pepper - 8.27.08
The spirit of aloha is alive and well and currently residing in sunny Southern California . Meet Pepper; Bret Bollinger, Kaleo Wassman, and Yesod Williams, three young innovative minds mixed with divine inspiration from the Hawaiian Islands. Pepper has been perched on the cusp of success since their relocation to Southern California in 1999, inspired by Volcom Entertainments excitement and interest in producing and distributing the bands endless eruption of original music. Click here for Pepper's website.
Chris' interview with Yesod Williams from Pepper:
Chris- How did you guys form?
Yesod- We are all from a town in Hawaii called Kona, which is on the west side of island. We all grew up together, went to school together. We kind of knew each other all our lives. Bret and Kaleo knew each other for a long time. I kind of stopped playing drums for years. We were just sort of at a party one night and started talking. I was kind of thinking that I wanted to get back into it, kind of maybe start another band or whatever. Like we would do every weekend, go to a friend’s house, have a house party, or have a party on the beach. This was actually a beach called Kona Luau. We were like let’s try it, let’s jam. We got together the next day, or next few days. I had to knock some rust off because it had been years since I played drums, but thank god my mom never sold my drum set, even tho she always threatened to, because she was always upset that I stopped playing drums.
Chris- So your parents were supportive of you?
Yesod – Oh, all our parents have been involved in music all their lives. Absolutely! All of our parents have been really supportive. They have supported the band endlessly. They couldn’t be happier that we are doing this for a living and actually making a living off of this. I mean in a way it’s a way for them to live vicariously through us as well.
Chris- I see you guys have been thru several cds and still have the same lineup. That’s not always the case with other bands.
Yesod- Yeah, like Slightly Stoopid for instance they had 5 drummers and whatnot and finally they have a drummer that I guarantee you will be with them for the rest of their career. Yeah, its crazy to think that we have been a band since 1997. I mean over 10 years and we are still going solid. I mean we are doing better than ever.
Chris- Did you guys get your start at Warped Tours?
Yesod- Well way back we got started playing at friends’ house parties, the few venues there are on the big island. We moved back in 2000 over to San Diego. We got hooked up with a friend we went to school with. She had an extra room, we all moved into. It ws like the 3 of us in one room, like one futon, one dresser, and than not sure if you noticed the art on our cds. Our good friend Ben Brook, he does all this artwork. He used to be a professional surfer and Volcom was one of his sponsors. That was kind of when the whole thing that jumped us to warped tour, where he hooked us up with volcom entertainment. They released one of our albums, which was our second album ‘Kona Town’, from where they had stage on warped tour, The Volcom Stage and for the 2001 warped tour they were like we want you guys on the tour, but you have to setup and break down yourselves. We were more than happy to. It was our first festival and national tour. It was warped tour with Pennywise, and so many bands we were listening to our whole lives that had influenced us so of course in a second we said yes. It was definitely some heavy dues paid to the touring gods. It was tough setting up and breaking down the stage at each show. We pretty much missed the barbeque everyday, and had to get there before everyone, so in a sense we were stage crew, and playing on the road. Than after that we hooked up with Slightly Stoopid and we played like late 2002 or something like that and took us out on tour. From there we started seeing a little bit fo payback from warped and whatnot. It’s that progress that sparks the light in your head. So like ok something’s working here so let’s keep going. I I mean we did warped again in 2003 and we did it last summer too. Last summer was the first time we were on the main stage. So we were on the same stage as Bad Religion, Flogging Molly, Pennywise, so that was pretty cool. It was like we came full circle. We started out pretty much from the very bottom and than got to the main stage. Because on all the past warped tours we would look at the main stage and think someday just give us one chance to play there. I mean warped tour is such a rat race, and to play one of the side stages and fighting to get some of the people over to see us. Main stage has like a built in crowd where people are already there it was definitely a complete polar opposite of the first year we did it. I mean we were on a bus this time, and getting to just play in front of crowds and whatnot.
Chris- Is that how you guys met up with Slightly Stoopid?
Yesod- No, no, actually. Kaleo’s cousin had been living in southern California and hes the one that first bought us their cd ‘The Longest Barrel Ride’ (their second cd) We took it back with us on our trip back to Kona, kind of where we first found out about them, and he hooked us up with them. We played a show with them back in their hometown in Ocean Beach. Its kind of the first time we hooked up with them. They gave us tuning pedals and all this stuff. They were like you guys don’t have tuning pedals? We were like we just got here from Hawaii and were trying to figure everything out still and to this day we are still really good friends. This tour, this summer. The Tailgate Tour is probably the fifth or sixth tour we have done with them.
