Welcome to the official website of Tony Lopacinski, Guitarist / Singer / Producer / Engineer / Songwriter, and his solo project: FACE
 

THE VILLAGER - January 2003

          Tony Lopacinski has been knocking around music since the fourth grade, but he hopes his recently released CD makes him more than just another FACE in the crowd.

           The surprises begin when you pull in the driveway.  It’s all very sedate and tame, this modest split-level in Harrisonburg’s Lakewood Subdivision.  Neat rows of evergreen shrubs ring the foundation and the front door is decorated with a Christmas wreath.  Inside, Rocky, a fat English bulldog slumbers in the sunny spot on the carpet, amidst a few Fisher-Price toys, courtesy of the kids.

            You are struck by the paradox.  Face, the new CD by Tony Lopacinski, a mix of rocking rock and roll and lyrical anthems to the things we love, and hate, had its origins in these uneventful surroundings.

            Maybe it’s not that the place is so ordinary, but that Face is so extraordinary, a creative breath of fresh air rising above the radio wasteland that has spawned the likes of Ozzy and Britney.  After a steady dose of that, and most of the other popular rock that gets played these days, Face is like a gift from the music angels.  And it all came together in Lopacinski’s basement, in a small tidy room whose most outstanding feature is the wall art – 12 guitars neatly ring the room, hung with such care that each is perfectly equidistant from its brethren.  And then there is a big Macintosh G4, wired to speakers in a distant room.  Loaded with high end software, the G4 is just a different instrument for Lopacinski, a high tech one where he converts what he hears in his head to a complex variety of musical tracks, laying one isolated sound down upon another, like layers of an onion.  It seems incredibly difficult and Lopacinski can’t really explain the creative process.  “It’s all in my head.  I hear it there first.”

            It’s also a long process.  Face took six years to put together, a testimony to the labor of writing, playing, singing, and engineering a 14 song CD almost single-handedly.  The CD insert backs up that claim.  To the layman, it seems impossible that one individual could contribute that much musical variety.  Except for drums, courtesy of friend Kevin Murphy, and a little help on some backup vocals, Tony does it all – even the accordion, an instrument he inherited from his late father.

            It’s easy to distinguish a Tony Lopacinski song once your ear becomes accustomed to the unique blend, especially the gutsy guitars that don’t over dominate the incredibly smooth vocals.  It’s not quite pop and not quite rock, at least as we know it now.  Face seems to waver somewhere between U2 and the Eagles, just commercial enough, yet still cultural.  It’s a distinctive sound.

            That sound was born with The Noise Boys, the rock band that Tony and high school chum, and then fellow Virginia Tech student, Chris Reardon formed their sophomore year.  Tony went his entire freshman year at Tech without a band, possibly his most lengthy performing hiatus since he picked up a guitar in the fourth grade.  “I was becoming edgy.  I saw Chris in the dining hall and said ‘we have to get a band together.’” The Noise Boys, so called because they annoyed everyone in their dorm during practice sessions, were huge hits, not just at Tech but throughout much of the state.

            Despite his musical talent, Tony majored in business at Tech and proudly volunteers a bit of surprising news: “The only course I failed there, in my entire life actually, was music appreciation.”  He wasn’t into learning the personal habits of Beethoven, he says, but as for the business degree, “it was something to fall back on and I use it.  It’s been helpful.”

            The Lopacinski sound began to mature in 1997 when Tony and Chris teamed with another musician, Andy Waldeck, to form what was to eventually become Earth To Andy.  Along with Murphy on drums, Earth To Andy rapidly built a reputation along the east coast as a great live band.  In 1999, Giant/Warner Bros. Records signed Earth to Andy and their first CD, Chronicle Kings was released in the fall.  The band went on national tour for two years, a great experience for Tony who had the smarts to keep his nose clean, enjoyed the travel, and shared musical kinship with the likes of Stone Temple Pilots, Tonic, Three Doors Down, Cheap Trick, Rush, and other big names.  Says Tony: “We even got fan mail.”

