She is Brazilian and has lived in Sydney for ten years, representing Tribal House very well in Australia, being the pioneer deejay to bring this aspect to the country. Cris Pepper is the name of this incredible artist, who defends her art with the strength and merit that music deserves.
Cris started her career in 2009, in southern Brazil, performing on the main tribal house labels in the region, as well as playing for crowds in LGBT parades in Curitiba and Florianópolis. But shortly thereafter, she went on an exchange abroad program and that’s how her whole story started in Australia, taking the circuit and tribal house style with the strength she brings to this day in her performances.
Pepper is currently working hard on music production, she has a residency at the DéjàVu (Sydney) party, and it was about all that and more that we talked to Cris in this special interview that shows in detail the entire trajectory of these 12 years of her career as DJ Check it out now:
It’s almost 12 years of DJ Cris Pepper history, but let’s talk about how it all started?
I was a child who loved to paint and draw. I took courses in artistic drawing, drawing in comics, drawing faces, and I took a keyboard course too, all of this in my childhood. I was interested in learning to play the guitar but I never got past the first chords. I always found string instruments quite difficult, with the keyboard I had a little more facility.
As a teenager I tried to join a rock band. I remember seeing an ad on Orkut at the time. It was a band of girls who lived in Curitiba and they were looking for a guitarist – and I was excited, I wanted to join the band, I had the desire to be on stage, but I didn’t know how to play a guitar. So I texted the owner of the band and said, “Look, I want to play”, and she said, “Come to rehearsal and let’s try, right?” And then it got complicated, because that’s when I got to band practice, the band was all there, they started playing, they gave me a guitar and said, “Cris, come on over there.” And then I didn’t know how to play and my plan went down the drain. So of course I wasn’t part of the band. Right after that I took a few more guitar lessons and started pulling out some little chords, but I never got very far with it. I was very interested in drums too, but I never took classes.
Anyway, it was when I got to know electronic music, still in my teens, that I started to fall in love with this world. It was when I came out of the closet too, that I started to insert myself a lot, to identify myself even more with tribal music. And that’s how it all started, that’s how I was connecting more and more with this specific musical style and generating more interest, until I actually started playing, in a playful tone. I think I started like most DJs do, as a hobby. That’s how I described it at the time, I wasn’t looking to become a professional like that, but it ended up happening and I got the taste and here I am. Today I’m my whole band: keyboards, guitars, drums and more.
Who were the key people in your life to make your career take off in the beginning?
My parents are the first people that pop into my head. They always believed in me, because they always encouraged me to follow my dreams, to go for it and believe in myself, in my potential, in what I wanted for myself. And that anything was possible! So everything I ever wanted to do in life I had the support of my parents.
And speaking of electronic music specifically, I also had other essential people, who were first of all my friends at the time who always encouraged me a lot and also the DJs who taught me how to play. There was Johnz, who was from the club I started playing, Raoni and Wagner, who were the three who really taught me the first steps, and encouraged me to follow this dream. Without them none of that would have been possible.
In 2011 you played in one of the most iconic gigs in the Brazilian tribal house scene, at Club Concorde, and at the same time at Parada LGBT in Florianópolis – SC. Tell us a little about how it was for you, with very little time in your career, to participate in events of great importance like this.
It was wonderful! In fact, I was there participating in the Perversion Party, which was a party that happened there periodically. I was invited, it was a unique experience, it was the biggest club at that time I had ever played. It was an immense privilege and an honor to be there in that weighty line-up and very important in my career, as well as in the LGBT parade in Florianópolis, which despite having played countless times in the LGBT parade in Curitiba, the parade in Florianópolis had an audience bigger, and I was also a guest, so it was all very pleasant and very important, I felt honored and it was really a milestone for me that year.
At the same time, the LGBTQIA+ community celebrated the achievement of same-sex marriage. Taking this hook, what was it like for you, as a woman, to be there on stage cheering the lives of your audience that was practically 100% of the LGBT community and mostly gay?
First, it was an immense pleasure. It was and still is! Every time I go on stage and even then I felt it. It was the pleasure of bringing joy to people in the moment where they have the freedom to be themselves without too much judgment, without fear of prejudice. Because we know the prejudice that the LGBT community faces on a daily basis. There are still too many prejudices, unfortunately.
I think that having the privilege of being on stage and providing joy to the audience that is feeling comfortable there in their leisure time, in their moment of fun is a great honor, actually, to be the conductor of this very special moment for people who are there. That occasion may be the only outlet a person has, her night at the club having fun. So I make these special moments for me also special for my audience.
I never really felt much difference because I’m a woman in a predominantly male environment, because the audience always hugged me with a lot of affection, with a lot of recognition and especially with a lot of joy. So, within the scene, I was always very well received. Among friends, between the audience and myself, I believe this also made all the difference for me to feel more and more confident and achieve everything I’ve already achieved in my artistic career.
