BAND: Pepper
INTERVIEWER: Evan Harris (Evan@bandvibe.com)
DATE OF INTERVIEW: 12.08.06
BAND MEMBERS:
Kaleo Wassman (Guitar/Vocals)
Bret Bollinger (Bass/Vocals)
Yesod Williams (Drums)
First off, how’s the tour going?
Kaleo: Really really well. It’s been one of the greatest tours we’ve ever been on.
Bret: A little too well, we’re recovering right now.
Yesod: The Jagermeister tour is all it’s cracked up to be.
So have you guys been drinking a lot of Jager on the tour?
Kaleo: They don’t fuck around. The people that put this tour on have Jager at every corner of the entire venue every night.
Yesod: It’s pretty much a requirement almost. This other band that was opening up said something about another liquor company and [makes a slicing sound].
They got cut?
Yesod: Instantly.
Bret: They don’t supply us with water all the time, only water bottles filled with Jager. We started brushing our teeth with Jager.
I hear the alcohol kills the germs.
Kaleo: Yeah, except you don’t spit it out like scope, you just swallow it.
Yesod: The caramel color coats your teeth against cavities.
You seem like some funny guys…
Bret: Funny like how, like a clown?
What do you guys like to spend your time doing besides cracking jokes?
Kaleo: Fucking.
Yesod: We hang out with each all the time.
Kaleo: But we don’t fuck each other.
Bret: We’ve crossed swords a couple of times, but…
Yesod: We’re together, but not together.
Kaleo: We like to watch the Family Guy, we like to watch Richard Prior, Eddie Money, no wait Eddie Murphy.
Yesod: Those are all good things to kill the time when we’re on tour.
How long have you guys been playing together?
Yesod: For almost ten years. In June, it will be ten years.
Can you say anything about how that came about, or how you guys came to be a band?
Kaleo: Sure. It’s a long and complicated story. His dad, [points at Bret] boned his mom [points at Yesod] and that’s how we came to be together.
Bret: So maybe it’s not so complicated.
So, Kaleo, how did you get in there?
Kaleo: I am the illegitimate child of Bret.
Bret: We didn’t know about him, but we’re so glad. They said ‘throw him away,’ but I said ‘No! keep him.’
Yesod: No, actually we’re all from Kona and it’s a really small town. Every one knows everyone. We all grew up together and went to school together and what not. It was kind of inevitable.
Would you guys say that you’re reggae influenced, or is your music more of a Hawaiian thing?
Bret: It’s more rock music.
Yesod: I’d say between the two though, Hawaii influences our music more that what you’d call Jamaican music. ‘Cuz reggae is huge in Hawaii you know and there’s its own interpretation over there.
So is there a Hawaiian brand of Reggae that’s going around?
Yesod: Yea, it’s called Jawaiian music.
Kaleo: It’s been around for years.
Yesod: But it’s all induced from the island vibe you know.
Yea, it can be really mellow.
Yesod: Yea, but it’s a misconception of our live shows sometimes. People are like ‘Oh, it must be real mellow at your guys’ live show,’ but no, it’s all about the energy.
What’s different about your new album? Anything, or are you guys still going for the same formula?
Kaleo: No, we had a lot of fun.
Yesod: We had a way better time making it than any other album for sure. So, in the end that kinda’ makes for a better album in my opinion. And there are more songs on it than any of our other albums.
Kaleo: It’s a fun album, go check it out. It’s a cool progression when you check out all the albums.
Yesod: It’s not so much a formula. We’re not trying to do anything specific as far as any kinds of music.
Kaleo: We’re just trying to have fun. It’s not too hard when you’re all trying to do the same thing. It’s a good job.
Shooting off of that, how did you guys find your sound?
Kaleo: It actually just took years of playing. That’s how we’ve developed to what we are now.
Yesod: ‘Cuz when we first started we were a little more punk or ska.
Kaleo: The tones were all different.
Yesod: Yea the first old, old album which was in ’99.
Kaleo: Which was Given It. If you listen to the tones on that album compared to the tones on this album, you can see that there’s growth. Every person grows and luckily we have and so we’re not still sounding like that back in the day.
Yesod: Progress.
Did you guys have any role models or heroes when you were growing up?
Kaleo: Bruce Campbell. That was mine you pick one.
Yesod: Maybe Ralph Macchio.
Kaleo: NICE! ‘Larusso: point!’
Yesod: I wanted to be a ninja after that.
Bret: Hmmm…
Kaleo: That’s a great one. Bret, didn’t you look up to Cheech?
Bret: Yea, Cheech would be good, but those movies are also a good example of what not to do.
Yesod: He was just a fan of his mustache actually.
Bret: Yea, his mustache was great. I don’t know, now I’m lost after Ralph Macchio. I can’t think of a hero. Help me.
Kaleo: I would say Bret looked up to Patrick Swayze in Road House. Road House or Point Break.
Bret: Thank you, I was lost.
Kaleo: It’s been a long tour; we’re not all thinking right.
Do you guys smoke a lot of herb?
Kaleo: Drugs? I never, ever did a drug in my life. And I don’t drink.
Yesod: Example for the kids.
Kaleo: Except for Jager.
I only ask because you guys have a real island vibe, but it’s not necessarily crucial for any kind of music. I want to keep that clear.
Bret: Good work.
Kaleo: Basically, the best thing about our generation is that we’ve got every type of music that you could listen to. We weren’t in fucking Georgia listening to Lynyrd Skynyrd in 1973 and that’s it. And we weren’t in Compton listening to NWA and that’s it. We were listening to Lynyrd Skynyrd and NWA. We had that privilege. The lucky thing about making music now is that it’s so reachable. I mean, why would anybody pigeon hole themselves in one type of genre? It doesn’t make sense.
