Interview with touring guitarist Wes Geer

Digital Hippos Interviews: Wes Geer: Maybe it’s luck. Maybe it’s who you know. Or maybe it's just being at the right place at the right time, but we think spending the better part of 20 years as a working musician, founding a successful band and getting called up to play with one of metal’s biggest acts speaks to nothing more than raw talent. Digital Hippos had a chance to to speak with Korn’s touring guitarist and (hed) P.E. founding member Wes Geer for a little Q&A.

We met up with the Huntington Beach, CA local at the place where all interviews and important business is conducted: Starbucks. He’s back home from a lengthy tour with Korn on their 2011 Music as a Weapon V. tour with Disturbed, Sevendust and In This Moment. We chatted with Wes about everything from family to young-blood debauchery to his plans to take what he’s learned and pay it forward.

How did you get involved with Korn?

In the early days of (hed)P.E., L.A. was dead and totally blown out. Nobody was going to see bands; it was all pay-to-play. At that time I kinda had the ear of my band so I said we should head out to the beach. There was a scene going on in Huntington Beach. We had the Shrinky Dinx, which turned into Sugar Ray, the Deftones would come down to play, and Korn had come from Bakersfield to Huntington Beach. Munky and I had jammed a couple of times together and we always had a mutual respect. I was just reminiscing about the old days with J.D (Jonathan Davis); we played a small club out in Yorba Linda called 369 ... the maximum capacity was 369 people. The line up was (hed)P.E, the Deftones and Korn; that’s how small the bands were at the time. There used to be a two-room recording studio -- it was (hed)P.E in one room, Korn in the next. We looked up to Korn, they were an album ahead of us and for me as a songwriter, seeing Korn definitely added some spice into my writing.

I knew Head (Brian Welch) was gone for a long time and I always felt I could do a great job with those guys, given the chance. But, for a variety of reasons, the stars hadn’t aligned right for me and Korn. Finally, when the time was right, they reached out to me. Munky asked if I would be interested in jamming with them. A part of me felt like, “Finally!” I always wanted a shot at this, so here we are. Where Korn is as a band and where I am as a person is perfect.

How is life on tour with the other members?

Korn tours non-stop. When you’re on the road for that length of time and you’re the age that we are (I’m 31 -- wink, wink), it’s about pacing yourself. When you’re 22 it’s easy to just destroy yourself night after night. It’s not easy to sleep in the tour bus and not easy to get that energy and emotional energy to throw down. The main reason everyone is mellow on tour is so that we do have the energy to thrown down on stage, and so we can be good people to each other and respect each other.

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To keep up to date with Wes, follow him on twitter!

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