By Tim Scott of 
Guitarist Zach Householder, of US death metal band Whitechapel, is a customer of Dunedin's Pepers' Pedals guitar pedals. Photo: Supplied ODT/ Javier Bragado - Redferns
Mastodon, Slayer and Whitechapel are not among the usual clientele for the average New Zealand tradie. Tim Scott chats to a Dunedin sparkie who supplies equipment to some of the biggest names in the metal scene.
According to Tony Pepers, "you're either a really good engineer or a really good musician, not both".
While running a custom music pedal manufacturing business for over a decade had pushed him to improve his guitar playing, the Dunedin electrician admits he is "still a better engineer than I am a musician".
Pepers' pedals, a lot of them built at his own kitchen table, have made their way into the hands of Mastodon, Slayer and soon the Violent Femmes.
"I never really envisioned it becoming what it has become now," he said.
"My pedals have now been used on records and in studios all around the world, it's a bit of a shock, to be honest."
Pepers' Pedals owner and operator Tony Pepers shows off a circuit board for a prototype music pedal he plans to showcase at the National Association of Music Merchants (Namm) in Anaheim next year. Photo: Otago Daily Times/ Gregor Richardson
Pepers said he used to play bass in a punk band and had always been into electronics since he was "a wee nipper".
He built pedals under the moniker of Pepers' Pedals since 2012, but it passed the threshold of being a "proper business" about three years ago.
The "hobby turned business" started to kick off in 2019, but it was during the Covid-19 pandemic when everyone was at home learning new instruments that it got "massive".
He produced a lot of distortion and fuzz pedals for guitar, mainly for the punk and metal scenes, but had even made a custom pedal for an electric violin.
Most of the parts he bought in bulk, ordering direct through manufacturers in Thailand and China, before assembling them himself and exporting abroad, a good 95 percent of his business coming from outside of New Zealand.
His customers found the fact they were made in New Zealand to be "kind of cool and niche", he said.
His most popular product, the Dirty Tree Boost pedal, added "something magical to your tone" and had sold more than 3200 units.
A demonstration preamp pedalboard Tony Pepers plans to showcase at Namm. Photo: Otago Daily Times/ Gregor Richardson
He also built an infinite repeat delay pedal which generated big swells that "turned everything into garbage, which can be quite musical for some people. Other people not".
He had built pedals for Beastwars, the guitar technician for Neil Finn, and shipped pedals to Slayer and Mastodon.
The band manager for the Violent Femmes had also recently ordered a pedal.
The Whitechapel album Kin, and a yet-to-be-released album had both been recorded using some of his pedals, and he spoke regularly to one of their guitarists, Zach Householder, he said.
"It's quite hard to remember all the artists. I really should write a list.
"I've made a lot of pedals for bands that I never thought I'd ever even talk to."
The Dirty Tree boost pedal has sold more than 3200 units. Photo: Otago Daily Times/ Gregor Richardson
Pepers hoped he would one day make a pedal for Dave Grohl, and planned to showcase his products at the National Association of Music Merchants (Namm), in Anaheim, next year.
He recently built his 6000th pedal.
And his pedals were "kind of like my children", he said.
He still had the very first pedal he made, a Big Muff fuzz pedal turned "bag of spaghetti", which he had vowed never to sell.
"It sits up on top of my shelf in the workshop and I look at it every now and then.
"This is where I was, this is where I am."
- This article was first published by the Otago Daily Times.