Yesod: It’s a huge melting pot of music in Hawaii.
Where does the name Pepper come from?
Yesod: It’s from an old Saturday Night Live episode from the early ‘90’s. Comedy is a big influence.
Kaleo: That was the best cast. Rob Schneider, Chris Farley, Adam Sandler.
Yesod: It was one of the ones where Kristie Alley was the host and her and Kevin Nealon go into the Italian restaurant and Rob Schneider was a busboy.
Kaleo: And they’re like ‘You like ‘ah the pepper?’
Bret: And they got on each other.
Yesod: Then there was another one when they were bellboys, it didn’t incorporate the pepper thing.
Bret: It always ended up with sex.
Kaleo: That just goes to show you, we were named on a joke. We like to not take ourselves too seriously unlike so many ‘serious musicians’ these days.
Bret: We had the honor of doing a couple songs acoustically at 94.9 today which is a badass radio station. There’s no ass rock. There’s no butthole music, there’s no ass, cock rock.
But remember, don’t pigeon hole yourselves, right?
Bret: It would be different if it wasn’t being pumped in. That’s why I bring up the radio station. It’s one of the only radio stations that isn’t just filtering turds in. It’s refreshing. If every once in a while you heard an ass rock song, you’d be like ‘oh turn this up, this is funny,’ but it’s all the time now so that’s why I’m making that statement.
Yesod: Yea, they’re a great radio station, they really keep it real.
What are you guys listening to now?
Bret: What’s in the CD player, as they say? Slightly Stoopid’s new unreleased live in San Diego 2.
Kaleo: Really?
Yesod: The new Tool album is in there. Chili Peppers, Gnarls Barkley.
Bret: Jeff Buckley has this new live album called Mystery White Boy. What else? This year’s Jager compilation.
Yesod: [Kaleo]’s been telling me but I haven’t heard it yet, the new UB40 album.
Kaleo: It’s called Who You Fighting For? It’s unreal, it took me right back.
Yesod: The Supervillains, they’re a band on our label from Orlando. Their album is called Grow Your Own. It’s a sicky.
Kaleo: Chris Whitley. God bless Chris Whitley.
Yesod: 2Cents, they have an album that came out in July it’s called Lost at Sea.
Kaleo: They’re on tour with Kill Switch Engage.
Yesod: Sick metal band.
Bret: Not ass rock though, real metal, real sick riffs.
So you guys are into that kind of stuff too?
Kaleo: Hell yea! Anything that doesn’t suck bro. As long as it doesn’t suck, I’m pumped.
Yesod: A lot of the old metal.
Bret: When they took the time to write good riffs and not just have nine pedals. When they just wrote good songs. Oh, and Wolfmother.
Yesod: Yea, that’s another staple.
What’s it like playing on a tour with a band like Slighty Stoopid? Does your type of music lend anything to theirs?
Kaleo: To us, it’s night and day. But as far as the band’s relationship goes, we’ve been such good friends for so long that it’s such an easy tour. It’s so brilliant when that happens. When you’re on the road with a band that you disagree with, it just doesn’t work. It becomes a pain in the ass.
Bret: It’s like surfing: you go out with your friends, and it’s way more fun.
Yesod: You spend two months with the people you’re touring with every day in close contact, and it just makes it a hundred percent smoother.
You’ve known these guys for a while?
Kaleo: We’ve known these guys since we moved here which was in like ’99.
Yesod: This is our third or fourth tour we’ve done together. We did Warped Tour a couple times and then they took us out, and it was out first national tour with them.
Bret: They gave us our first tuner. They felt bad they were like ‘bro, you guys should tune up your guitars, it sounds like ass,’ we’re like ‘oh sick, thanks for letting us use it!’ They were like ‘No, no. You can have it.’
Kaleo: They’ve always been good to us, we’ve been good to them. We bring them to Hawaii, and the response is huge so it’s win win all around.
Yesod: I think I hear what you’re saying about the music being similar and where that mostly shows are the fans. It’s cool because a lot of the fans aren’t just coming out to see just one band. They’re like ‘sick, two bands I like. Perfect.’
So instead of the music crossing over, it’s more where the fan base crosses?
Kaleo: Right. With us, it’s like a heavy rock kind of thing. With them it’s like a sick, nice, almost UB40 vibe. Especially with their horn players and shit. It’s two different textures of the same seed in a way. And no ‘I take myself so seriously’ kind of shit.
Yesod: And it’s cool ‘cuz this is the first time that Jager has done a tour that hasn’t been a heavy metal tour. They’ve got the metal crowd on lock down.
Anything you want to say to all the Pepper fans out there?
Kaleo: Yes. Thank you for letting us work constantly. Now give us a two week break.
Yesod: And we’ll be back. We’re doing another headlining tour starting February.
Kaleo: Most importantly, thanks for letting us have jobs every night.
Yesod: It’s something you like to do, and you get paid for it. It’s weird.
So you guys are living the dream?
Yesod: We’re loving it, but we’re working hard.
Kaleo: The dream is almost coming.
Bret: We’re dreaming the dream still.
So you guys are still dreaming your own dream and you’re still working for it?
Kaleo: Exactly.
Bret: And at the end of the dream the best we can hope for is to wake up and just be a mess.
Check out Pepperlive.com and check out Pepper on Myspace. Pepper’s spring tour starts February 9th. Look up Law Records and send your demos.
For more official information on Pepper, please log onto:
http://www.Pepperlive.com
http://www.myspace.com/pepperlive
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