But for sure participating in and being in a commemorative same-sex marriage celebration was very special. It was really special because, after all, we were there, me and the other DJs, and everyone else who made that event happen. I think everyone was feeling immense pride and joy in being together. We achieved it! Let’s keep fighting for our rights! That definitely made us stronger and every time we got together we got stronger.
DJ Cris Pepper playing at the 2011 Florianópolis Diversity Parade – audience 150 thousand people.
“Blush” was a party you produced in Curitiba and that was from the tribal scene, but only for women. Tell us a little about this “Cris Producer”. Do you believe that even today (2021) there would be a need for a market for tribal house parties just for women?
I made a partnership when I went to play at Concorde – in Florianopolis – with the producer of that party Perversion, Priscilla Matos, and we had the idea of bringing the party to Curitiba. But then through other agreements, and with other parties, we decided to launch a new label just between her and me and that’s how Blush was born. The format was electronic music, but it also had a women’s band, which attracted much more female, lesbian audiences. They really like live music, voice and guitar, and bar music. It’s an audience that likes beer and barbecue. So we tried to bring this same concept of bar music and ambient music, but also with electronic music, already aiming to please these two audiences that caught the large mass of the lesbian audience. Our Blush had the concept of pleasing the lesbian audience. Bringing voice, guitar and electronic music.
On the need nowadays for an all-female Tribal House party market I don’t think it would work because there is no audience. Unfortunately, today the women lovers of Tribal House are still few, it is a minority. Mainly here in Australia, there are very few here. I can see from the track, it doesn’t really exist here, unfortunately this is not an idea that attracts them very much. Because girls have other musical interests.
Still talking about Cris, event producer, I produced few events. Blush was a project that had four editions, I actually liked the organizational part, the project, making it happen. But the production part is quite exhausting, and I didn’t identify myself, I didn’t want to take this idea further, I do like being on stage, and participating in the event, but obviously in another way, exploring more my artistic side. So I have I have no plans to produce other events. Nowadays I’m really focused on my artistic career as a music producer.
Your life took a huge turn in the year 2012, after all, going to spend a long time – because of the exchange you did – in a different country from yours is not very easy! How was your adaptation of DJ and staff in a country very different from our Brazil? And how did the opportunity to play outside your country for the first time and even manage to close a residence?
Yes, there are really many challenges when you decide to immigrate to a country, I believe any other country. Australia obviously has its quirks, and it was quite challenging. The culture is quite different from ours. And we re-learn how to live. Australia is a great school!
Speaking of the DJ adaptation, comparing the tracks here with the tracks in Brazil. In Australia the tribal scene is little explored. When I got here I met some clubs, but none were specifically tribal. That doesn’t exist here. There are parties. It is different. I met an LGBT club here that had the greatest local popularity and size. It was there that I found some DJs playing songs that sometimes wandered through the tribal side.
I performed for a local DJ, showed me some flyers, some photos, some videos that I had taken from previous gigs, and that’s why DJ Sandi Hotrod who referred me to that club’s promoter. That’s how I got my first gig at this club, and from my first gig they were very happy, they loved my style and the public’s receptivity. I played a totally tribal set and got invited for the second time. And due to the popularity and acceptance of the local audience, I was offered the residency after the second performance. So it all happened very naturally. And I came playing Tribal, I always played Tribal, and the opportunity happened.
Look, I dare say that I was the pioneer tribal DJ in this country. Until then, there were still no other Brazilian tribal DJs in 2012 here. I was accepted and highly valued, especially by Brazilians who were already living here at the time and who missed our Brazil and the parties made by Brazilians.
After coming back with your richest DJ resume – for having gotten a residency at the Australian club -, has your schedule in Brazil been overvalued?
Unfortunately that’s not what happened! I didn’t have this overvaluation. What I got in the post-exchange period was the opportunity to play in these clubs that didn’t see me before. They started to see me from that moment on, but I didn’t have this overvaluation, no. I tried to get this hook and get other dates, but it didn’t happen. I even looked for an agency at the time to support me, but I couldn’t. And I decided to focus on finishing my degree.
You returned to Sydney (2014) after completing your course and stayed for a while as a resident at the same club, but in 2016 you ended up no longer following your DJ career and focusing on your academic background – Mechanical Engineering. Can you see positive points in this hiatus in your career?
What happened was this: the promoter of this club that I used to live in here in Sydney was replaced because the promoter vacancy was constantly changing. In other words, the manager who hired me there for the first time (2012) left a year later, and each new promoter came in with other artists in mind.
