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 Three voices calling out to you over the rush of crashing drums, circadian waves of kicking bass and guitars wailing from another world. Around the world speakers erupt. Pepper has arrived. Kona boys Bret Bollinger (Bass, Vocals), Kaleo Wassman (Guitar, Vocals) and Yesod Williams (Drums, Vocals) are an overnight success story that took the traditional twelve years in the making. The last decade has seen them mash up their thick blend of rock, shock and dub in a pan-Pacific and trans-Atlantic sort of way. Today the Big Island band makes ready with plans to tour Japan, taking over Tokyo before returning for a reprise in Vegas, landing in London, and finally returning to play Hawaii, their home. But it's been a long road for the trio, who left the comforts of everyday island life together in 2000 to make their mark on music at large under the umbrella of Sothern California-based Volcom Entertainment. Pepper formed in Hawaii in 1997, playing house parties, garages, and local bars before shipping out to San Diego to push their first studio release, Give'n It. Wearing tread along the 101 with shows heavily concentrated between San Diego and Santa Barbara made them an underground favorite in the surf-skate-snow scene. The early days even saw them play living rooms in infamous party town Isla Vista, once using and office chair as a drum stool and duct tape and a vacuum cleaner as a mic stand. When they entered the Volcom warehouse studio to record Kona Town, an audio homage to their adolescent stomping grounds, they already had a fanatic following of sun-soaking, sex-loving, party-time people up and down the West Coast with whom they were on a first-name basis. The Kona Town album also bore the hit single "Give It Up (Dirty Hot Sex)", which drew attention and explicit lyric editing from Los Angeles-based modern taste-maker KROQ FM. Their raunchy, raucous, raw live show hit the road with the VANS Warped Tour, and Pepper became a national touring act that refuses to stop and ask for directions.
Management Record Label: Booking Agent: Discography
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Along the way, Pepper has amassed an arsenal of seven studio albums and two DVDs, collaborated with some of the hardest-hitting professionals in the industry, and toured with everyone from lifelong friends and label-mates Splinta and Arena Productions to reggae legends The Wailers and Sly and Robbie. They've shared a stage with Snoop Dogg and The Pharcyde. They've backed their bus up next to the likes of early influences Pennywise, Bad Religion, 311, and Slightly Stoopid. And they've begun to pave the way for other bands beginning like they did with the institution of LAW Records. Their own independent record label, LAW Records currently home to Pepper, The Supervillians, Splinta the Rat, Passafire, and Arena Productions has just co-released Kona Gold with Volcom Entertainment, a seamless evening out in Boulder, Colorado recreating Kona Town tracks and other favorites from over the years live. The Pepper road is long, it goes on and on. But these boys are making really good time. Look for them in a town near you, and watch them cross the line