Chris- This Tailgate Tour, have you guys gotten to actually crash anyone’s tailgate party?
Yesod- Yeah we went off to Seattle to check it out. We went out and played some beer pong with some fans. We actually have a phone number that we have people that we have people call in and basically just leave a message telling us where they would be or why they should hang out with us at the after party. The number is 760-536-6316 and we just encourage people to just call in and let us know why you should come hang out with us at he after party. Then we usually bring like five people to come hang out with us after the show.
Chris-That’s very cool. I saw your website. There is a bunch of interaction like the forums, the tailgate thing, the place where you can upload photos from the shows.
Yesod- And that’s a contest too. Who uploads the best photos and what not, but yeah the site is a brand new site that just kind of goes along with the new album. The album came out July 22nd ‘Pink Crustaceans and Good Vibrations’. It’s the first one on our label LAW records. We’ve been through the independent label thing, the major label thing, and finally we felt we were at a point where we reach a certain platform where we could release our own albums and get good distribution and pretty much do as good as we did with our last album which was on Atlantic. I think we charted a little higher than we did on our last album.
Chris- How did the LAW record label get started?
Yesod- My dad back in the early 80’s had a band called The Law, like in that whole hair metal scene, sunset blvd, playing all those clubs. They were doing really good, unfortunately they broke up eventually. The album they had ‘None Escape the Law’ was released on LAW records back in ’83 than the band broke up. 2003 or something, given the band from Hawaii to southern California and being distributed by Volcom, we had the realization that we paid for this album, we recorded it, we own the master. That was all just figuring in the music business. So we were like might as well cut out the middle man. We rereleased that record with some bonus tracks, live track. We weren’t that active with the label, we just put it out there and just establish the fact that we have our own label. So we put that out there, eventually in 2006 we hooked up with a band called Supervillians from Orlando. They had an album that was going to be released on another album but the label backed out and didn’t want to release it for them. It kind of dropped in our lap. That’s when we started getting active with the album and the label.
Chris- How do you guys go about recruiting other bands?
Yesod- The 2 bands we have like Supervillians we met on our first trip to Florida. We met them, had a great show with them, but we had known them for awhile. We hadn’t really stayed in contact with them.. We were at House of Blues in Florida one time and gave us the album, just for us to listen to and their label was going to release it. Somehow it came up that they weren’t going to release it. Somehow it came up that they weren’t going to release it. Well we don’t have a tone of distribution for you, but we do have our following and could take you on tour with us, put you in front of those crowds and it worked great. That’s kind of like the theory for signing bands. If it’s a band first starting out, we’ll put out their album, bring them out on tour with us. That’s kind of like the main engine. We put them in front of us. They deserve to be listened to. The other band, which is actually playing tonight called Passafire. It happened the same way. We were on tour with 311 and they actually won the local radio show where they got to play on the stage at an outside amphitheatre where people walk in. So they snuck backstage after the show and they ran into Bret. They gave Bret a handful of their old cds. We didn’t think anything of it. Bret picked it one day and started listening to it. He was like now theres some real good stuff on here. Mainly up until this point, it had just been bands that we ran into on the road. I mean you figure a major record label; it’s just like these guys sitting in an office that are looking at the radio charts and seeing what stuff sounds like on the radio. I mean we are actually out on the road, like a different town every night, really hands on way of dealing with things and just digging up those gems that deserve to be heard.
Chris- What do you guys do to promote your stuff?
Yesod- Mainly tour, I mean that’s pretty much how we have accomplished what we have so far. Just getting out on the road, and going out and seeing the people, instead of them seeing on tv, than hearing it on the radio. Its just real grass roots kind of stuff. It just seems like a way more personal way of treating your fans.
Chris- There seems to be all the same stuff on the radio, just like the same 20-30 bands all the time.
Yesod- Yeah, theres the great ones like Chilli Peppers, or Foo Fighters. A lot of it, I mean those record labels paying off people or whatever and just them pushing what they hear as hits these days. It usually goes along with whatever the trend at that time like emo. That’s just a way of shoving it down people’s throats, but there are a lot of people who listen to music that that’s the main place they look, like what’s on the radio. It’s cool, because our fans are totally opposite of that, so open-minded and that works wonders when you have your own label.
Chris- You have a pretty good following. I was poking around on the forums and there are some fans that have been to your last 15 shows.
Yesod- Yeah, there are a bunch of people out there with Pepper tattoos. It’s pretty crazy. It’s super surreal.
