If you’re looking for a wedding band that will truly bring the heat to your big day, look no further than Hot As A Pepper Party Band from Greenville, South Carolina. Here are just a few reasons why this band is the perfect choice for your wedding:
High Energy Performances – Hot As A Pepper Party Band knows how to get a crowd going with their high-energy performances. They’ll have your guests dancing all night long and create an unforgettable atmosphere for your wedding.
Versatility – The band’s extensive repertoire spans multiple genres, including pop, rock, funk, soul, and more. Whether you’re looking for classic favorites or modern hits, Hot As A Pepper Party Band has got you covered.
Professionalism – From the initial consultation to the final song, Hot As A Pepper Party Band is committed to professionalism. They’ll work closely with you to understand your vision and ensure that everything runs smoothly on your big day.
Customization – Hot As A Pepper Party Band understands that no two weddings are the same. That’s why they offer customizable packages to fit your unique needs and preferences. Whether you want a more intimate experience or a full-on dance party, they’ll make it happen.
Local Expertise – Based in Greenville, South Carolina, Hot As A Pepper Party Band has extensive knowledge of the local wedding scene. They’ll work with you to choose the perfect songs and create an atmosphere that reflects the charm and character of the area.
Overall, Hot As A Pepper Party Band is the perfect choice for couples who want to bring a little spice to their wedding day. With their high-energy performances, extensive repertoire, professionalism, customization, and local expertise, they’re sure to make your wedding an unforgettable event.
Hot As A Pepper Party Band with the Habanero Horns
We are starting to book weddings, festivals and corporate events in 2023. We have only just begun, but it would be a great idea for you to get with us ASAP to lock in any show dates you might want in the Greenville, Anderson, Spartanburg (Upstate) or the surrounding area.
Hot As A Pepper Party Band hopes to focus more on events in 2023 than the previous two years due to the unfortunate events that took place! We’re certainly ready to get back on track and provide fun, upbeat and danceable music for YOUR soiree!
We can bring a more casual show, with as few as four members for a more intimate experience, or we can bring the typical 5 piece for a more powerful performance.
When we couple our 5 piece band with the Habanero Horns, that is when things get exciting!
Whether you want a more classic vibe with old school rock, disco, motown, beach and R&B, or want to mix it up with modern top 40 and pop songs, we’ve got what you want!
We will learn your special first dance songs if we have not already played them for other weddings or events. We can custom fit a performance to meld with your theme too!
Our festival events are family friendly, and filled with great variety!
Let’s party like it’s 1999, or 2023 either one!
Call 864-979-1224 or use our CONTACT FORM for more information!
Hire a party band in Greenville, Upstate South Carolina or the surrounding area!
It’s easy, just use our Contact Form or call us and we will discuss your event, your needs and desires!
Hot As A Pepper Party Band has performed over 450 shows since 2012 and we’re ready to play for you!
Whether it’s a wedding, class reunion, corporate event, holiday gathering, grand opening, or just a back yard pool party, we can handle it.
We also do Greek events, festivals and fundraisers!
No matter if you want a more intimate configuration with as few a 3 or 4 musicians or the full band with the Habanero Horns, we can custom tailor the gig to fit your needs.
We discovered that one of the 15 upcoming wedding trends that’s changing everything is “live bands over DJs”.
We’ve always known that a live band is the way to go, and not because we happen to be biased, but because we have heard so many times that live music brings things to LIFE.
You rarely hear how the wedding reception was so incredible, that the rendition the DJ did of some song was perfect, however, you do hear that the band kept people dancing, and covered songs in a way that a person loved even better than the original artist.
Nothing against DJs, they are certainly handy in specific situations, but in almost ALL situations, bands leave a lasting impression on your attendees.
Let’s talk about booking Hot As A Pepper for your wedding reception, and how we can customize the experience to suit your every need.
We are available in SC, TN, GA, NC and surrounding areas in addition to our home of Upstate / Greenville, SC.
