Earlier this year, the Geeks launched their second international tour, hitting up South Asia before heading to the US for their second American tour. These guys are one of Korea¡¯s most well-travelled bands, so I was curious to hear about their travels. Lead vocalist Kiseok answered my questions through MSN.

Broke: First, can you tell me what Asian countries you visited?
Kiseok: We visited Malaysia and Singapore during our latest world tour.

Broke: Why did you choose to go there?
Kiseok: Because we were told that there was a great scene there, especially hardcore scene.

Broke: Was there?
Kiseok: Yeap. It was truly great in terms of scene filled with bunch of nice kids with passion for hardcore.

Broke: It sounds like Malaysia has a huge scene...would you say it¡¯s bigger than Korea?
Kiseok: Definitely bigger than Korea. Singapore has a good scene too. I would say music scene is huge in general. Also it seems like people more care about music.

Broke: Did a lot of them know the Geeks already?
Kiseok: Ys, surprisingly many people already knew about us.

Broke: How were the bands down there? Let¡¯s say, were they blown away by you guys or were they as great as the Geeks?
Kiseok: Hmm. It can sound really cocky to say this but it seemed like we influenced a lot of kids and bands. I could tell people were blown away by our shows because we were giving 110%. Bands there were just great. What really impressed me was that bands were really enjoying what they were doing. I mean, you see a lot of Korean bands caught up with playing really tight and being afraid of making mistakes, but they were just feeling it I am not gonna say we have a great scene because we are not that good in terms of size, but I am 100% confident that we do have great bands working their ass off in Korea Another thing that I noticed about Malaysia / Singapore scene was: it must have been really expensive for kids there to buy good equipment. For example, we played small shows and we had to use really small amps designed just for practice.

Broke: This was your second time to the US. Were the shows all bigger? Lots of familiar faces?
Kiseok: Yes it was our second time there. First, our first tour was really big. I know it was because I lived in the US for a year and went to numerous shows. it was with Outbreak / Down To Nothing / The First Step / Champion / Bold / Verse. Just big. But this tour was way bigger than that because it was with Bane and Modern Life Is War which were the biggest hardcore bands at this moment. And we did meet lots of familiar faces here and there. It made me really comfortable and nervous at the same time.

Broke: Nervous?
Kiseok: You know pressure. You know they are in the crowd and you¡¯ve got to impress them. You don¡¯t wanna play a bad show when your friends are watching you play .

Broke: What was the best show, and what was the largest show?
Kiseok: To my surprise, it was the show at Kansas City. It was our first show with Modern Life Is War (Equal Vision) and Ambitions (Bridge9). We got the best reaction. People went nuts and danced hard. I taught them how to sing along to our songs and they made it 100%. Stage diving everywhere...and it lasted during the whole set. I felt like we were Youth of Today or something. The biggest show was Boston show. And Boston is my favorite city in the US. Boston was the place to play!
Kiseok: More about the Boston show, it was Bane / Have Heart/ dtn / Ambitons / us. it was sold out like many other shows with Bane but it was one of the best shows I ¡®ve ever been to, every band got an insane reaction.

Broke: How was the show in Canada?
Kiseok: Canada show was great. People were very nice and friendly...I honestly thought that we were really unknown in Canada but many people went crazy for us. I vividly remember this one white dude (100% white) sing along to our Korean song! I talked to him after the show. he told me that he just loved our 7¡±. Not to mention that it was Montreal. you know they know how to party. And girls were hot as hell!

Broke: Did you have problems entering any countries? ie) visa problems or borderguard problems.
Kiseok: Nope, we were really worried about the Canadian border but Bane helped us get artist visas so there wasn¡¯t any problem. We parked our car in the motel in the US and jumped into the Bane Van. We all drove together to Canada.

Broke: What about entering the US, or Malaysia or Singapore?
Kiseok: No problem at all.

Broke: Were your shows all straight-edge? Did you encounter drinking or drugs?
Kiseok: It was all allages shows I think. Yes many people drank and smoke. We went on tour with Hour of Wolf / Modern Life Is War who drank and smoked a lot.

Broke: Were there ever any fights?
Kiseok: No fights no bullshit! Just one kid broke his hands and cops showed up. And show got shut down. That was it! Because that everything went well.

Broke: What show was shut down?
Kiseok: It was the Riverside show. It happened during Hour of the Wolf¡¯s set and we didn¡¯t even have a chance to play. So kids moved the show to another kid¡¯s house and we played a 15-minute set. It was outside after 10 pm... everybody was nervous but they all stuck around and waited for us to play... it was a great experience.

Broke: Can you tell me about what happened in San Francisco?
Kiseok: Yes it was my birthday and we were supposed to have a day off on that day and hang out with Hour of Wolf. We went to our car to grab our stuff and our van got broken Into. Lots of our personal belongings that was more than 4000 dollar value in total. It was really depressing. We were trying to report the accident to police but it took forever. What was worse was that it fucking took 5 hours to get a new car in Hertz. Fuck that company!

Broke: Were there many Koreans at your shows? (I bet there are more Korean punks abroad than in Korea)
Kiseok: Nope, from what I remember I only met 4 Koreans.

Broke: Where to next time?
Kiseok: I expect to have a full-time job soon so I am not sure our next destination, but we were offered to play in Hong Kong and Japan this year. If possible we would love to go to Europe or Australia this year. But I really wanna go back to the US because our album is widely distributed this time and I expect huge singalongs!

Broke: What Korean band do you want to see play outside Korea, if you could only choose one you thought was ready?
Kiseok: I wanna play with Things We Say outside of Korea (woops that doen¡¯t count. I am the bassist). Anyway Patience is my favorite korean band. So I wanna play with them outside of Korea. Great band great dudes.

Pictures of the Geeks in Singapore