Everyone has a taste in music whether it be a genre, an era or just a single sound. Imagine jumping aboard a time machine and transporting yourself to those sounds, whenever and wherever it may be. Recording and reproducing them collectively in a way that represents you and what you’re about. Luckily inside this time machine is a man named Jari Salo and you can guarantee that he knows what every little knob, button and switch does like the back of his hand.
Where did the name ‘Pepe Deluxe’ come from?
At the time everyone was DJ this and DJ that and having this slightly playful attitude we wanted to have something that would slightly piss off the US. Something European, but also something slick. Pepe came from looking through old records and Pepe is a great name but we needed something with a bit more flavour to it. I don’t know who came up with the idea of having the accent on deluxe, its just a name, it doesn’t mean anything. It’s also good because it allows us to do almost anything. It allows us to do silly things as well as fitting into more serious things, which is why it’s perfect for us.
By silly things I presume you’re referring to work like your videos?
(Laughs) Well wait until you see the latest one, it’s quite far away. We decided this time to go full throttle, this will probably be the last video for this album so we decided to go really crazy. It’s got pretty much everything; you’ve got second world war bombers, flying dinosaurs and guitar solo’s on top of mountains. All the credentials of a successful video mixed up in Pepe style, so it makes no sense whatsoever, but it feels like it’s a real Pepe video. It is really important for Pepe to be working on this kind of thing. I’ve been directing, filming, working on the graphics, working on the sound design having done the music.
Would you say that the Pepe Deluxe style evolved from a Scandinavian background or is it more of a personal fetish?
I think its much more personal than that, the main characters in the first video are actually the designers that worked on the covers. Previously we haven’t been working on the album artwork, but just on the video, but this time we decided to take that aspect into consideration as well as the website, so everything is connected.
Do you think that is why your hitting Europe so well at the moment. People are given this whole package and aren’t sure quite what has hit them?
Yeah, it’s more like a crazy Pepe world.
The latest track has an almost preachy/gospel feel, is there any religious element surrounding Pepe Deluxe?
Lutheran was a religion that came from Germany. Lutheran’s are really practical, so most of us belong to a church but we never go. The preaching part, I give the credit to Chris Cote who is singing on that vocal. We had a backing track that was inspired by late 60s, part R’n’B and white garage bands, hoping to sound like soul music. I’ve always loved the idea of having something inspiring, creating ideas and filtering it through various forms.
After listening to your latest track ‘The Mischief of Cloud 6’ I’ve found myself almost subconsciously taking more information in each time. Is that intentional and do you feel this gives your track more life?
This is also really important; we’ve never wanted to create anything that is skimped. You listen to this and this is art, I’ve always wanted to have the art element, to me it is important to choose art over some form of pop music. Some people in the past have created similar things, but not aimed to create art, they did it to please people. I am trying to create stuff that we like ourselves; I’ve always loved things that have more than one level. So when a tune is created you don’t get bored so easily. Sometimes you get this really hot banging tune and you go ‘this is hot’, but then three days later you don’t remember it.
There are lyrics also interconnected and have reference to other Pepe tunes, which is an example of how we work in our Pepe world instead of working in the traditional method of just taking a guitar and writing a song.
Have you ever thought of recreating your videos in a live format?
That’s one thing we’ve talked about, like having a drama with gorilla masks, but the reality of it is the gorilla being super hot and having to pause to breathe.
I prefer to take small steps, not repeating everything. I like to alter things and try new things constantly, which is why we’re working on more than one level, band and also decks/effects. With decks and effects you can have the DJ thing, but you can experiment more freely than with a band. With a band you have players and you cannot achieve really strange mixes. I believe that every so often you should move onto areas that you feel slightly uncomfortable, that you don’t have the routine. This is usually the time when you learn new things. So it’s good to see how things work sound wise and also how people react to them. The cornerstone of Pepe is music and that’s what everything is built on and everything always feeds back to the music.
It’s not like working music, it’s not like starting to work on an album, then finishing it, it’s more like a constant process of listening to things and travelling to different places and collecting not just music, but things that inspire like art, books and magazines. Recently I haven’t really been hunting down records; it’s been more visual material that I find inspiring.
What is it that gives a Pepe tune its longevity and depth?
It’s the small ingredients that make a flavour, a bit like food, you might not notice them, but your subconscious levels are affected and they make things interesting. This is one of the reasons we give the artists something really strange, like an Old Russian toy and go ‘lets play this’. Of course it gives you a feeling that this is not just one of the million recordings, this is a Pepe sound. I really cannot understand why most of the studios are more like hospitals, they are super uncreative places and in my opinion the recording locations would be more creative is they are rather depressing, well that’s my theory.
What kind of reaction do you want Pepe tunes to evoke?
Of course it’s nice to get feedback, like ‘yeah, that was pretty good’, but for anyone doing creative work it’s probably the worst feedback because it’s almost better to have something that people hate. The most important function that any art has is not to please people, but more to inspire other people to inspire other people, so it becomes like a big circle. No matter how good you are you can’t necessarily reach people, but you can inspire them to work on something. Every now then I have to remind myself why I’m doing these things, especially on Monday mornings.
Words: Jonny Cazzola