Here’s the 15 upcoming trends article for you to read:
Hot as a pepper has done shows that were based around a theme before, but it’s been a while, so we are itching to get something fun going again. If you are planning a party or event where you believe a theme would be go over well, or you have a theme based event and you need the music, let’s talk!
Here’s some ideas:
Disco – Everyone gets to channel John Travolta in Saturday Night Fever. With tunes from Kool & The Gang, KC & The Sunshine Band, Earth, Wind and Fire, Donna Summer, Bee Gees, Commodores, The Tramps, etc.
Funk – Let’s get funky, nothing but the funk. James Brown, Parlament, Rick James, Gap Band, even some Bruno Mars.
80’s – We’ll get you going with The Fixx, Bon Jovi, Guns & Roses, Rolling Stones, Hall & Oates, Ramones.
70’s – How about a show based around Aerosmith, Doobie Brothers, ZZ Top, Steve Miller Band, Even some Skynyrd?
60’s – We’ve done this show for a large event and it went over super! Temptations, McCoys, GFR, Van Morrison, Steppenwolf, CCR, Stones, Turtles, Beatles, Kinks, Beach Boys, Zombies. From mellow to harder rock.
Beach, lake or shag party – A whole show you can chill to or shag to. By the pool, ocean, lake, or at your venue.
Our specialty is performing Variety Dance & Party Shows, however, with such a large repertoire, Hot As A Pepper can heavily weight any show we do towards a specific decade or genre.
With enough planning, we can create a show that specifically meets your needs. Custom tailored for you.
We can perform an entire album or every hit song from a particular artist. Imagine a night of a Stevie Wonder’s awesome music, or maybe the entire Steve Miller Band’s Greatest Hits!
We’re available for your function, whether it is a festival, wedding, corporate event, birthday, anniversary, graduation, or a block party… Or for your venue such as a bar, club or restaurant.
Just about any occasion or location is enhanced by live music!
Use our contact form or give us a call at 864.979.1224 if you want to plan the most awesome event ever! We’re not tied to Greenville SC or the Upstate with a chain, we can cover your event anywhere in the Southeast, or even the world. If you’ve got the money honey, we’ve got the time!
Some find themselves experiencing a bit of sticker shock when a band tells them the cost of the event will be $3000, when a DJ quoted them $800.
So why IS it so costly to hire a band or musician for your event? This is a long one, grab a drink.
Equipment Investment:
A band not only has to invest in the same speakers and amps (or larger) that a DJ might use for the audience to hear their show, but they also have to invest into a monitor system which is what the band uses to hear themselves. The band also has to invest into a mixing console with more inputs, instruments and instrument stage amplifiers. This could mean while a DJ has as little as a couple thousand dollars invested, a band might have $50,000 or more on their stage!
Also, a DJ might have some dance floor lights, while a band may have some dance floor lighting and stage lighting to illuminate the members so you can see them.
Personnel:
A DJ has a clear advantage here. Having less equipment means that it could be a one-man-show. He/she could be setup and ready to go in as little as 15 minutes!
A band may have to arrive 2 to 2.5 hours before the show in order to get setup, get a proper sound check, and then get changed and ready to perform. However, that’s not really the start of the labor involved. The band will have to load all that gear into their vehicles, a trailer/van/bus, and drive to the location. Then at the end of the night, they may remain at the venue for up to an hour tearing down and loading out their gear, then driving it to where it is kept.
Let’s examine a typical show. Band meets at 2pm and loads up gear, drives to the venue for a 4pm load-in. They then setup their gear and get a sound check and changed into show clothes for a 7pm performance. The performance lasts from 7pm to 10pm, and the band tears down and leaves by 11pm, and finally unloads at their studio or storage location and heads for home by 1am. That’s an 11 hour day. BUT WAIT! That’s not all, that’s 11 hours times how ever many band members and staff that are involved. In the case of Hot As A Pepper, that would be 6 to 9 people. or up to NINETY-NINE MAN HOURS.