Chris- When you release an album, and there is ITunes out there, people can buy a single at a time. How does that effect how you put your music together?
Yesod- I don’t think we really think about that, like thinking we got to make this song like that or this one sound a certain way. So people buy this song on iTunes. We just want to get the music out there and of course people have their favorite tracks. I just think that’s a good thing, just better for the people, maybe their not into some tracks but dig others and buy 4 of them. I don’t think that’s a bad thing at all. Its more good than anything.
Chris- I see Randy of Pennywise did some work on your latest album. How did that come about?
Yesod- We were recording and they have a studio right next to the studio we were using. We’ve known those guys for a pretty long time from warped tour, but this last warped tour we were hanging out everyday at barbeque, shooting the shit, whatever. We had such a great time. We called Coors Light Hawaiian water, we would turn to Brad and go this is Hawaiian water right here all warp tour. And he’s always like ‘Hey whats up? You guys got some Hawaiian water?’ So he’s kind of doing the same thing in the studio, he’d roll over and whatever and we’d have some beers. Hey you gotta get on here, you always doing backup vocals for Pennywise. We want to hear you do some vocals for Pepper. He ended up doing vocals for 2 songs. It was great fun!
Chris-Which songs?
Yesod-Blackout and I don’t know if you found it yet but there’s a secret track on there and he did vocals on that too.
Chris- I’ve listened to it all a bunch of times. I like Freeze, Musical 69, and Stand & Fall are my favorites on there.
Yesod- I’m sure you will hear a couple of those songs tonight.
Chris- On the internet you have this Search with Pepper, How’d that get going?
Yesod- I haven’t really used it myself. I’m not hugely knowledgeable about what it entails. I guess different bands can sign up, you search with them or whatever. It’s just another way to interact with the fans. Its kind of like the phone number thing I was telling you about say now. Its kind of like myspace for your phone. The whole theory is pretty much every kid in the world has a cell phone these days and they usually have the same number 10, 20 years. Its even more directive it seems like.
Chris- It seems different. I haven’t seen any other bands do it.
Yesod- Its kind of like at the first level and they are trying to build it up to similar to something as big as MySpace.
Chris- A lot of bands are starting to put songs on video games. Do you have any plans for that?
Yesod- Well we have one on TransWorld Surf, and actually we are going to be on Guitar Hero 4. A track from our last album called ‘No Shame’. Than also we’re going to have a track from that same album called ‘No Control’ on Guitar Hero for Nintendo DS. That’s either going to be early winter or early next year.
Chris- Yeah, we play it at the house. We play that and Rockband.
Yesod- I haven’t played Rockband yet. That’s the one where you can play the drums and everything right?
Chris- Yeah, you can play guitar, bass, drums and vocal.
Yesod- Its nothing like playing a guitar, but its great fun.
Chris- Its fun. Its interactive with each other and the music. I know the x-box and playstation can download songs
Yesod- With all the different ways to get new music to everyone, I was reading that the Aerosmith Guitar Hero game that was their biggest sales week in the history of the band, because on the first week they sold so many copies of that Guitar Hero game than Aerosmith themselves in all their cds in a week. It is definitely more hands in the pot. Its benefits are going to far outweigh the consequences. It’s like you said it’s a way to be more interactive with the music. That way you get to play the music.
Chris- Its also a way to keep up with the times. Aerosmith has been around since early to mid 70’s, and now their on a new video game.
Yesod- Its also great too. Think about the demographic of video games. It goes from age of 8 or so and up, and they wouldn’t know Aerosmith from whatever. Now they can play guitar and become fans of the band.
Chris- So, Volcom has been promoting you guys since the beginning?
Yesod- Yeah, pretty much, not right when we moved to California, but soon after. They basically at first were like its not really the kind of music we’ve been signing but they opened their offices to us and you can use our coffee machine, you can use our phones to book any shows. We were up there all the time, just putting in the work and I think they noticed ‘Wow those guys are definitely hard workers’ so eventually they agreed to sign us to a record contract. That’s when we went to the studio recorded the album Kona Town. That still sells good for us, and it is still our most popular album up until this point and its just definitely put its longest legs.
Chris- You guys are headlining today. Do you guys do different stuff when headlining?
Yesod- We just get to play a full set. Especially if you are playing first or whatever you get to play a half hour set. You don’t get the full Pepper experience. We’re trying to shove as many songs in as we can. The in between song thing is a lot less. I think the personality of the band shines way more when headlining. But than the tours we’ve done with 311, is great too, because we get to show our music to different people.
Chris- The other cool thing about headlining is, that you know the people that are coming to see the show are coming to see you.
