El Vez - Biography
By Scott Feemster
El Vez is the character that Chicano musician Robert Lopez has been playing for over twenty years. A satirical send-up of Elvis Presley, Lopez had also managed to weave every amount of kitsch, Mexican history, Chicano history, social commentary, and, of course, anything to do with Elvis, into his own brand of on-stage lunacy. Lopez manages the almost impossible feat of making serious subjects funny, while shaking his booty and wearing gold lame, all at the same time.
Robert Lopez was born in 1960, and grew up in Chula Vista, California. Lopez has said he has childhood memories of his uncles wearing Elvis-style pompadours, though it's hard to tell what kind of effect this had on young Lopez. By the time Lopez was in high school, he took up guitar and became fascinated by The Ramones and many of the punk bands that were coming out of mainly New York and London. With friends guitarist and singer Javier Escovedo, bassist Hector Penalosa, and drummer Baba Chenelle, he formed the influential Mexican-American punk band The Zeros in 1976. The group played mostly in Los Angeles, and became allied with many of the early punk bands on the scene then, including The Germs, The Weirdos, and The Nerves. The group released several independently released 7” singles, but by 1979, Lopez decided to leave the band and move north to Los Angeles. (The Zeros carried on for a time without Lopez, and relocated to San Francisco, before finally breaking up around 1980.) Once in Los Angeles, Lopez joined up with Slash Magazine founder Claude Bessy, rock critic and former Alice Bag Band member Craig Lee, and future “lesbian Jewish folk singer” Phranc to form the group Catholic Discipline. Though the band was only together a year or so, they did manage some infamy by appearing in the 1980 Penelope Spheeris documentary film The Decline of Western Civilization.
Lopez stayed connected to the Los Angeles music and art scene, and over the years developed a taste for the Mexican kitsch of his youth. In 1988, while involved in an art show that showcased Elvis-inspired art at L.A.'s La Luz De Jesus Gallery, Lopez stumbled upon the idea of combining his love for Elvis with his love for his Mexican heritage, and, voila!, El Vez was born. With his hair coiffed up in a pompadour that would have made the mid-'50's Elvis proud, tight jumpsuits that combined Elvis' Vegas period with a matador costume, and his trademark thin mustache ala Cesar Romero, El Vez quickly put together a backing band, dubbed the Memphis Mariachis, and a group of gyrating background singers, named the Lovely Elvettes, (Gladysita, Lisa Maria, Prescillita, and Que Linda Thompson), and made his way to Weep Week, the annual celebration of Elvis Presley's birthday in Memphis, Tennessee. El Vez booked himself a slot at the club Bob's Bad Vapors, renowned as the premiere showcase in Memphis for Elvis impersonators, and wowed the audience with his combination of Mexican corridos spliced in with Elvis' greatest hits. El Vez was an instant sensation at the event, and because of coverage from newspapers and magazines, almost instantly became a celebrity across the entire United States. El Vez and his band have toured across the U.S. and Europe, and beginning in 1994, with the album How Great Thou Art: The Greatest Hits Of El Vez (Sympathy For The Record Industry)( a collection of El Vez's early '90's 7” singles), have released a whole slew of albums that usually combine a twist on Elvis' back catalog with Mexican folk music, and frequently, even address important social issues. El Vez was busy through most of the 1990's, touring frequently and putting out albums at a rapid pace. After How Great Thou Art, Fun In Espanol (Sympathy For The Record Industry) followed in 1994, and the same year El Vez released two more albums, Graciasland (Sympathy For The Record Industry), a send-up of Paul Simon's Graceland album that also included some serious cultural critique on how minority cultures are treated in United States society, and Merry MeX-mas (Sympathy For The Record Industry), El Vez's take on a Christmas album. 1995 brought the live album El Vez Is Alive (Munster), and the next year he released the Never Been To Spain (Until Now) (Bird Cage) album. Also in 1996, El Vez released his G.I. Ay, Ay! Blues album (Semaphore), which featured a hilarious take-off on the cover of Elvis' G.I. Blues album cover, and featured even more overtly political songs, including “Mexican-American Trilogy” and “Say It Loud! I'm Brown and I'm Proud!” In 1998, El Vez released the vinyl only EP A Lad From Spain (Sympathy For The Record Industry), a take-off on the David Bowie album Alladin Sane, and the next year, that EP, plus various rare and unreleased tracks, were compiled on the album Son Of A Lad From Spain: The CD (Sympathy For The Record Industry). In 2000, the collection Pure Aztec Gold (Poptones) was released, as well as a second Christmas album, Noelvezsi (Poptones). El Vez retooled his sound a bit with more modern flourishes for his 2001 album, Boxing With God (Sympathy For The Record Industry). Though he still had the stylistic connection with Elvis, most of the songs on Boxing With God were either covers of other artists songs rewritten in an El Vez manner, ( the hilarious “Lust For Christ” to the tune of Iggy Pop's “Lust For Life”) or straight-up El Vez originals like “Can You Kali?”.
Since the beginning of the 2000's El Vez/Robert Lopez has barely released any new material, but he has kept a busy touring schedule, touring almost every year across North America, and even making the occasional jaunt to Europe, (and especially Spain, where he is quite popular). Lopez has also stayed active in his community of East Los Angeles, and has stayed active in anti-gang and community outreach programs.