A band usually has sound and lighting techs which make them sound or look their best, so they can concentrate on playing their best. That adds to the number of people involved, and the man hours of labor.
A musician in a band might have an 11 hour day for your 3 hour event!
Add to that a few scenarios such as when the band MUST SET UP by 1pm for a 6pm show because the photos are being taken at the venue, or there is a cocktail reception before the band plays. This could add many hours to the entire band’s investment in time. They cannot setup and leave their gear, nor can they do anything else to make money while their gear is tied up at that venue.
Before your show, it is likely that you requested several special songs, let’s assume 3 songs that the band doesn’t normally play. A musician might learn their part for 3 songs in as little as an hour, while more complicated songs might take several hours. Then the band must come together and rehearse them as one unit. Let’s assume 2 hours to learn them, and 2 hours to rehearse with the band, times 7…. 28 additional hours invested.
Let’s take the numbers from above, where the band invested 99 hours into a show, change the setup time to 2pm so the band can be out of the way by 5pm to allow for a cocktail and dinner hour, which adds 18 more man hours, then add the 28 man hours to learn special songs. If my math is correct, that is 145 man hours.
At the minimum wage that people are pushing for of $15/hr, that would be $2175 in pure labor!
Each musician invests into their gear and clothing, and a huge investment is made in learning their craft, which might take years. The songs they play took hundreds of hours to work up, again, times however many musicians are performing them.
A band has to have rehearsal space, which may cost them monthly.
A band may be losing 20% or more to a booking agency, right off the top.
A band may have to buy additional insurance, and for a whole lot more than a DJ.
There are meals involved during the day, and guitar strings, sax reeds and batteries for various devices.
Some bands are fortunate enough to have a van and a trailer, where all people ride in one vehicle, while others might use their personal vehicles, meaning even more investment in gas and maintenance.
So just how much do the band members make? Yeah, that’s a lot less than you might think!
Taking a $3000 wedding event which was booked through an agency as an example, we immediately lose 20%. Then we take out expenses for fuel or vehicle needs, assuming a trailer rental, and gas of $100 and let’s assume the client pays with a credit card, and we lose 3% additional (90 bucks). That’s 2210 left. If we have a single sound person, we might give them $200, which means only $2010 remains.
For this example, the band will have 7 members, and they each get an equal cut, in addition to the sound system getting an equal cut, so they can maintain it… $2010 divided by 8 is $251.25.
Each member shows invests 12 hours into prep, driving, playing, loading, etc.
That looks like each member gets $21/hr! Not bad. No no, wait…. What about taxes? If they are reporting this income, they might lose 30% in taxes, taking it down to 14.70/hr.
And yet they invested money into lunch, and maybe Waffle House afterwards (maybe dinner if that wasn’t included in the rider for the event), fuel in their personal vehicle, strings/sticks/reeds/batteries. That could run into the 25 dollar range or more.
Pay – taxes – expenses could look more like $12.50 an hour or less. Maybe much less, especially if something goes horribly wrong, like a shirt getting ripped, or a damaged instrument.
The next time you think bands are getting rich and that their rates are outrageous, consider some of the above and you might understand that you are likely getting one heck of a great deal when a music group performs for you.
Try calling in a handful of plumbers, computer techs or HVAC techs to work for you for half the day, and compare that bill with a band!
If you would like a quote for Hot As A Pepper live music entertainment, let us know! We would be happy to play your wedding reception, high school reunion, wedding anniversary party, corporate event, festival or venue! Use our CONTACT FORM and we will get back to you quickly. Or feel free to give us a call at 864.979.1224.
While Hot As A Pepper is primarily known as a variety band, covering a wide range of genres such as Rock, Beach, Disco, Funk, R&B, Motown, Soul, Country and more, we are also capable of doing shows that are heavily weighted towards a specific genre.
Thanks to a huge and ever growing repertoire, and a crew of talented professionals who have been playing music most of their lives, this is an easy task for us.
