Interviews

ADEVARUL DE SEARA - Tuesday 12th of April 2011

Review by Raluca Curteanu    
Mike Vlahopol - The Magician Guitar Player!    
He is the founder of The Crossroads Band, and his shows are spiced with closeup magic numbers.

    
He started to play guitar durring high-school when he started his first band. That happend in 1986 and the band name was “Safir”. The chords were comming out form a 5$ uds, Russian 7 string guitar. In the mean time he learned to build his own electric guitars. 

   
From Rock to Blues    
“In that period guitars were either very hard to find, or very expansive. So, I improvised a very small workshop in my livingroom and I build my own electric guitars for me or for very close friends”, sais Mike. Now he’s got Read-Head, a 4.000 euro limited edition guitar, but he would like to restart building guitars. In the beggining he played hard-rock than heavy metal, later on white metal (Christian Rock Music), and now his band plays generaly for “corporate people”: blues, rock, funk, pop-dance. “Our public is generally around 30-35 years old. We play songs from Robbie Williams, Scorpions, ACDC, Donna Summer or even ”Oh, That’s My Life” (a very hated Romanian song). When I anounce this song they all start to say “Boooo” than i start by playing “It’s My Life” from Bon Jovi than they all go extasic when they see it was only a joke”, sais Mike.
With a  stature built in the years when he was playing professional Rugby added to his 25 years of experience, Mike manages to transform any show into an unforgetable moment. The spiced up moment is when he takes out a deck of playing cards and starts making closeup magic numbers. “I grew up with Leonard Iosefini and i believe he is the one that made me fall in love with magic” Mike tells us. He never goes out anywhere without few deck of cards and his red scarf which he makes it disapeear in his hand. Many times the public is astonished by his magic and they ask for more until the concerts is about to change into a magic show.

He Played in More Than 20 Bands
He started different musical projects or played with more than 20 bands like Foisorul de Foc, Ad-Hoc (band which always changed a member to keep up with the name), Karisma, Requiem, Split Blues Band, or the mainstream bands like Animal X, 3SE, Cristiana Raduta, Exist or Of the Lord. Right after the Revolution he became interested about show-biz and because of his English he colaborated with promoters to organize shows for The Scorpions, Deep Purple, Michael Jackson or Julio Iglesias and many others.

Since July 2010 Mike Vlahopol is recognized officialy as an representative endorser of the guitar brand D’Addario Strings for which Mike wishes to thank Marco Soccoli. Mike is hoping that his son Mikey to follow him and love music. “When he was three months old we took him to one of my concerts and he slept the whole time. As we finished playing he started to cry” Mike sais.
Questions and Answers
Generally you paly covers, when should we wait for an original album?
We are working on it. It will be an album which will be launched in Germany because we intend to transform it into an international project. For every show we intend to have an international star to join the band.

Interview by Cornelia Ciobanica in “Evenimentul Muzical”

14-20 December 2001, issue No.9

“He collaborated and played with anyone who proposed him or asked for help. From a session musician to band leader or just a simple member of a band, with bands like: Foisorul de Foc, Harvest of Soul, Contrast, Of the Lord one of his preferate bands which used to play white-metal band which made it even to American tops made for eastern countries. Now he will start collaboration with a young group S.O.S. playing alternative rock with different influences. We are talking about the guitar player Mike Vlahopol well known and appreciated in the Romanian show-biz for his special technique of playing guitar. Ever since the beginning the artist being autodidact starting with the age of 15 managed to play the guitar in many strange physical positions, “There are moments of improvisation. Parts of a song are really inspiring to me and this way of expressing and interpreting comes by it self. I have practiced a lot tough” told us Mike Vlahopol.

He’s got a guitar originally signed by Steve Vai

If by the age of 15 he was playing a seven string Russian guitar, now Mike has an Ibanez limited version. “I have bought it in Cyprus for 2,000 US $ but now that has the original Steve Vai signature it’s worthy about 10,000 US$ I’ve been told”. When Steve Vai was in Romania Mike Vlahopol was his translator and the guitar with the original famous signature will be soon able to be seen on www.mikev.home.ro (in the mean time the address has changed to a new one www.vlahopol.ro). Mike Vlahopol is now negotiating with Zone Records for a new album and he got few songs already done in his own studio where he is composing and recording for other hip-hop and dance bands as well. For the last Bambi album for instance Mike worked on more than half of the album. Lately the artist is thinking more of starting a solo carrier because even if he tried hard to make a band, he didn’t find colleagues which wouldn’t miss or skip rehearsals”.

INDIANAPOLIS STAR - USA
Upfront - Meeting through the magic of my space

Indianapolis-based singer Chrissy Wolkof is making music with European collaborator and she credits networking web-site MySpace.com for the connection. Romania native Mike Vlahopol, a flashy guitarist in the tradition of Steve Vai and Joe Satriani, is scheduled to arrice Monday in the United States. Wolkof and Vlahopol, who have formed a band called U're Nxt, plan to finish work on an album they started earlier this year in Romania. Vlahopol left a comment last November on Wolkoff's MySpace page, expressing an intrest in hearing her sing. Wolkoff, who performs with local cover band Chrissy & Hard Ride Express, says she and the guitarist woudn't have crossed paths without the internet. "I was not expecting this to happen", she says. For more information, visit www.myspace.com/lionessandsharky.

by David Lindquist

7 Plus - Daily National

 Mike Vlahopol congratulated by Garry King - Drummer of Joe Lynn Turner (2009-2010) - also worked with Guitar Legend Jeff Beck & Paul McCartney

Mike put together Tz's Band specialy for The Cotton Club

- Non-Stop Concerts in Cotton Club -