BAND: Pepper
INTERVIEWER: JenJen Reyes (JenJen@bandvibe.com)
DATE OF INTERVIEW: 05.30.09
BAND MEMBERS:
Kaleo Wassman (Guitar/Vocals)
Bret Bollinger (Bass/Vocals)
Yesod Williams (Drums)
JENJEN: How’s the Jagermeister Music Tour treating you so far?
BRET: This year is pretty tough to beat. We did it once before with friends, San Diego locals, Slightly Stoopid. Those are our best friends that we can possibly have in the business. That was in 2007. That was super fun, but coming out here with Pennywise is pretty crazy. First, it was intimidating a little bit because… we’re friends with them, we’ve known them for a little while from the Warped Tour, but it’s like you’re watching the guys that you grew up listening to and surfing every day to from Hawaii. It’s beautiful… like we always just stand there and catch ourselves fuckin leaning over on their stage and fuckin like run up and just grab the mic and start singing. They’re super fun. They’re like family.
JENJEN: Are there different vibes from their hardcore rock and like your chill rock on this tour? Does that go back and forth with the fans?
BRET: I don’t know. That’s so weird, I never heard of chill rock or hardcore rock. They don’t seem hardcore to me. I definitely don’t feel chill rock. Chill rock to me makes me think of something you can fall asleep to like Jack Johnson… *snore sounds*
JENJEN: Oh! I’m sorry… *covers her face as she turns red laughing*
BRET: *laughs* Oh no, no! That’s alright, I like Jack! It’s just that Pennywise fans come and Pepper fans come and for some reason if they don’t know who Pennywise or Pepper is when they come… in the end they are always having a good time. In fact, last night, one of my last mental images at the House of Blues (Las Vegas), you know it was a raging show, and I look up in the corner of my eye, and the corner balcony, there is this guy with a Pepper shirt like really getting down freaky with this girl, like almost falling mn the railing, and she got this pink Mohawk and a fuckin Pennywise T-shirt on. So, what does that tell you?
JENJEN: They definitely meshed together… *laughs*
BRET: *laughs* Oh, I think they started off dancing, but then I don’t know what was that at the end.
JENJEN: That’s a true melting pot right there…
BRET: It is. It is.
JENJEN: Any other fun/crazy moments to highlight during the tour?
BRET: Yeah, there was a bunch. One that sticks out, probably the funnest night for everybody that avoided getting arrested was in Chicago. There were a couple taxi windshields smashed by… not going to name people… but Pepper and Pennywise were out there, a lot were just drunk and dancing, like we love to go out and dance. Nobody knows that about Pepper. There like, “What are you guys going to do? Let’s go get faded or something.” It’s like, “What do you think we have been doing this whole night? Now we’re really to go dancing!” So we will roll up to this straight up ‘cheesy ball, everybody thinks they’re all cool’ club, anywhere and any town where every body is all dressed up and it looks like a new version of “The Night of the Roxbury”, and we just roll in there and just pull out our crowd pieces and just start dancing. Every body is like *in a snooty voice*, “What’s going on? Who are these people? Why aren’t they dressed nice like us? Why are they allowed to be here?” That’s our favorite thing to do. That ended up in a few almost arrests which was pretty nice.
JENJEN: Kinda like crashing the club?
BRET: Yah, but in the end it was like… we like to go out with our fans and that’s how we always done it when we first discovered America, came over and paddled over here and we’ve been impressed with hanging out with people and how fun people are. It’s not just like fans, you build friendships and you see regular people and meet new people.
JENJEN: So Pepper will be rockin it in Japan this summer, how stoked are you about touring over there?
BRET: This will be our first time there, so we’re really excited. We actually met the promoter who doing it. He’s in San Francisco and he was very impressed that we want to eat all these traditional Japanese food. He’s like, “How do you know what that is? How do you know what this is? How do you know what komomoto pork is? How do you know what fugu (blowfish) is?” These are like dishes straight from Japan and we’ve never been over there. And we’re like, “We’ve grew up in Hawaii. It’s the biggest melting pot ever.” We know tons of Japanese people and that’s just part of it. There’s a little bit of every culture moved over to the big island and all of Hawaii. So we’re really excited about going over there. All we could talk about is, “Oh, do you guys do this? Do you guys still eat this?” And they are like, “Oh Pepper very hungry! They like to eat!” So we’re excited to go over there.
JENJEN: Will you be performing some your songs in Japanese? Or are you going to try to?
BRET: *laughs* Only if we get twisted enough maybe it might sound like Japanese… but I don’t know. We’re just gonna go out there, and I know we’re gonna come back with our cheeks hurting because we’re going to have such a great time. We’ve been looking forward to Japan. There really isn’t too many places we haven’t been yet except maybe like Africa and Japan maybe a couple of spots in like South American. But we’ve gotten around and really enjoy all the different cultures. That’s actually the reason I think that we have such a long touring career. It’s because we’re really excited about it continuously like over and over again. It’s going to be the next piece of the puzzle.
JENJEN: What kind of experience would you want fans to get from Pepper’s songs?