Here are a few themed shows we have done so far:
70s themed Gala – We were booked to play music mostly from the 70s, with a few requests that took us back to the 60s, and early 80s, but kept it mostly in the 70s across several styles, mostly dance. This was an all-out event where many people looked the part by wearing clothing from the 1970s.
Shag / Beach / Dance Fraternity & Sorority Parties – These kids today, like some older music and we are happy to give it to them. While not a “beach band”, we can play 2 hours of shag worthy music and it’s made the people very happy! We have been involved in several of these events for Clemson Greek organizations.
Rock Shows – We have done several events that were mostly rock, from classic rock to southern rock. These have ranged from biker type events to a wedding. They usually request a country song or two at these, and these events are more casual.
Dance Events – These are usually a combination of Disco, Funk, Beach, Pop and Rock, and is what we specialize in. A variety of songs carefully picked to make your booty wiggle. Festivals, Wedding Receptions, Parties, Fundraisers. You name it, we’ve played this type of music for many occasions.
60s show coming up? We have been talking with an organization that wants a 1960s themed show, with ONLY songs from the 60s. After carefully looking at our current song list, it’s easy to see that we have no problem covering two and a half hours of music without adding anything new, however, if you know us, we WILL add several songs for that event.
Yes, Hot As A Pepper really is the “Swiss Army Knife of Bands”, as one person described us. We can do most anything for you, so let us know what you have in mind and we can talk about it! Welll, maybe not Polka, Folk, or Death Metal, however, one of the places we have played a couple times has inquired about us playing a Country themed event.
Looking to do an event that is 60s, 70s, 80s, 90s, rock, disco, funk, dance, shag themed? We would love the opportunity.
Let’s talk about booking Hot As A Pepper for your wedding, reunion, festival, or other special event! We cover Greenville, Spartanburg, Clemson, Seneca, Anderson, Simpsonville and anywhere within a few hours of the Upstate of South Carolina!
Hot As A Pepper enjoyed playing for the Upstate organization “InDwellings” last month! Let’s talk about why…
First of all, InDwellings has a goal to provide housing to those with special needs so that they can experience a HOME environment, not just a HOUSE. This is important because as you may be aware, our area has a large number of people who this will impact! These homes which InDwellings hopes to provide will not be some type of institutional dwelling, it will be a home filled with love. With the smell of baking cookies. Please read more about them on their website to get the latest and to make a contribution.
Back to the bash…. To help achieve their goal, they held an event called “Back to the Bash”, which was a 70s themed gala at the Thornblade Country Club here in Greenville. Hot As A Pepper was booked because we can provide several hours worth of music from just about any style or decade. For this event, we played a huge selection of music that was mostly from the 70s, peppered with a few from the late 60s and even one or two from the early 80s. Rock, Beach, Motown, Disco, Country, nothing was safe from us!
The gala coincided with the acquisition of InDwelling’s first house! It was a real celebration for sure! But it got exciting….
Delvin Choice who competed on “The Voice” was in the house, and him and our emcee, the multi-talented Michael Codgill joined our band on stage for an impromptu rendition of the James Brown classic, “I Got You (I Feel Good)”.
Here’s a clip from that….
This was a fundraiser, so Jake Ohlinger, with Ohlinger Auctions was in charge of auctioning off some outstanding items, such as an African Safari, and food packages, etc… That was a huge success, as I believe every item was sold!
Jake was so kind as to write the band this note:
Good Afternoon John & Hot As A Pepper,
Great Job! First Rate! Enjoyable! Job Well Done!
I want you and your band members to know that the InDwellings Organization was very pleased with your performance for the “Back to the Bash : Destination 1970’s” at Thornblade Club the evening of October 28th. You delivered great music and blended well with the group.
InDwellings and I wish you and your group continued success and fun in you business of entertainment and in your careers as musicians.
Sincerely and I look forward to working with you again.
Jake
Jake Ohlinger, BAS
Auctioneer
Ohlinger Auctions, LLC
200 Del Norte Road
Greenville, SC 29615 2jake@ohlinger.com
It’s exactly that kind of appreciation that makes our “job” worthwhile! Thanks Jake for believing in us!
