Amazing Guitarist and more….
Wes was an old friend of mine. I first met him in Las Cruces New Mexico when I was going to University there. He had a local band called Exodus. We had a lot of the same music tastes. He was a real musician and dedicated guitar player. Eddie Van Halen was his hero. As we continued with our studies, Wes, wanted more and headed out to Arizona and eventually Hollywood. In the mid 80s, where he was in a band called Dame. They did one professional demo, played the clubs, did some record label showcases but it never really happened for them.
At one point he had really been recognised on the scene and was in touch with the whole crowd of guitar heroes around Mike Varney. He had an endorsement from Jackson guitars (I think he still owned 6 when he passed away). The pink one on the wall in his house was his retired favorite! One of the bands he played with toured with Molly Hatchet and he said they had a flight case, just to hold their Jack Daniels of which they would drink 5-10 bottles a night!! He also told me that he had filled in on a small tour for Mick Box (Uriah Heep) in the 80s, when Mick had damaged hand!. Some people might remember that Mick Box had a house outside of Las Cruces with a guitar shaped swimming pool. This story I am not sure about as there are no pictures or write ups about this and I wrote some mails with a Uriah Heep historian and he was unaware of this.. Good story Wes….
Wes went on to do session stuff and make music for commercials. I think he said he did about 150 pieces of music. I asked if he had a list but he did not keep track of this stuff. He did eventually settled down to run some businesses, get married have two kids (boy and girl) but he always had a difficult relationship with women and was often massively taken advantage of and abused badly. This left him very disappointed at times as he loved women and sex!!! He had huge ups and downs in his life.
If you knew Wes on Facebook, man, was he good at offending people. He had a raw sense of humor and often made me laugh a lot. A lot of people took his posts too serious but he was just writing that stuff to work people up and get a response out of them!! Wes was also really into food if you followed facebook and although he never cooked for me, it looked really good!!! He knew how to eat and drink well.. Loved his wine!!!
He loved to tell me the stores of sitting at the Rainbow Bar and Grill with Eddie Van Halen and I think the proudest moments in his life was the 2 times he was invited back to the 5150 studios and got to jam and trade and talk licks with Eddie.. This was clearly the highlight of his life… I wish there were recordings of this!!!! Wolfgang???
I had sent Wes some music tracks that last few years asking him to add some guitar to my music but sadly, he could never find the inspiration. I have a series of albums called Dr Space´s Alien Planet Trip, where I invite guitar and bass players I admire to add their touch to my synthesizer based tracks. I am sure Wes would have done something cool. Here is a little sample of some music he shared with me he had made in the last 5 years or so.
LINK (soundcloud)- will upload soon..
The last couple years of his life I was in touch with him quite a lot as he really wanted to do this album of music and had even worked briefly with a drummer and bass player. I had offered him really cheap studio time in my studio in Portugal and if he could just get his demos together, we could make this album happen. Around this time he has also started a relationship that made him very happy for a while but then it all went down hill. I am quite sad that I never got to help him out. He talked about letting me have one of his guitars as well, which I would treasure and would be amazing to have people play that in the studio as a tribute to him.
Anyway, it was great knowing you Wes and we had some really great times together and I am so sad that your album was never made.. I am sure the world would have been impressed. Peace brother….