Pepper

I interviewed Pepper at his temporary camp on the edge of town as he passed through biking south from Wisconsin down to St. Louis. We talked about a lot of things, he’s been traveling via freight-train, hitchhiking, vehicle, and bicycle off and on since he was 18. The traveling subculture is a small world, and we know many of the same people but had never hung out before. Pepper has struggled with heroin addiction from his early teens.

When I talked to him, he had just spent the past summer fishing on different vessels in Alaska. This interview is more conversational, but he talks a lot about his struggles with addiction, in the past and recently, and he talks about the trauma of living a life using and around hard drugs. We come from a similar subculture of travelers who move around with little to no money, relying on the kindness of strangers and playing music and flying signs to make money. He’s been working a lot recently also, based out of Homer, Alaska over the past two years. We didn’t have time to talk about all of his experiences on the road, but you’ll notice it’s a longer episode. He also talked about other traumas he has faced, including being witness to a shooting that was covered globally in which two people were killed and one wounded. He was incredibly honest and insightful about his struggles with addiction and recovery. I’m sure we could have talked for many more hours. This is a combination of three different recordings.

Pepper fishing in Alaska.