If you have an upcoming event where you need fun music entertainment, won’t you please consider Hot As A Pepper? What can we do for you?
1960s, 1970s, 1980s, 1990s themed event? CHECK!
A disco or funk event? CHECK!
Variety – covering several decades and styles? CHECK!
This makes us perfect for your high school or college reunion, your big fundraiser, wedding anniversary or wedding reception.
We play all around The Upstate (Greenville, Anderson, Spartanburg, Seneca, Clemson, Simpsonville) and down to Columbia, Charleston, Myrtle Beach, Savannah, also Atlanta, Knoxville, Charlotte, Asheville and beyond!
Let’s talk about how we can work together! CONTACT US…
Hot As A Pepper loves playing wedding receptions and parties! Why? Because we get to hang out with people who want nothing more than to have fun, and more importantly, we get to share in a very special moment in a couple’s lives!
One couple, Todd & Joy, had seen our band perform at one of our favorite venues to play (The Spot on The Alley in Seneca) and decided that we would compliment their wedding day well, so they booked us for the wedding reception.
Their wedding director, Dee, was incredible, tending to every last detail, and making the venue (The Lighthouse) look more beautiful than it ever had for other events we have played there.
My Daughter, Megan Hoyt, played piano for the ceremony music and afterwards, sang and played piano and guitar for the cocktail hour music. I even sat in with Chris Eller to accompany her on a couple songs.
Then, Hot As A Pepper fired up and played a few special songs we had learned for the bride and groom’s first dance and the father/daughter dance, etc…. After which we saw a non-stop dance party until the last chords rang out. During the breaks we kept the crowd going with some popular line dance songs that had been requested.
Mission accomplished! It was an amazing night for the band!
Yesterday, we received this posting from the newlyweds on our Facebook Page:
Client supplied photo of guests enjoying some Hot As A Pepper!
Thank you to Hot As A Pepper for providing a memorable night of entertainment at our recent wedding at the Lighthouse! The dance floor was full all-night long, with great selections of all genres from beach music and through every decade including current hits. The band was a pleasure to work with and we look forward to seeing them again soon. Thanks to Chip, John and the rest of the band!
I guess I don’t have to tell you… This is the icing on the cake! When you can do what you love doing, such as your band playing for a wedding, and then get positive feedback that people loved your work, it just doesn’t get better than this!
Thank you to Todd & Joy for trusting in Hot As A Pepper to play for their wedding. We wish you two a long lifetime of happy times and great music! We want to play for your anniversary parties!
– John
John plays bass for Hot As A Pepper and writes nonsense such as this blog post and silly comments on the band’s facebook page. The band is available for your wedding reception, party or other event in the Greenville area and out a few hours. We can provide a smaller “core” band of 4 or 5 people, or we can add our horns and an additional vocalist to cover just about any style of music you may desire!
Need cocktail or dinner hour music? How about ceremony music? We can handle all that. Give us a call, or use this FORM to get info on how to book or hire Hot As A Pepper!
Hot As A Pepper is filling up the calendar for 2014 and all that is missing is your corporate event, festival or party!
If you are in the planning stages (or know anyone who is) for your event and booking entertainment is one of the tasks that you dread, don’t worry, we’ve got this!
Hot As A Pepper can bring a professional live band to your event and we can handle all the entertainment details from the music, to the audio, to the lighting, and even to the stage if so required.
Whether you are booking for a small party of 50 people, or an outdoor festival of 5000, we’re ready to go!
Our music is upbeat and covers a wide variety of styles from classic to current rock, to beach, disco, funk and even country. With our very large song list, we can switch gears on the fly and play music that moves your people.
Laid back or high energy, casual or formal – we’re the music group for you! Check out our Electronic Press Kit (EPK) and you will see a video that demonstrates a few different styles.
Want to book us? Please call 864-979-1224 or use our CONTACT FORM for more information.