I had a residency on Friday from one in the morning to five in the morning. When I came back in 2014 he transferred me to Thursday, and he put me to play from midnight to one or from midnight to two, it was a day with little movement at the club, there was almost no one, andIt was complicated. Australia is a country where DJs are very versatile, they adapt a lot to the style of the event. So, for example, DJs play deephouse in lighter events, and in a heavier event they play something with a little more weight, with stronger beats.
Anyway, I couldn’t adapt to that little busy Thursday at the club, I didn’t play deep house. It wasn’t my style. For this reason, the new promoter came to me one day and said: “I don’t have any more parties for you, but maybe we’ll talk again in the future, unfortunately I can’t give you any more parties.” I remember being devastated, I was really sad because I was seeing a door close, and I took this feedback that “look, I think your set is good, but it doesn’t fit in the house much”. I felt really bad and used! That shook my self-confidence, so that was when I decided to focus on my academic background and let my artistic career stand still for a while. Unfortunately, this traditional club went out of business during the pandemic.
In 2019, the recently defunct label The Week took all of its incredible vibe to Australia, and was that where you saw the opportunity to return? How was this comeback in a time quite different from your beginnings, where female DJs are the big stars of the night? Did you feel that difference in Australia?
In 2019, when I saw The Week arriving in Australia, and realized the opportunity to return, because after all it is predominantly a tribal house label and made by Brazilians, I was feeling at home. It was a brand that would never give that feedback I heard from the Australian club, saying I didn’t fit in the house. When I went to The Week, here in Australia for the first time, I felt welcomed. I said, “Guys, this is the club I belong to. That’s where I am at home.” I felt a connection at the time and all that fire, that artistic flame inside me, that desire to be on stage came back stronger, and that’s when I got in touch with the production. I prepared a set and sent it. And I’ve already been to the next edition of The Week here in Australia – right after I was offered the residency. That’s how it happened, naturally.
Really, the time was very different from when I started my career, for me as a woman in this scene. At the time I played there weren’t many female DJs, let alone big star DJs like we have today. There’s the amazing Anne Louise, I think her work is wonderful, it’s definitely a great reference for all of us, but I’ll say again, I don’t really see this separation between female DJs and male DJs – I think we’re DJs and we’re there with an important role in the night: to bring joy to those people. So I don’t see this separation. There were few women at the time when I started. There are still few today. Comparing the number of men and women is still disproportionate.
You got so excited to come back with everything that you started your studies in music production, a true and essential evolution within the DJ profession. How is this new phase as a producer? Did you take advantage of the eventless pandemic to work even more in this new musical profession?
Absolutely yes! In fact, I was so excited about The Week‘s coming to Australia, for being part of an event that I really felt welcomed and valued and for feeling at home, that I decided to take this important step in music production. I took several courses, took the Make Music Now course, I highly recommend it. I took the course with VMC, which I also highly recommend and took other courses. But this is an endless journey, as a producer I am constantly learning.
I imagine that every DJ who has also started this phase, this study of music production, realizes how limitless the possibilities are. Because I see it as a range full of opportunities. It’s a much bigger world. I believe music production is a world without limits. It’s a world where you have the opportunity to be yourself, to create, to innovate, to freak out however you want. It’s the chance for you to be yourself and to show your identity like never before, and that’s what I’ve been showing in my productions, in my remixes and in my original songs.
I did take advantage of the eventless pandemic to delve deeper into it. I even composed songs too. Original songs and lyrics, but I don’t sing. So these are songs that I bring partnerships with other artists.
You had the most recent relief from the pandemic in 2021, because of the seriousness that the country took when dealing with a virus as lethal as Covid19. What are the prospects for your career, now representing a new label in Australia (DéjàVu) and with the sad end of TW, but also considering your new facet as a producer?
I am very excited and very happy to be representing DéjàVu, and I also regret the end of The Week, I also feel like all Brazilians and all Tribal House lovers around the world. I believe that a new cycle is starting, with new projects and I am very optimistic and very confident about my future projects and the end of the pandemic.
I intend to launch an international career and have the ambition to play in the United States in the near future. I haven’t been there yet, I don’t know it, but I know it’s a strong market for Tribal House as well, so I intend to visit this country soon and I intend to return to Brazil in the near future as well.
What musical projects have you been working on that can already share some information for us?
I’ve been working a lot, producing remixes and working on original songs, self-authored songs, own compositions, production, which I’ve done in collabs with other artists, composers, singers, and other producers. It has a release very close, later this year. Keep an eye on my social networks for new things coming up!
My first single is called “Voice of a Dreamer”, the lyrics were written by me and in partnership with the talented Álvaro Carias, and the voice is a partnership with the Australian singer Penelope, who was at The Voice Australia this year of 2021. The single will be released in early December 2021, and we will also have a music video. Follow me on the networks and stay tuned to find out more!
Cover photo credits: Gazzarazzi Photography.