The golden age of bodybuilding isn’t something typically associated with a 24-year-old country singer, but when Christian Lopez needs to get pumped up, he turns to Arnold Schwarzenegger.
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“Pumping Iron,” the 1977 docudrama starring the Austrian Oak, is one of the things that gives the singer and songwriter the boost he needs to live and breathe the music. Still, he does draw inspiration from other sources—his handmade acoustic guitar, crafted by a Virginia-based luthier, the Potomac River, the orchards behind his parent’s house in his hometown of West Virginia.
“Living life inspires me,” Lopez tells American Songwriter.
At 24, he ’s already pulled together two pieces of work, including his full-length debut, 2015’s Onward, released when he was just 19, and follow up Red Arrow in 2017. In the past few years, Lopez says he’s learned some life lessons and is more deeply connected to his music, which led to new single—and his first in three years—”Sip of Mine.”
When listening to his first two releases, there’s no critique. Instead, Lopez sees them as different chapters of his music. “Though I was writing from the viewpoint of the kid I was, I’m thankful for where those albums placed me over the last few years,” he says. “The world, road, [and] people I’ve experienced since have taught me so much more than I ever expected to learn about life. I continue to work on it and interpret my perspective on it better every day.”
Music was always in Lopez’s blood. The son of an opera singer and music teacher mother, he started playing piano at 5 years old, guitar by 9, and found himself with a record deal when he was 18. Throughout the past five years, Lopez has experimented in different genres—going acoustic, electric, then back again—and continuously adjusting his sound to his liking.
“The slight shift in my sound came from my honest roots popping out of the soil a little bit,” says Lopez. “I played a lot of overdriven electric on this [upcoming] record and got loud like I did when I was a kid. I followed my instincts and ended up getting more vulnerable at the same time, so it flowed naturally and felt great, which is how it should be.”
Americana, country, rock—they’re all labels, and Lopez isn’t too concerned with any of them. “I don’t care about genre barriers,” he says. “I do what I do. Trends will bend and turn as they follow the people that remain true to themselves.”
“Sip of Mine” is about resilience and was written and recorded during Lopez’s time in Los Angeles with girlfriend, actress Skyler Shaye, as he trekked back and forth from Beverly Hills to Revolver Studios. Absorbing his unique acoustic playing and delicate vocals, “Sip of Mine” builds up through raw lyrics I’m going to hold my head up high and well and drive my way through this living hell I made with my own two hands / I’m going to trade my pain, give another day, another chance.
“If you’re loved by someone, even through your darkest times, you can avoid the snap and come out on that other side with a new found love for the world and what it has to offer,” says Lopez of the single. “It was the time right after breakups with the old team and also, in a way, the city I’d planted my feet in, Nashville. I started fresh in LA, even though it was uncertain, I knew I had to follow it through.”
Around this time, he says he started to feel uneasy about the future and had trouble visualizing it. “I started to open my eyes to the real point of why we’re even here,” he says, “to trust ourselves, give it all we got, and most of all, enjoy it.”
Now more deeply connected to writing and playing, Lopez is ready for his next chapter.
“I try to just stay locked on a feeling and treat the voice and instruments simply like tools off the shelf,” he says. “I’m doing what I was born to do, trading the openness for happiness, and if it helps someone else along the way, then that’s an achievement and all the reason to continue.”
