Wes Borland & John Otto | Before Limp Bizkit

how many people could say that they got to go through High School playing in bands and being close friends with future rock stars I can and today's video is going to be an absolute blast as we revisit some of my teenage years and you're not going to believe some of the stories I share playing in bands with none other than West Borland and John utto from the group lent biscuit [Music] yep that's me right there in the midst of the high school music scene all right let me take you back to those Unforgettable early days I first met Wes and John at Douglas Anderson School of the Arts in Jacksonville Florida Douglas Anderson is one of those high schools that's an Arts High School meaning you have to audition to get in for your art area and I was was there for guitar John was there for percussion and Wes was there for visual arts all three of us love metal and of course we all had big dreams of being rock stars one day Otto was in this band called panic I remember and both me and Wes were currently looking for other musicians at the school um that we could jam with and hopefully form our own bands and the cool thing about back in the early 90s was there was no shortage of musicians there guys and girls that were playing guitar drums bace there were singers there were keyboardists I mean it was just an amazing time to be a Young musician back then now Panic already had a guitarist however after some time the guitarist moved and had to leave the band of course and they asked me if I'd be interested in joining and of course I accepted the offer around the same time Wes had formed his own group called under M and under mut I think was like a play on the name Underdog which is was a cartoon from the 1970s I remember Wes had his own unique guitar riffs that were a heavy influence of the metal music of the period such as Metallica mega death and panta but the original riffs that he was creating even back then hinted at the genius to come now when I first got the opportunity to play with John Otto and panic I knew I was in a great band because when I heard him play the drums for the first time I was completely blown away by how good he was at such an young age um I mean he was just like a little monster on the drums and he was taking lessons from I think at the time probably the best percussion teacher in town and even at that age John was taking his music very very seriously now what's interesting about me and Wes was we were actually taking guitar lessons from the same guitar teacher in town and to this day I'm still friends with uh the teacher and I mean the guy's still just a like big performer in town lots of students and uh we'll see if maybe we get another rock star that comes out of his guitar studio I remember the singer for panic's Dad and panic was the group me and John Otto were in um the singer's dad was a preacher and at his church they had a really nice Parish Hall and we would routinely get to access this this Hall and our bands Panic uh West's band under mut and a few other bands we would get to play shows there like every other month every third month something like that on a Friday or Saturday night and um in addition to the that church Hall I believe there was another church that gave us access to play these shows and I mean there was nothing Christian about any of the stuff that we were playing I mean we playing like a lot of like Mega Death and Metallica covers and a lot of original metal type music um but we would pack these places full of kids from the surrounding high schools and there was another couple of venues that would allow us to come in and like host these underage shows where there was no alcohol served or any smoking or anything like that and at the time you know we were just a bunch of kids with Big Dreams completely unaware of what the future had in store for us now Panic was an Eclectic mix of like metal Funk and soul it was kind of like a hodg podge of different influences to everybody in the band under mut on the other hand they were just straight up metal as you can see here is's a picture of Wes rocking out on stage with under mut and I remember that guitar he had it was like this yellow Washburn electric guitar and uh it was just so cool now at these shows we would play there was uh like I said a bunch of other bands that we would have come with us and and play and it was usually a great mix of styles that appealed to a wide variety of high school kids back then and then somebody in the group would uh create a flyer and they would sit there like in one of their class periods and they would draw out the flyer for the show coming up and all the band names to do their best to recreate handdraw the the the band's artwork or their logo and then we would uh have like somebody's parent print off like tons of flyers and then because we knew kids at other schools that weren't going to Douglas Anderson we would give each kid from these other neighboring schools like just a stack of these flyers and they would hand them out around their school so by the time the show came uh we literally would have a couple hundred kids showing up and it was just it was pretty awesome one of the early memories I have of John Otto was um back when MTV was actually Music Television and they played music videos I mean you had like The Headbangers ball and some other cool shows on there John aotto would call me up on the home phone landline now okay there were no cell phones back then and he would call me up and he's like dude put it on MTV check out this new Metallica video or check out this new group uh Nirvana goes man you got to learn these songs so we can play them at the next show and of course I would sit there watch the video listen to the song try to figure these songs out by ear now you got to think this is pre- internet right so we didn't have access to websites that have the tabs and stuff like that and even though I was getting like guitar magazines that had TR transcriptions