The Press – Cantara Pepe • TopPop

Before they were the obscure band behind a sunny 1980 novelty hit, The Press were a different group entirely — one that had already sold a million records under another name.

Search for “The Press” and you’ll find at least five different bands wearing the name — a New York Oi! group, a Brooklyn indie act, and others scattered across decades. The one performing “Cantara Pepe” on Dutch television in 1980 is none of them. This Press was a Dutch band, and behind their sunny, throwaway summer hit sat a surprising secret: they weren’t newcomers at all. They had already sold a million records — under a completely different name.

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Through the 1970s, this group had recorded as The Walkers, a Dutch outfit whose signature success was the million-selling “There’s No More Corn on the Brazos.” In 1980 they reinvented themselves, changing their name to The Press — René Innemee, brothers Michel and Walter Nita, John Coenen, Floor Minnaert, and Willy Bronzwaer — and pivoted toward a lighter, radio-friendly sound. “Cantara Pepe,” along with the cheekily titled “I’m Gonna Shoot the D.J.,” became one of their better-selling singles under the new banner. It was a full reinvention that mostly erased the band’s earlier identity from the memory of casual listeners, which is part of why the group can seem, at first glance, like a one-off novelty act rather than the seasoned hitmakers they actually were.

A homesick waiter and a made-up phrase

“Cantara Pepe” is built around a small, wistful story. Its subject is Pepe, a Spanish waiter working long hours far from home in the cold, rainy north, dreaming of the sunshine, siestas, and fiestas he left behind. He saves his money hoping to return one day to sunny Spain and open a bar of his own, and the song’s nonsense-tinged chorus — the “Cantara Pepe, ooh la la” refrain — becomes his hopeful daydream of that homecoming. It’s a warm, gently comic piece of reggae-flavored Europop, the kind of summery singalong that was a staple of continental radio and television at the turn of the 1980s: light on its feet, heavy on melody, and impossible to dislike.

Caught on TopPop

The performance surfacing here comes from TopPop, the pioneering Dutch music program run by broadcaster AVRO — one of Europe’s earliest dedicated pop-video shows, and today a rich archive of an era’s television. Seeing The Press run through “Cantara Pepe” on that stage is a small window into a very specific moment: a reinvented veteran band, a sunny throwaway hit, and the bright, slightly kitschy staging of early-’80s European pop TV. The song never traveled far beyond its corner of the continent, but for those who caught it on a summer evening, it lodged itself as one of those tunes you can’t quite place years later — the one about a waiter named Pepe, dreaming his way back to Spain.