Zone-Magazine-Wally-Lopez-Issue-040

Tell us about Gez before music.
I’ve been into music from an early age of 7, when
my dad played me Pink Floyd - Dark side of the moon album.
After that I was hooked and started buying heavy metal,
punk and disco music at the early age of 8. Then by the time
I was 12 I got into electro and early hip hop music. So there’s
always been music in my life one way or the other.
Tell us about your normal life, home,
friends. Personal Plans for the future.
What other things do you like to do?
I like to play retro video games, like Vectrex, NEO
GEO, Dreamcast, Mega drive… not really into the new games
TBH. I like to meet my pals in pubs and have a few beers. I
don’t go to clubs much unless I’m playing or some of my
techno pals are.
Vinyl, CD or Digital, or a mix, and why?
I’m on Bandcamp which is amazing for me, just
been doing some digital releases on there and also some
limited edition stuff like CD’s and Dub Plates. It’s good tone
able to release on most platforms.
Who where and are your influences in
life and music?
Early electro, hip hop, house music, stuff like
German techno and Kraftwerk.
How did you get started in music, and
how did you get together as LFO?
At about the age of 15 I had some Breakdancing
pals up in Newcastle who were putting out tracks back then. I
was blown away at there stuff being done at home on a small
set up (808 drum machine, Vocoder, a few keyboards, a 303
baseline). That’s when I decided to get into music production,
so a few years later I set up my first real group LFO which
was quickly joined by Mark Bell and Martin Williams in 1988.
If you use digital or CDJ’s, do you use
the sync button? If you do or do not,
tell us why?
I’m on Ableton live so I’m sort of doing a half live /
DJ set. So I have loads of loops and full tracks which I’m
jamming together in a unique way. As for DJ’s in general it’s
up to them if they use the sync button … after all they only
play other peoples music.
Tell us about the clubs you have
played in and what was your favorite
so far and why?
I’ve played hundreds of gigs over the last 34 years.
So it’s a bit hard to say which is the best, Sonar 2001 was
amazing for me as we played a "Force inc" showcase in front
of 10 thousand people, which was kinda of scary. Some of
the other cool clubs were “The Orbit (Leeds), The Omen
(Frankfurt), and Berghain (Berlin).
Tell us about the clubs you will be
playing in 2024 and beyond.
I’ve just getting back into giving again after been i'll
with cancer for the last few years. So I’m only doing a
handful of gigs at the moment. Next one is a massive festival
in Portugal “The walk of life" on the 21st of June (loads of
druids and hippies will be there), and also 3rd August in
London.
What style are you most into and
why?
I’m playing a lot of up to date techno with some old
classics thrown in. So mainly deep techno like Soma records
for example.
Tell us about G-Man.
Yes g-man was my sideline project whilst doing LFO.
Warp went anti techno at one point so I decided to go on my
own as G-man.
In the world dance scene who is your
favorite DJ / Producer?
People like Andrew Weatherall, Laurent Garnier,
Maritzio von Oswald.
Tell us about the worst gig and what
happened?
Yes there’s been a few bad gigs normally down to
equipment failure as we played 100% live back in the day
with keyboards, drum machines, and samplers. I do
remember a gig in Newcastle one time back in 1994 when a
raver jumped on stage and came to hug me knocking over
our keyboards and mixer "Oh dear"! we had to restart the set
set again!
You have worked with some of the
top artists in the world, tell us who
was and is your favorite artist(s) to
work with?
Yeah Marco Corola was pretty cool, also Ritchie
Hawtin both had there strong points in the studio.
42 ZONE-MAGAZINE.EU