After spending much of spring and summer touring the United Kingdom, Japan and Portugal, Pepper returns to Hawai'i for one show only Saturday night with Anuhea at Pipeline Café.

Drummer Yesod Williams recently gave us a call from his San Francisco home to talk story about the band's future, growing up on the Big Island and, well, everything Pepper:

Q. All three of you live in the Bay Area now?

A. We all live in Southern California, but I recently moved to San Francisco to move in with my girlfriend. We're getting old, man.

Q. Since you brought it up, how old are all of you?

A. Bret (Bollinger) and I are 30, Kaleo (Wassman) is 32.

Q. The gig at Pipeline Café is your second stop on your "Back in the Trenches" tour. How'd you come up with that tour name?

A. We've been going abroad and haven't been playing in the United States much lately, so for this tour, we're hitting a lot of places we played before or only played maybe once. We're kind of going back to our roots, and also going to places we maybe haven't played before.

Q. It is a wide tour schedule, you betcha. I see you're even playing Fargo, N.D. in October.

A. We actually played in North Dakota earlier this year at a casino in New Town (population: 1,307). It was definitely primitive in that we couldn't get any cell reception except for a corner of the lobby. It turned out to be a fun show. To get to the concert area, you drive about a mile away from the casino into this huge field and the people just showed up from nowhere and went wild. I haven't been to Fargo, but I just saw the movie "Fargo," last month. Loved it.

Q. Is that what you do on your downtime, watch movies?

A. When we're cooped up on a bus or traveling, we watch movies or the "NFL Ticket." I'm a huge Bears fan, and Brad loves the Steelers. Kaleo (is) more of a soccer fan. We also spend a lot of time reaching out to fans with all the online outlets, and we're always looking for good sushi places. You'd be surprised where we find them. There's a place, Koi, in Minneapolis, that is awesome. We can't give up on our raw fish.

Q. You had some interesting experiences touring Japan, Portugal and the U.K.?

A. Well, we somehow got booked on a heavy metal festival tour with Metallica, Alice in Chains and some others. We stuck out like a sore thumb, but it kind of was good for us. It was pretty cool. If you see our show live, you know we're all about energy and feeding off the vibe of the fans.

Q. Three guys on the road for 150 days a year and then in the recording studio. How do you keep from killing each other?

A. I think it goes back to how long we've known each other. We had our relationship established long before we played together, so it's all good.

Q. Who's the most athletic, the brainiac, etc.?

A. As far as being active, Kaleo is the most athletic, especially on the road. I'd be the brainiac because of the business and interviews. Bret is the thinker.

Q. Any of you hold other jobs?

A. We haven't had "normal" jobs since 1999 or 2000, and we thank God for that every day. We were all waiters when we lived on the Big Island, but we gave that all up when we moved from Kona to Southern Cal. We saved up money to buy a van and basically, for lack of better term, made a commitment to throw our lives into it. Ever since, we haven't had jobs. A lot of the credit for that has to go to the wonderful people we've met along the way and who helped us out.

Q. If you were waiters, then who's the biggest tipper?

A. Depends on who has the most cocktails, but minimum tip has to be 20 percent.

Q. Anuhea is opening for you at Pipeline. How'd Pepper and Anuhea hook up?

A. She opened for us in February on Kaua'i. Before that, we had heard about her, but never met her. When we finally heard her, she blew us away with her little band. We just kind of hit it off after we hung out in our Kaua'i condo. We'd love to take on her tour at some point and get her to spread her wings. But we also saw her CD all over Japan, so by the looks of it, maybe she can give us a boost.

Q. Where do you see Pepper in five years?

A. We want to be five steps further and keep on making that progress. We have our own record label and want to see that take off.

Q. Most surprising thing about a Pepper show?

A. We only plan the first four songs and go from there. We'll play about an hour and a half. We don't have fans who know just one or two songs. They know them all. They'll bring signs and scream out names of songs, and we'll play them. It's not about what we want to play, but what they want to hear. They bring the hard-earned cash, so its up to them. We're more spontaneous than routine.

Q. You get into O'ahu and what's the first thing you do? A. Kaleo's dad lives there, so we'll go meet with Uncle Danny and check out our friends at Duke's in Waikiki, enjoy some cocktails and the view and get some grinds from Ono's. I love laulau and kalua pig, my favorites.