Yesod- Its like one thing leads to another. You got to do those opening slots, than eventually it leads to the headlining slots. People are just coming to see you and whatnot.
Chris- If you guys could tour with anyone who would it be?
Yesod- We kind of toured with them before, but just on warped tour. I think a Pepper NOFX tour would be top notch, and we get to watch them every night which would be way cool.
Chris- How would you describe your music to someone who hasn’t heard you before?
Yesod- I could probably go on for a little while about it. We are just a rock band with a reggae influence is what I would say in a nutshell.
Chris- Who are your influences?
Yesod- UB40, They are probably the biggest reggae band, as far as popularity goes. I mean besides Bob Marley which goes without saying. UB40, Dennis Brown, Barrington Levy, Chilli Peppers, old Metallica, Pantera, Nirvana, all that grunge stuff like that was right around the time when we were about to be teenagers. That was such an impactful time for music, with Alice in Chains, Pearl Jam. All those bands were huge in LA
Chris- I just went on vacation down in Florida back in July in the Key West. The music you guys put out seems like the perfect beach party music.
Yesod- Hawaii did well for us, because that is where we are from, than San Diego. But Florida does well for us. I mean that second warped tour in 2003 we did all of Florida. For me personally that is where I really saw some progress. Like wow these people are really reacting to what we are doing and whatnot. Florida has always been great and continues to be one of our top markets for sure.
Chris- What do you guys do to prepare before you go on stage?
Yesod- Nothing real special, just couple of drinks, get the blood flowing. We don’t write a setlist. We do rock, paper, scissors. We call it polling. We do that to do our first 4 songs, which we call the Four Horsemen. That’s kind of to get the wheels moving, than after that we get the crowd to pick the rest of the setlist. I mean they are the ones paying their hard earned money. It wouldn’t be possible without them. I mean its more important that they get to hear what they want to hear, instead of a band playing what they want to play. That’s about it before a show, from that point on the show is spontaneous.
Chris- So if someone is shouting out a song that you don’t normally play you would play it?
Yesod- Yeah, write it on a piece of paper, throw it up, write it on a bra, throw it up, make a sign, anyway to get the message to us. That’s usually how it works.
Chris- How’s the song writing process work?
Yesod- It usually starts like on a computer, like on garage band or something, maybe start the first song on an acoustic guitar or something, than we get together when we go to make an album, like this album Pink Crustaceans, a venue that we have been playing at for a long time, this guy Gary, he’s really good to us, really supportive, basically let us post up whenever we are in between shows/albums. Than we choose the ones we want to work on, that’s where it comes to a full Pepper song. We get the arrangement down; put our two cents in, than just do something that everyone is happy with. Than we just go into the studio, the producer will put in his two cents, than we are just trying to get the best performances of the song in, than the album is done. It’s funny though, because definitely it always happens where we record an album and than start playing the songs live and different stuff will come about. Than sometimes we think shit, I wish we would’ve thought of that before. I wish that was on the album. But in the same sense, its always good to have the live versions to be different than album versions. It just makes the experience of coming to a live show that much more special, instead of playing a carbon copy of the album. What’s the point in that? Granted you are watching the people perform it but I just think the spontaneity is better.
Chris- Where does the title of the album come from?
Yesod- There is a comedy troupe called The Broken Lizard that made Supertroopers. They made Beerfest. They made a movie called Club Dread. It comes from that movie. The guy Pete, this girl comes up to him and says Coconut Pete can you play Margaritaville? He says ‘Sweetheart I think your talking about Pink Coladas burg. That was from my 1973 album. Pink Crustaceans and Good Vibrations. Than it goes through a couple more of his albums Sea Shanties and Wet Panties, and Spanish Flyfishermen. Yeah, Coconut Pete is a genius. So we just borrowed it from him kindly.
Chris- Whats the next song you guys are planning to promote?
Yesod- As far as radio or anything like that?
Chris- or even MySpace or YouTube.
Yesod- We don’t really target one song for myspace. We kind of just put them all up. Than make everyone happy at some point. They have them as their profile song and we take it off than they are like oh you just blew it for me. What we did for the radio is we sent out a couple of songs instead of trying to shove one down their throat. We ended up sending out Freeze, and Stand and Fall, to just try to appeal to the different kinds of format out there too, not just alternative radio. That just goes back to the fact that we have the freedom to do that now, because we are releasing albums on our own label now. There are not these people who have invested their money, when we record an album. It should be this
Chris- Thank you very much I appreciate your time.
Yesod- Right on, that was very thorough.