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In early 2010 Sue Campbell and I started a facebook fan page for Peter Koppes to further recognise his talent and music. We decided to get it started with some interview type questions, and this was the result!
Simple Intent ...... 20 Questions for Peter Koppes
First album you ever bought with your own money?
PK: I bought The Jimi Hendrix Experience, Smash Hits, for my father's Christmas present, as his cabaret band was called Purple Haze, but personally, it was Deep Purple, In Rock.
First gig or show you ever attended?
PK: I was taken to music pubs in Canberra when I was 13 and saw 60's style bands like The Union Of Jack, whose drummer interested me. Later there were also regular free outdoor public concerts that I loved, including one on an island in the middle of the lake. One band called Frosted Glass had an amazing guitarist who played a left handed upside down strung guitar, and he later joined Baby Grande with Steve Kilbey and I.
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Peter Koppes is one half The Church's guitar tour de force. He is also currently the only Australian born member of the group. Resident on the Sunshine Coast Qld now, Peter has a solo canon of four albums. Besides this he has collaborated with Margot Smith, Damien Lovelock, Mae Moore, TheRefo:mation and Steve Kilbey, while still finding time to set up his own record label, Immersion. Although greatly respected by his peers as a guitarist, Peter could just have easily been the bands drummer.
"I was involved in bands at school, as a drummer, from about the age of 12 I learned guitar from the members of one of my early groups. We used to rehearse in a local church hall and Steve’s band used to play there too. I was playing guitar at that stage and was invited to replace one of the two drummers with Steve’s band after they witnessed me playing a drum solo on our drummers kit. I quit that band to go to college which lasted about 6 months before I decided to sell up go overseas for a year. When I got back I moved to Sydney. Steve soon did the same and we began to get The Church together." Shortly after teaming up with Steve again, Peter recounts how the fledgling band were given one of their first breaks by a piece of office furniture.
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Sue Campbell's 2001 Peter Koppes Interview
The fans of The Church have been always eager to hear Peter Koppes' opinions on how he sees his place in the band, let alone what type of guitars he prefers, what equipment he uses and how he gets those amazing effects... not to mention getting down to the nitty gritty of the persona of Peter Koppes-e.g. what he reads in bed! :)
Peter, who is a brilliant guitarist, has always stayed in the background, usually allowing the lead singer, Steve Kilbey, to be the voice of the band.
In Nov. 2001, I was offered a chance to interview Peter. This came from the many questions being asked of him by the Seance mailing list (a fan-based mailing list for The Church).
Not being able to make a studio check in Sydney, I went to the following gig and we decided when I got home to do the interview by email. As it turned out, we could get a lot more down on paper than I could ever have managed in a few minutes backstage. Anyway, here is the result. Thanks to the fans who contributed from Seance and the members of The Hotel Womb bulletin board. Enjoy!
-Sue C.
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