BRET: Live or on an album?
JENJEN: How about both?
BRET: Live, it never really feels like we’re playing songs. We never make a set list. Our goal is not to play songs or certain songs. It’s kinda like we would never get off on that. Like we would never get off on knowing what’s gonna happen next like who’s gonna come up. If we’re going to have someone come up, make them do something. Or if they’re going to tell us to something, the crowd is like we want to you do this right now whether it’s a song, just do something daring as to come out with the song in the crowd. Sometimes, there’s a group of people that come together from out of state wearing the same shirt, and they’re like, “We wanna sing this song with you!” That’s who Pepper is. We’re the best show that you can possibly get is when you can’t see Pepper and you can’t see the crowd anymore. It’s like we’re all doing the same thing. They’re singing louder than we are. As far as songs, I would hope they would do what they always do and just enjoy the whole night from the top to the bottom, you know?
JENJEN: Yah, I’ve been to quite a lot of your shows, and it’s always a party. Super fun.
BRET: Yah it is. That’s why we’re here.
JENJEN: From your latest album, the Pink Crustaceans & Good Vibrations, the song “Wet Dreams” caught my attention because it has a different feel compared to the beachy roots vibe I usually get from your songs. What inspired the band to approach this song with a different sound?
BRET: You know that I’ve been hearing things like that since we release our second album. We released Kona Town and everyone’s like “Oh wow! We really like this!” Of course, we really like this because that’s just the songs we written. Then we came up with the album, In with the Old, and every body went, “What the f… What? What is this? Why is there a song about punk rock cowboys?” and like all these things that didn’t really make sense to them. But the more you get to know Pepper, that album like Pink Crustaceans, that was just what we were doing at the time, you know? So like “Wet Dreams”, that’s actually an old song. We almost release just the demo of that which we did acoustically with a little drum machine because it came out in a fun way. It’s just another song. I think as people go along and realize that we’re not trying to do anything except just have fun. That’s why I think you’ll find a song like that all the way to a song like “Freeze” or something where it’s like your style but people are like, “It sounds like Justin Timberlake!” and we’re like “Siiiick.” I love JT. *sings* “It’s my dick in a box…”
JENJEN: Do you know how to say “Wet Dream” in Spanish? I learned how to say it two weeks ago…
BRET: Close… I know dreams which is “sueños.” Sueños, right? I don’t know how to say wet.
JENJEN: What I was taught, it’s called, “La Puñeta.”
BRET: La Puñeta? That even sounds like the right… it looks like we’re going the right here… I am going to mention that tonight! La puñeta…
JENJEN: Yes!! *big grin and giggles*
BRET: You heard it here first, folks! *chuckles* Cool.
JENJEN: In your myspace page, The song, “Freeze” has been remixed 3 times with R&B and hiphop sounds…
BRET: Actually, it’s been remixed a lot of times, but there were 3 finalists at the end. There were some crazy remixes that we wanted to use. There was a lot. It was fun. But you’re right, you’re talking about the top 3.
JENJEN: Yah, those were the ones I actually saw and listened to. Oh! So there were a lot more?
BRET: Yah, you could even mix it up with like clash songs into like everything. I think “Beat It (by Michael Jackson)” was almost on there. People did some interesting shit, but those were the most original at the time, starting from scratch.
JENJEN: In that example, what other music genres would you like to fuse together in your songs? For instance, Jawaiian… Urban Polka… Techno Ska…
BRET: People like to do that. It’s funny when we first came over and started touring all over the United States, I’ll never forget the first two years. It went on longer than the first two years, but every single time we pull up, go through town, get out of the bus, go walking around and meet people… you look and you see the flyers for the show, and it always says, *hand gestures a sign* ‘Pepper. *hand gestures to another sign* Something, just like what you said, Urban Polka. Fuckin hip hop.’ I’m not joking you at all like every time you get to one, it’s like “Jazz Fusion Hardcore. I’m not even joking at all. I don’t know why that is, but people just want it so badly to like, “Oh this band, they do all these different styles!” You gotta understand, we don’t look at it that at all. We just love music, it doesn’t matter. We love music. We love entertainment. We love comedy. That’s why we have skits on our thing. If you press play on a Pepper album, that’s just Pepper like doing what we were doing at the time, you know? We’re not dependent on fans that are down with it going like, “Cool. I like this album. Nah, I’m not into this album.” We love that. That’s great. Find your own flavor. It’s like what’s your favorite song, you know? Scream it out. Yell for it. Great. That’s what we want you to do. We want you to think about it. We want you to keep enjoying the music. Be like, “You know, I still like this stuff.” That just challenge us, we want more that comes from an original place that comes within us which is fun.
JENJEN: There is this contest going on right now called “Blackout Music Video” contest. Must have you checked out your fans submissions yet?
BRET: Yes we have. It’s pretty cool.
JENJEN: Is it going to be hard to decide the winner?
