VOLCOM Pepper wants to be heard,
but not before CD release
PEPPER'S new album, "In With the Old," hits stores today, but the band's drummer, Yesod Williams, says the group was surprised to see copies being auctioned online a month before its official release.
"No class," is the sentiment shared by Williams and band mates Bret Bollinger (bass and vocals) and Kaleo Wassman (guitar and vocals), referring to those who leaked the copies. But it's an occupational hazard for a band whose growing national fame makes them fair game to those hoping to cash in on their popularity.
"We gave (copies) out to all the press, and some little punk-rock Web sites were reviewing it and about a month ago, six of 'em showed up on eBay!
"They know that they're (legally) not allowed to sell promotional material," Williams said, calling Saturday from a van "100 miles outside of Phoenix" as the band was starting a two-month tour that will take the Big Island band deep into the American heartland. All going well, he says, Pepper will be coming home to perform here in June.
"I'm pretty sure we'll be playing a show at Volcanoes ... and then we're going home to do a Kona Town Music Festival, which we throw every year in our hometown, so basically in mid-June we're going to hit all the islands and play.
"We've been getting good response (to the new songs) on tour. We're more of a live band, so we've been getting good response. I've read that some people think that there's not enough reggae on this (album) 'cause we kind of went with the rap chorus theory a little bit, changing it up a little bit by throwing in a rap chorus in here and there, (so) it's more eclectic" than "Kona Town."
All things considered, 2004 is shaping up as another eventful year for a group that left Kona in 1999 with few prospects. Wassman and Bollinger told Williams that they'd given two-week notices to their employers and would be leaving for California. Williams had done some SoCal scouting earlier, but it was his partners' decision to leave home that made him decide to go for it as well.
PEPPER SURVIVED the transition from hometown fame to anonymity in California and gradually built a new fan base. Another step forward occurred in 2001 when they were signed by Volcom Entertainment as part of a larger corporate alignment that gave the indie label a national reach through MCA Records and Universal.
The corporate connections made Pepper's first Volcom album, "Kona Town," a national release in 2002. An earlier, self-produced album, "Give 'n It," was re-released in 2003 with several unreleased songs that had been recorded for "Kona Town."
"In With the Old" is the next big step, and Williams says that the band is "stoked" to be where it is.
"We can't believe we made it this far. We're pumped up, and our engines are definitely revving now. Once you release a new record, you've got to promote it to try to get the people pumped on it and going out and buying it and spreading the word. We're lucky that we get to come home and tour in Hawaii and get to hang out at home for a while.
"People in Hawaii ask us when we're coming back. We try to make it back as much as we can, (but) it's just that these other 49 states -- actually 48, because we won't go to Alaska -- we gotta nail down. That's what we're working on."
Pepper also has a record label of its own, Law Records, and recently released an album by a Big Island hip-hop group, Arena Productions, that they're promoting along with their own Volcom albums. A new Pepper EP will probably be released this summer.
"We got a bunch of ideas. ... (Arena Productions) is friends we grew up with, so it was a no-brainer for us (to release their album).
"These guys had recorded their own songs at home. Nowadays the beautiful thing about technology is if you got ProTools on your computer, you can make a whole album at home. They were doing it anyway, so why not put (their album) out ... and market it on the road while we're on tour?"
AS PEPPER was approaching Phoenix last weekend, a song from the band's new album, "Ashes," was already getting play there -- and on the Big Island and in Denver.
"In With the Old" also marks a new chapter in the adventures of Danny, the band's mascot. Yes, that figure on the cover of "In With the Old" is the skeleton of the fish that was last seen hitchhiking on "Kona Town." Think of it as Pepper's version of the Iron Maiden cadaver.
"Eddie was the name of their guy, and Danny is the name of our guy and he's a little more pissed now," Williams said, adding that Eddie will be featured on a new Pepper T-shirt promoting another new song, "Keep Your Head Bangin'."
Eddie and his stark, brightly colored tropical/horror environment is the work an artist friend known as 33.
"It's all (33's) brainchild stuff. He has all this crazy art in his house, and he's evolving with the band. He's getting better as we're getting better, and it's cool."
Despite the eclectic range of music and instruments heard on the new album, Williams said Pepper's music still reflects the trio's Big Isle experiences. The surprise, he says, is discovering that people from Hawaii seem to turn up almost everywhere.
"The more we tour around, we trip out because the world is such a small place. We'll be in some obscure town in the Midwest and meet someone from Hilo. Like, 'What are you doing in Iowa? This is so weird,' but it's cool. There seem to be people from Hawaii everywhere, (and) it's good to run into them when you're on the road."
For more information, go to www.pepperlive.com.
Click for online
calendars and events.
