Rene Lopez New EP “Johnny Wants To Be A Matador”
Bronx, NY native Rene Lopez has always felt music in his blood. The son of a trumpet player in the Latin band Tipica ’73, Rene grew up is NYC’s salsa clubs and from the first moment he stepped inside the club, Rene was hooked on live music and choosing to spend his life creating it “felt so natural that there was never a thought that I would do anything else.”
Despite being a relatively new solo artist, Rene has been writing and performing music in the New York scene since the late 80s when he was part of the underrated, but much loved by the “those-in-the-music-know” band The Authority (If any of you ever hung out at Nightengales or Wetlands, you know…)
And where his previous 2005 solo album, One Man’s Year, had a distinct rock feel, his upcoming EP Johnny Wants To Be a Matador is all about soul, capturing the sound of the streets of New York, with the city’s people inspiring Johnny’s songs and characters. Just like the urgency and frenzy of the streets that inspired it, Rene wrote and recorded Johnny in a matter of weeks, affirming “it was what came out of me naturally; the songs were almost stream of consciousness. And I was really happy with the results.” And the results are truly great, crafting an EP with a sound near and dear and to his heart, melding together Latin, Soul and ’60s pop rounded out with great additional instrumentation by friends and fellow world-music enthusiasts like the Brazilian Girls’ Jesse Murphy who handles bass duties on the EP.
To celebrate the release of Johnny Wants To Be A Matador, Rene will hold an EP release party and performance at New York’s Nublu (62 Ave. C). Stay tuned for more info on his new full-length album, coming in Spring 2010.