BRET: It is going to be hard. There’s a couple that we really want to use, but they’re like almost too long. Almost like our skits that we do. We encourage it so much, but they’re two minutes on each side of the actual song. Like mini movies almost instead of videos. So we might have to keep it open for a little bit longer because there are some submissions that will just make nice little video clips that I think fans should see like who had the coolest video part of it. There’s some really good originality that went into it. It’s really cool.
JENJEN: So the winner of the contest, are you going to be creating your music video off of their ideas? Or is it kinda like to show in a bonus feature?
BRET: We don’t know. It depends. It’s kind of up to the person too. If they really want to stay committed and say “Hey, we like to rework this vision on a more professional level,” we would totally be down for that. So it depends on the winner. But if they’re also like, “Hey, I just like the band. I was just doing that for fun. I’m a fuckin lawyer in my regular life…” *chuckles* you know? Then cool.
JENJEN: If there is a new island forming in Hawaii and you have the honor to name it, what would you call the new island?
BRET: So you know, there is a new island forming. It hasn’t been named yet because they can’t officially name the island until it breaks 10 feet or something above sea level consistently. That’s a good question. I would probably name it where I grew up in south Kona. I probably would call it, Honaunau because that’s where I started, and that was always a free open area. I grew up on a mac nut farm, but my parents didn’t grow mac nuts. That was just a front. It was more of a pakalolo farm. Yeah, that’s what I’d name it.
JENJEN: If each member was given a superhero power, what would they be for each member?
BRET: Did you ever read that story about the Chinese brothers that each one can do something different, like one can suck up the whole sea when you were a little kid? Did you read that?
JENJEN: No…
BRET: Ok, that would be Yesod’s power except he would suck up all the alcohol in the whole world. He could literally go to the edge of the ocean and suck up all of the ocean and just hold it while all the kids would run out and grab the fish. Maybe that’s just a Hawaiian thing? Maybe. Hmm… what would Kaleo’s be? Kaleo would probably want X-Ray vision so he could see girls’ bikinis, underwear and bras from miles away. He’s such a pervert *chuckle*.
JENJEN: Why not go further and you know…? *laughs*
BRET: Why not? Hey… you gotta leave something for the imagination.
JENJEN’S FRIEND: Suck the clothes off…
BRET: Yeah, literally… *laughs*
JENJEN: Hey, Kaleo and Yesod can tag team! *laughs*
BRET: They could though, but there’s a fine line between fun and Kobe Bryant… Ooooo…. Da dun dun! Ummm… I think mine would be… I’d love to be able to turn into a werewolf or something. Just go out and be someone else. That would be kinda fun. That would be a fun one for sure.
JENJEN: Hmm… who is that X-Men? That one chick with the blue skin that changes… I forgot what her name is.
BRET: Ohhh, yah I forgot what her name is either, but I know who you are talking about.
JENJEN: But yah, that kind of power?
BRET: Yah, why not?
JENJEN: A shapeshifter!
BRET: Yah yah. Every time you go to a party, you have something new to wear like fur or double giant fake plasties… *chuckles*
(NOTE: The name of the X-Men we were talking about. It is Mystique.)
JENJEN: It sure looks like you have a very busy schedule coming up this summer, when you do have break from touring, what will you be doing on your time off?
BRET: We are actually getting to do kind of what we want to do after we get back. We’re gonna do a lot of festivals this summer. Then we’re going to do, obviously Japan. Then European, then U.K. again, but we get to go home to Kona for a really big wedding. Childhood friends that finally found their way back to each other. It’s a real story book. It’s poetic. And I’m getting hammered! I have no idea what I’m going to say. No idea for the toast. It’s fun too because we were going to do some shows on the way over there. Play Oahu again, and probably play a Kona show. But it’s going to be in the contexts of Pepper meets that old 80’s movie, Bachelor Party with Tom Hanks. It’s going to musical. It’s going to be more for us.
JENJEN: What advice would you give to those aspiring musicians out there who are trying to make it big in the music industry?
BRET: Don’t try to make anything big in the industry. Just re-evaluate what you want to do. If you’re a garage band and you’re having fun, you should feel nothing but pleasure doing that. If you take it farther, just be really happy with it. If you end up on tour, God bless, as long as you’re having fun. As soon as it stop having fun, trust me, it becomes work when it’s actually the best job in the world. Just appreciate whatever you get.
JENJEN: Is there anything else you would like to tell your Bandvibe fans?
BRET: To all the fans out there? Drink Jager! We’re really excited about one thing. We’ve developed and it’s almost done, it’s going to be submitted to Apple real soon, but we have our Pepper iPhone App coming out this summer. Completely interactive. We got features like say you’re standing outside the sports arena, and you’re online, you hit the nearby button, and it locates all the other people logged in the Pepper app. It’s really cool! It’s got a live chat upload. What I’m really excited is that people like to send us pictures all the time from shows, you get to upload the photos right into the app. I’m not gonna give away the rest of the features, but there are many cool features. It’s going to kick ass.
JENJEN: Uh oh! Watch out Myspace and Facebook apps!
BRET: Oh yeah. *whistles*
For more official information on Pepper, please log onto:
http://www.Pepperlive.com
http://www.myspace.com/pepperlive
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