[INTERVIEW] Indie band Peppertones

The Peppertones were once called the idols of the indie music industry. That is now in the past. They have separated from their indie label and are not young enough to be called idols having released their third full-length album. The third album titled "Sounds Good!" which was released last December, shows their leap from indie to mainstream. Hence this interview is about the new album and also the concerns they have over their recent changes. The changes they have gone through after having released their second album "New Standard" a year ago.

10: Your album came out much later than we expected. And you said you recorded some of the songs several times over. What were the difficulties you went through?
Shin Jae-pyung (Shin): When we released our second album in March 2008, we planned on releasing the next album the following spring. But I became a regular on a radio show and we signed with a new agency so it was hard to just focus on writing songs for the new album. That's why we ended up working on the songs starting in 2009, thinking that we would release them in April, but we wanted to be careful and not rush the process. That's how the whole planning phase got pushed back and we wanted to release the album in time with our September concert but that didn't happen either. In the end, we released the album thinking that we didn't want to wait to release the album the following year.
Lee Jang-won (Lee): Well, rather than not wanting to release the album the following year, we wanted the album release to coincide with our year-end concerts. (laughs)

10: So you're saying you were concerned with the direction the album was headed?
Shin: If we want to work in the music industry for a long period of time we had to take the right path and make the public aware of our music. We were advised by senior singers Yoo Hee-yeol (Toy) and Kim Dong-ryul that we needed to have a well thought-out plan before releasing an album. And during that time, we faced some trial and error and we weren't certain about the direction the album should take while we were adjusting our ideas. I am still confused even though the album is now on sale.

10: The third album probably has a color of its own but if we had to choose, it seems it is more similar to the first album than the second one.
Shin: That's correct. What we thought the hardest about this time was whether to do something closer to the first album or the second one. The first album sounded pretty, fresh and sensitive while we did everything we wanted to do in our second album. To be honest, if we could have had things our own way, we would have expanded on the second album. I think it's because we were happy while we were making that album. But we were set on the album becoming a success this time, just like our first record, so we decided to take that path. We also thought we'd lose the sensitivity we had in the first album if we made our album like the second album again.

10: It couldn't have been easy trying to come to an agreement on the new direction of the album.
Lee: We fought a lot. We would fight and get angry with each other but we managed to release the album despite the arguments. If we didn't find any common ground, we probably wouldn't have released the album and would still be fighting. (laugh)

10: What were the major differences between you two?
Shin: I was taking the advice from our senior singers into full consideration while Jang-won wanted to maintain our original style. With that in mind, I came up with a word in the lyrics which I believed could represent our new sentimentality but we clashed because Jang-won said it was too cheesy.
Lee: We formed this band without any particular thoughts so Jae-pyung and I had never sat down to talk seriously about what our band's sentimentality is. What was different this time was that we worked with so many people that it was hard to differentiate what advice to listen to and not to. I always thought the Peppertones was a band of idiots (laugh) but it felt like Jae-pyung wanted to think of nicer way to describe us so I was afraid of that and why I was so persistent.

10: I think that where you guys found the point of agreement in terms of your music. For example, in your song "Ping-Pong," you kept your original style of sound but were very toned down in using sound effects.
Shin: If you listen to the different parts in "If You Can Hear My Song" separately, you'll be able to tell it's actually much more fancy than any other song we've made in the past. The different parts consist of the guitar constantly playing solo, the bass playing in phrases which would be ridiculously hard to perform live, and the drum fill-in which is extraordinary as well. But these parts became more like supporting sounds after adding in the melody with the vocals. We had been doing our own mixing for the "A Preview" EP but for this album we worked with the engineer who was in charge of the mixing for the project band Toy. It has helped our songs hear better and I think that makes it sound more professional.

10: You mentioned in a previous interview that for the third album, you wanted a balance between sophistication from a major agency while maintaining the indie style as well. How satisfied are you with the album?
Shin: I think we could have gone more mainstream with the new album since it was created based on where our opinions met midway.
Lee: I acknowledge the fact that in order to do mainstream music, you need that much support and interest from the public. You can't let go of yourself completely if you want to make it. I thought hard about how much we have to open up to get that sort of support while also worrying on how I wouldn't want to disappoint our old fans.

10: I guess it all goes down to how long one can stay in the music business.
Shin: That's where everything started and it is something that every artist is concerned about. There are singers who want to do things their own way but for those artists who can't, there are things they must do in order to stay in this business. I think that right now, we're at the point of our lives where we are worrying between having a comfortable lifestyle versus the harsh reality.
Lee: Isn't a comfortable lifestyle something that everyone wants? Being able to eat whatever you like for dinner, paying the bills on time and allowing your child to take taekwondo lessons. However, on the other hand, you want the dynamic lifestyle. In the end, the best situation is to have a steady flow of income (laugh) and do whatever you want but reality doesn't let you get everything so easily and so that's why we worry.

10: You could pursue a stable while doing music.
Shin: I would like to.
Lee: For me, I'm not too sure. I don't know what I should do. I want to live wisely, by not letting the many potentials I have go to waste. I hate paying opportunity cost. (laugh). I would like to get as much out of what I invest in.

10: Couldn't music be a way to lessen your opportunity cost?
Lee: It is possible but we'll just have to see. I think that at this time, it is important to accomplish things that you actually can do.

10: I think you should also think of how you can increase your competitiveness in the music market.
Lee: What we really wanted to do was to write songs for major artists. (laugh) It's my dream to write a song for a girl group in particular.
Shin: We have 300 songs prepared for girl groups. (laugh) Well, just joking, but we are thinking about getting new suits and present our songs to a big agency.

10: I think you revealed that you really liked Kara's song "Rock U."
Lee: You can talk about Kara with Jae-pyung because I'm more of a Girls' Generation fan. I think if I did a presentation at SM Entertainment, I would also direct how Taeyeon would sing her part, how we would position the other members and arrange the choreography. Of course, it's not as easy as I thought.
Shin: "Rock U" is the best. Although I also do like Kara's other song "Mister." Whoever wrote those songs are awesome. Although the songs sung by the girls groups like Kara are not made by themselves but created through the system, they are still worthy of being applauded because their songs are so smooth.

10: We live in an era where musicians are allowed to be very open about their affection for girl groups. In other words, we are in an era where various tastes in music are accepted. Does your group have your own color?
Lee: We weren't singing about being happy because we were happy about forming the band. (laugh) We decided on it because at the time, we were listening to music similar to what we now play, and we said we should sing of expressing our happiness. That is how we got where we are today -- that's how we made our music, that music comforted people, then we made music again. I wish we ourselves could be happy all the time and sing of that happiness but we're only human so we have our concerns. We do want to maintain our direction for now though. It's sort of like a sense of duty we have.
Shin: I remember being moved by a feedback from one of our fans who said that after listening to "New Hippie Generation" from the second album, that they felt happy. I don't think there is a bigger motivation than knowing that you made a positive impact on a person's life through the music that I made. At first, we became excited just by the fact that someone was listening to our song, and as someone who wrote the song, we felt great that someone liked it. That is why we feel the need to write these kinds of songs. I don't think there is anything wrong with this kind of senseless philosophy. We're still young so we have hope and a long road ahead of us.

Reporter : Wee Geun-woo eight@10asia.co.kr
Photographer : Lee Jin-hyuk eleven@10asia.co.kr
Editor : Lee Ji-Hye seven@10asia.co.kr, Lucia Hong luciahong@asiae.co.kr