in them a lot of those songs weren't in the magazines yet so it would be much later before uh Guitar World or guitar for the practicing musician whatever might have the the tabs for a song in there so I remember a couple of times where Wes had copied some cassette tapes for me from some new bands that he had just heard that come out and I remember one of them was tools undertoe album and the other was Rage Against The Machine's first album and at that point I could see the style of music that was really speaking to Wes it was more of that heavy you know kind of D- tuned guitars as as well as I think he loved the way that Rage Against the Machine their sound with you know the singer and the way he would rap and sing at the same time and then of course Tom mela's guitar riffs Adam Jones's guitar riffs from tulle um and then when he'd make me these tapes I would literally listen to them in the tape player in my car on the way home and then I would lock myself in my bedroom all weekend learning those songs cuz of course you know when tool and Rage Against the Machine came out nobody had heard nothing like that before I mean we were coming off of this you know Pro uh like alternative music era you know you had like this grunge sound going on and everybody all of a sudden into Pearl Jam and sound garden and Smashing Pumpkins and Nirvana and stuff like that which don't get me wrong that you know was some really great stuff but then the heavier stuff came started coming onto the scene and I think that just really spoke to Wes both Wes and John were two of the nicest coolest kids I knew growing up in high school um I'm definitely honored that I got the opportunity to not only become friends with them but play music with them as well so let's fast forward a few years After High School uh John and Wes had teamed up with a guy named Fred dur I remember seeing uh newspaper articles about them playing in town and occasionally the local news would show like a little clip of them playing saying that this band called LM biscuit was you know right on the edge of getting famous and I remember at the time I was going to school for jazz guitar I was already in college for for jazz guitar and I was getting more and more into like jazz and fusion and instrumental type music and of course the saying with that is a jazz guitar player plays 10,000 chords in front of three people whereas the rock guitar player plays three chords in front of 10,000 people so I was just in the wrong Niche to be honest either way it was it was really exciting to see my friends uh and former band mates carving out their Niche and getting so close to getting signed to a record label I remember one day I just happened to turn it on MTV and and there they are they got a music video on MTV so somewhere in the mix I had kind of fallen out of communication with them and I didn't realize they had gotten signed to a record label and then not only do they have a video I think it was like counterfeit or something like that off their first album and then um they were playing at the MTV Music Awards and I remember Metallica sitting in the front row right there like you know checking them out and digging what they're playing you know I was thinking that I honestly I was so blown away that they made it they were taking the Music World by storm I mean it's surreal to think that the kids I I played music with just a few years earlier had gone on to become legit rock stars and I I just couldn't be prouder of those guys in 2001 West Borland left LMP biscuit site in Creative differences and as a result left the future of LMP biscuit questionable shortly thereafter the band went on a nationwide tour looking for a suitable replacement guitarist and I remember reaching out to John Otto saying hey man I'd like to audition for lb and he said cool we'll be in Jacksonville on such and such date because just don't show up playing any of that Steve by [ __ ] so the day the audition came I arried at the building in Downtown Jacksonville they were holding the auditions at probably around like 5:30 or 6:00 a.m. and I remember the line of guitar players wrapped around the entire city block there was at least a thousand guitar players there hoping that they would be called the next guitarist for Limp Biscuit every person auditioning was given one minute and they had to create a demo and mail that in to them before the audition so I wrote and recorded my demo nailed it off got my one minute get to that one minute guys like great thanks for coming out next so reflecting on those days it's incredible to see how far we've all come it's a testament to the dedication that we had for music at such an early age um while Wes and John could see a future in that style of music I was getting more and more into the jazz-based stuff and ended up becoming a music educator and while I may not be on the big stage alongside them the memories and the music that we created at such an early age will always hold a special place in my heart all right y'all that's it for today's trip down memory lane I hope you enjoyed this nostalgic Journey uh with me and don't forget to hit that thumbs up on it and that subscribe button and hey if you have any questions or comments on anything I shared with you today drop those down below including if you've got stories of your own uh knowing rock stars or heck even your stories with John or Wes and till next time I'll see you guys later and keep rocking on

Channel: Joe Hanson Guitar

Views: 4,359

Keywords: wes borland, limp bizkit, fred durst, wes borland guitar, nu metal, sam rivers, john otto, dj lethal, system of a down, big dumb face, rage against the machine, black light burns, john otto drums, korn, new video, front line, limp bizkit 2021, limp bizkit full show, limp bizkit old, limp bizkit usa 2021, limp bizkit live, rock stars, friends with rock stars, limp, bizkit, friends with limp bizkit, interscope

Id: kDJQrj3RWiU

Length: 12min 45sec (765 seconds)

Published: Tue Dec 12 2023