Pepe Deluxé – The Ride 2
£2.00 – £10.50
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PEPE DELUXÉ – Riding Again, Louder Than Ever
Before their long-awaited Super Sound 25 reissue lands, Finland’s most unpredictable export Pepe Deluxé slam the pedal to the floor with a double-barrelled blast of absurd brilliance: the supercharged double A-side The Ride 2 / Rocket Fuel.
If Super Sound 25 is the party, this is the engine roar that announces it.
The Ride 2
It all began with a lost video.
Back in 1997, a young Finnish trio called Pepe Deluxé shot a music video for their demo track Clint Eastwood Rides Again — a Sabotage-meets-cheap-Finnish-’70s-TV fever dream directed by Miikka Lommi (later of Bomfunk MC’s Freestyler fame).Budget: five Finnish marks (less than €1). Cast: plenty of friends, including future stars from Husky Rescue and Bomfunk MC’s.
The song evolved into The Ride, featured on Pepe’s debut Super Sound. The video, however, vanished — until now. Recently rediscovered, digitised, and re-released to celebrate the album’s 25th anniversary, it inspired Pepe’s latest evolution: The Ride 2.
Now reborn as a full-blown ’80s stadium-pop-rock anthem, The Ride 2 turns the original’s synth-funk gallop into an over-the-top odyssey of riffs and hooks, soaring double-lead vocals (by Paul Malmström & Charlotta Kerbs) and Mr. Fastfinger’s guitar pyrotechnics.
And because this is Pepe Deluxé 2025, the song naturally comes with a deliriously animated video made entirely by the band — cars instead of cowboys and gangsters, souped-up Volvos out-racing fighter planes and leaping over planets, with physics politely ignored. Their motto: “Death before driving stock”.
Rocket Fuel
On the flip, Rocket Fuel celebrates Finland’s most sacred national ritual: brewing the world’s largest amount of the most questionable coffee, 24/7. Statistically, it’s the happiest country on Earth. Scientifically, it shouldn’t be — six months of darkness, sideways rain, and caffeine jitters, yet everyone’s grinning (inside). Go figure.
Featuring the “Banshee of Boston” Chris Cote on vocals and thunderous double-kick drumming by metal god Kai Hahto (Nightwish), this is a fuzzed-out ode to bad office coffee, life on overdrive, and the eternal Finnish need for “just one more cup.”
Together, The Ride 2 and Rocket Fuel roar in glorious 7” colour vinyl and digital form — the high-octane warm-up to Pepe’s forthcoming album Super Sound 25, landing 28 November 2025 on Catskills Records.
Pepe Deluxé 2025
Helmed by James Spectrum (Helsinki) and Paul Malmström (Brooklyn), Pepe Deluxé remain pop’s most inventive outsiders — a duo for whom excess isn’t a flaw, it’s a worldview.
