Origins and Musical Beginnings
Pepper grew up in a rural subdivision in Fairview Township, outside the small town of New Cumberland, Pennsylvania. His grandfathers (Lebo and Bender) were coal miners and farmers in Tower City, PA and his father, Fred Lebo, was a production mechanic for the American Can Company in Lemoyne, PA. His family attended West Shore Baptist Church in Camp Hill, PA, where his mother, Dottie Lebo, sang in the choir. Pepper began guitar lessons at the age of twelve. By high school, he had developed an interest in painting. He went on to earn a degree in Fine Art from Kutztown University of Pennsylvania, also spending a semester abroad at Crewe-Alsager College in Cheshire, England. During and after college he was involved with several garage bands which mostly played covers by artists such as The Clash, Patti Smith, Bruce Springsteen, The Smiths, U2, Tom Petty, The Grateful Dead and Creedence Clearwater Revival. His first original band, Strain (with Pepper as principal songwriter, vocalist and bassist, Duke Jeremiah on drums and John Fritchey on guitar), recorded a six-song demo, Shame, which was not released.
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Famous quotes containing the words origins and, origins, musical and/or beginnings:
“Lucretius
Sings his great theory of natural origins and of wise conduct; Plato
smiling carves dreams, bright cells
Of incorruptible wax to hive the Greek honey.”
—Robinson Jeffers (1887–1962)
“Compare the history of the novel to that of rock ‘n’ roll. Both started out a minority taste, became a mass taste, and then splintered into several subgenres. Both have been the typical cultural expressions of classes and epochs. Both started out aggressively fighting for their share of attention, novels attacking the drama, the tract, and the poem, rock attacking jazz and pop and rolling over classical music.”
—W. T. Lhamon, U.S. educator, critic. “Material Differences,” Deliberate Speed: The Origins of a Cultural Style in the American 1950s, Smithsonian (1990)
“If we cannot sing of faith and triumph, we will sing our despair. We will be that kind of bird. There are day owls, and there are night owls, and each is beautiful and even musical while about its business.”
—Henry David Thoreau (1817–1862)
“[Many artists], even the greatest ones, are not sure of their own existence. So they search for proof, they judge, they condemn. It strengthens them, it is the beginnings of existence. They are alone!”
—Albert Camus (1913–1960)