            Then corporate America stepped in.  Giant, who shared ownership with Warner Bros. on the label, was “gobbled up” by Warner in a takeover, Tony says.  Some bands made the cut, some didn’t.  Earth to Andy didn’t.  Face recalls that disappointment.  Hear the Violins, a rich instrumental lament that both praises and pounds the music industry, was written by Tony and Andy after hearing the bad news that Warner didn’t plan to sign the band.  And that is mostly the formula for Face, an introspective, mood driven journey taking bits and pieces of Lopacinski’s life for its own.  City of Idiots, a you-gotta-grin criticism of L.A., a city that Tony and the band got to know well (‘I hated L.A., Tony says) is just plain fun.  Any driver has to love a lyric like “I’ve been flipped off, I’ve been cut off, in my city of idiots.”

            By contrast, the almost country sound of My Mistake, is an interesting juxtaposition of upbeat tempo to a sad tale.  “It was written about my best friend’s divorce,” Tony says.  Singalong, with its well pace, energetic beat makes you want to tap your foot but the lyrics, a litany to the burden of music, say it all:  “What’s the point of singing this damn song, no one wants to singalong with my singalong song.”

            Lopacinski’s prowess on the guitar shines through in every song, but particularly in the purity of two acoustical pieces, prelusion and bats, both which showcase his quick and concise guitar handling.

            While other tracks from the CD are more technically complex, Candle to You is, hands down, the most commercially viable.  Like Sting’s Every Breath You Take, its power lies in its simplicity, both instrumentally and lyrically.  But listeners will like best its emotional flexibility.  It can be mentally dedicated to anyone- anything.  Notes Tony”  “The ‘you’ is ambiguous,” He says he knew it had promise when wife Sarah, hearing him pulling it together in the basement studio, wandered in for a listen.  “She hardly ever does that.”

            While one gets the feeling that it’s not his favorite cut on the DC.  Tony recognizes that it may be his best shot at getting a song from FACE into wider circulation.  The CD is now being passed around in Nashville and Tony is working to get Candle to You recorded there.  Despite the promising scenario, he doesn’t jump up to answer a phone call from a Nashville producer calling about the FACE CD.  “It’s just making it’s way up the food chain,” he says with a shrug, adding later that “you have to have a healthy dose of skepticism when you are in the music business.”

            Playing with Earth to Andy in major venues that included L.A. and New York didn’t leave Tony with a hankering to settle down in any of those glamorous spots.  To the contrary, this Navy brat, born in Milwaukee, married a local girl – Sarah Blose – even before he left on national tour.  They have settled just a few miles from her home place, a dairy farm off US 33 near Harrisonburg.  The two met at Tech through their common interest in music – Sarah was singing for another band.  They have two kids, Aaron and Lauren, and Tony, despite his slightly longish blonde hair that sees out-of-place in this corner of suburbia, is definitely a family man.  He has reconciled himself to the fact that music can’t be a full-time pursuit, at least now.  He spends most of his evenings giving private guitar lessons and occasionally hires himself out to tile installers.  Construction projects appeal to him because “I am good at math,” not surprising giving that “music is very mathematical.,” Tony notes.  But when he isn’t replacing vinyl siding blown off his house during a wind storm, he is often in the basement studio, writing and engineering his music.

            He is also currently helping Earth to Andy put together a reunion/farewell CD, whimsically titled Sticks the Landing.  The band members have decided to reunite for that effort but have essentially moved on, some settling down into married life, some moving into other musical avenues.  But Lopacinski plans to stick with music and also hopes to put together a band so he can bring Face, “which is doing pretty well” in sales, to live audiences.  The only hitch, Tony says, is “I haven’t been a lead singer since I was in high school.”  Despite his great voice, he isn’t keen on the roll, but recognizes that no one could sing the takes from Face and pull it off.

            Pulling it off would be a wonderful surprise to Tony, who believes that rock music “needs a revolution” isn’t holding his breath.  In Hear the Violins, he scolds an industry that just goes along rather than seeks to rise above the din of mediocrity, including that only “true believers can hear the violins.”

            Provided enough believers do hear those violins, Face could be commercial success.  And that would be the nicest surprise of all.