Correen Rowles who has been playing with Lopez lately, and you also add flute and keyboards to the list. Further add the regulars once referred to as her Band Aides and you add drums, bass, cello and more.
“Wherever I go, they would be my band,” Lopez says.
All this instrumentation and talent makes for as much variety in a performance as there is from one show to the next. Her California work earlier this year was more solo, sometimes with performer Andrea Hamilton, but the Band Aides are a Corvallis thing. That lineup includes Andrew and Will Traylor, Brian Harvey, Alec Kretchum, and Casey Hurt. Hurt you may recognize as the 2008 Alchy winner for Best Acoustic Performer and pastor of the local Doxology, where Lopez also performs.
“I’m part of the Dox family,” Lopez said specifically.
There is no big commitment between Lopez and the friends that play with her, however, outside the performance itself and some practice time, usually just before the show.
“They’re just my friends that back me up,” she added.
These local shows are usually in smaller settings like Bomb’s Away Cafe or the Beanery, but things are set to change..
“My audience has grown far too big to be at the Bean,” Lopez commented, “The last time I played there it was packed to the brim.”
So far this year local shows have few and far between as Lopez works on recording music, touring trips and entreating funds for everything from recording to a new guitar. In California, Lopez began working on a studio album with Eric Owyoung in San Diego, then toured and recorded a live album with the aforementioned Andrea Hamilton. The live album should be available this month, and she will return to California soon to finish recording the studio album.
“I recorded two songs with Eric,” Lopez explained, “With those two songs I’m going to get investors to finish the album.”
Considering her performances, recordings, and awards, Lopez has come a long way from flunking a basic voice class in her sophomore year of college.
“I was so afraid to sing in front of people,” Lopez said.
While she has been writing songs for six or seven years she only started performing seriously a year and a half ago, around the same time she came to Corvallis. It was in college that she turned around and started performing for people, including a weekly gig at a bar in Italy while studying abroad, and opening for Dana Glover and Dishwalla as part of a radio contest she won by singing karaoke.
Lopez finished school with a BA in Studio Art but is trying to make music full time. Her art skills are still put to use though, showing up in crafts like beanies and handbags that Lopez sells at her shows.
“It’s so people can take something home that I made,” she explained.
You can’t catch Valeri Lopez in concert until she comes back to Corvallis this April with her sights set on bigger venues like Oddfellows or The Majestic. You’ll have to keep an eye out for her though, because you may not have long before she’s off to perform in New York or Nashville.
Listen to her music at www.myspace.com/valerilopez
~Robin Canfield
