Greg Loman spent his youth playing music at a time when “grunge was kind of at its peak.” After listening to the tunes of Alice in Chains, he stopped the late-night Nintendo gaming sessions and decided to take his music playing to another level.
What followed for him was a long career filled with teaching music and performing in bands like the Red Hot Chili Peppers tribute group, Red Not Chili Peppers.
“I sort of started to beg my folks for a guitar, and ended up with an acoustic guitar — we couldn’t get an electric guitar, that came later,” Loman said. “I launched myself into it and I tell my guitar students that the guitar replaced video games for me.
“I was getting the hang of practicing songs from Nirvana and Green Day. I took on more technical challenges and I got addicted to it. As Eddie Van Halen would say, I got ‘bit by the bug.’ The fun and natural challenges of playing an instrument, being self-taught and just discovering that if you listen hard enough, you could figure it out by ear, I got to the point where I would listen to a song on the radio for the first time and see if I could figure out how to play it by the time it was over. You just develop that skill based on repetition. It has to be right. It has a feel to it. It has a sound.”
At the time, Loman worked minimum wage jobs making around $4.75 an hour near his home in Washington, D.C. Rage Against the Machine and Wu-Tang Clan concerts inspired him further to buy his first electric guitar.
Loman said his parents supported his musical endeavors, but they felt he should try a more traditional career path. He attended the University of Maryland for a mathematics degree, but he still kept music on his mind, playing in bands and performing in the school’s music program.
“Eventually, I decided to take the plunge to LA, where I had a lot of friends who had gradually moved there from the East Coast and made something of themselves,” Loman said. “They were encouraging me to come out and try it. Only a few months after I landed, Juan Carlos Sanchez, an old friend of mine from D.C., who was singing with the Red Not Chili Peppers, informed me that the guitar player was going to be moving on. I went ahead, auditioned and got the gig.
“That was about seven years ago. I’ve hung in with the band ever since. We’ve had a really interesting path since then, I would say, because the entire outlook on tribute bands has shifted from what we can see. We have a pretty good point of view on that.”
Having since moved to Barcelona, Sanchez is no longer a band member. The band’s current lineup consists of Loman (guitar, vocals), Nathan Turner (vocals), Paul Moffat (bass, vocals) and Pete Koopmans (drums). Loman said that he, Moffat and Koopmans joined around the same time.
“We get so many rave reviews from folks who come in, and that means the world because we have invested a lot of time and energy to drive across the country,” Loman said. “We’ve even been international, and we always crush it no matter where we go. We’re getting up to almost 100 shows a year, so we see each other a lot and there’s a balance there.
“We have to kind of take care of each other and make sure that we’re all doing OK. Unlike the Chili Peppers, we don’t have multiple roadies to help us. It’s just the four of us. We’re a very in-house organization.”
Loman said he hopes to learn as many songs from the band as possible. He enjoys the more obscure gems like “Venice Queen,” but said the band tries to balance playing what people recognize and catering to the hardcore faithful.
“I just started up ‘Scar Tissue’ again, and it’s a very tricky song to play correctly on guitar,” Loman said. “That’s not because it’s more technical like which finger goes where. Instead, there’s a lot of jumping through different sounds. You go from a nice, polite, clean, ballad-y kind of sound to then suddenly the most roaring solo. Then suddenly you’re back in the clean stuff. To be able to do that smoothly while you’re singing all these background parts feels like a puzzle.
“Right before the COVID-19 pandemic, we decided we were going to play all of ‘Blood Sugar Sex Magik’ front to back. It’s like 17 songs. That was a challenge. There was material on there that even they (Red Hot Chili Peppers) have never played live. It was a ton of fun. We also did it with the album ‘Californication.’ We can play both those albums front to back, which I think is quite an accomplishment.”
Besides capturing the music, the band embraces the Chili Peppers’ energy. On Friday, Nov. 15, the group brings that experience to 191 Toole.
“It’s a completely different experience to see our show rather than theirs, based on the fact that they’re playing a stadium or an arena and we’re playing a club or theater,” Loman said.
“That, in itself, is going to be very different. The Red Hots can only play so many markets because it’s a global band, and that global act sells out everywhere. There are a lot of cities in the U.S. that the band doesn’t get anywhere close to, so what are those people supposed to do? That’s why I think we kind of come in and save the day.”
Loman said that he sometimes feels he has a lot to live up to, being compared to Chili Peppers guitarist John Frusciante.
“That guy’s a really good guitar player,” Loman said. “For me to go on stage and convince everybody that I’m John Frusciante is not something I take lightly, because that dude delivers. I’ve watched hundreds of videos and the guy never messes up. He’s got a very powerful spirit. People show up to our concerts with Chili Peppers tattoos, and sometimes they show up with John Frusciante tattoos — like huge pictures of him on their arm or their back.
“That’s one of the advantages you can have as a tribute band, is that it doesn’t have to necessarily include the original people, or that it has to include a certain lineup. As long as you have talented players who know the book, you can call in different subs and put on an excellent show.”
Red Not Chili Peppers
WHEN: 7 p.m. Friday, Nov. 15
WHERE: 191 Toole, 191 E. Toole Avenue, Tucson
COST: Tickets start at $20
INFO: rialtotheatre.com
