L.A. Beat

Vancouver based blues rocker Rich Hope is going to “Whip it on Ya” at the Slice, Oct. 10 with the Manvils and the Ramblin’ Ambassadors and in the process, they’re going to help officially launch L.A Beat magazine.
“There isn’t going to be a better one this year,” said Hope taking a break from renovating his kitchen in Vancouver.
“ I hope  a lot of people come out because it is really going to be a great party,” he said, noting while he and drummer Adrian Mack play with the Manvils a lot on Vancouver, they have never toured together.
“It’s going to be great,” he enthused adding he is just as enthused about his third record “Whip it On Ya.” As always, the duo had a two take mandate for all songs, and three of them (“Death Bed Blues,” “Rollin’ On” and “When My Light Comes Shining”) weren’t even finished where the entered the studio in 2008 to record the follow up to 2005’s Rich Hope and His Evil Doers CD. “Saying we were unprepared is the wrong thing to say because we had been playing the songs steadily for about three years. They were road prepared and ready, we just didn’t get a chance to record them because I had a kid and was moving into and renovating a house which took more priority in my life than making a new record,” said the Edmonton born Hope, who moved to Vancouver in the early ’90s
It also has a cover of an obscure Detroit souls classic My Baby Likes to Boogaloo.”
“It’s a Don Gardner song but not a lot of people know it and I’ve been playing it for years so people think it’s my song,” Hope laughed.
His music has as much in common with classic bluesmen like Hound Dog Taylor and Bo Diddly and blues influenced rock n rollers like the Rolling Stones, as it does with the ’70s punks, so he bonded with people like John “Buck Cherry” Gardner over a Johnny Cash jam happening in Vancouver shortly after he moved there in 1992.
While playing in an older band with his drummer Adrian Mack called John Ford, they met notable faces from the late ’70s punk scene like John “Buck Cherry ” Armstrong and bonded over a Johnny Cash tribute happening at the time.
“John actually gave me an amp, a Pine Electronics Amp from Montreal. I love those things, I collect them. I’ve got four of them now. It was broken, but I fixed it,” Hope laughed adding those amps give him his raunchy guitar sound.
“Actually I have a lot in common with punk rock. The first thing I heard that really made me want to rock and roll was the Clash. It’s that sort of edge that  has always been in my sound,” Hope said adding he is happy with his new CD.
“It was actually  a struggle in the studio to record it. They kept asking me to turn them down. Some things just don’t translate well to the studio. So I don’t know if it reflects the live show, but it does capture the energy of it. That CD, that’s what we do, it will make people say ‘that’s a cool CD’ and want to pick it up,” he said.
“We’re a two man quartet. You’ll have to come and see how that works,” he said.