About 26 years ago, guitarist and songwriter Rod DeGeorge was living near Philadelphia, gigging regularly and working as a landscaper.

But musicians and landscapers don’t keep the same hours.

“When you get home at 4 in the morning and you start landscaping at 6, it’s a little rough of a thing,” DeGeorge said while sitting in his home studio in Bend, where he relocated about two years ago. “(My music instructors) were like, ‘Dude, you gotta make a living doing music, not landscaping. And I’m like, ‘Yeah, I’d love to do that, but we’re not making enough money playing.’ They’re like, ‘You gotta start teaching to supplement your playing income.’”

Though unsure of his ability to teach at first, DeGeorge soon jumped on an opportunity at a local store. He’s taught guitar ever since, at one point juggling 60 students a week with gigs (he’s shared stages with members of Foghat, Foreigner, 38 Special and one of his earliest heroes, Paul Stanley of KISS). And his students have gone on to tour in bands professionally; one former student, Nicole Tranquillo, was a finalist on TV talent competition “The Voice.”

“It’s been really cool to see (my students) grow and expand,” DeGeorge said. “… You know, my whole thing with music was I want to be able to make people feel the way I feel when I listen to a great song. I want to be able to make people feel like that. Same with teaching: I would love to help people feel as excited as I do when I create a song I like, or when they play something they like.”

DeGeorge’s teaching is a big part of how he got involved with this year’s Bend Roots Revival festival, once again taking place Friday through Sunday at the Deschutes Brewery Warehouse in the Old Mill District. He contacted Roots’ co-founder and organizer Mark Ransom before he moved to Bend to get a sense of the music scene, then reconnected with him at a The Mostest show a few months ago.

“He was telling me that he would like to talk to me about teaching in the schools and stuff like that,” DeGeorge said. “And that’s when we started talking about the Roots festival as well.”

This year’s festival, the ninth in 10 years and third to be held in the Old Mill location, will put an increased focus on the music education that partner organization Rise Up International brings to the Bend-La Pine schools throughout the year. The festival has long been a fundraiser for Rise Up, but this year attendees will get a chance to see the organization’s music instruction in action through workshops scheduled on all six stages early in the day Saturday and Sunday.

“We’ve always had the party and we’ve always had the teaching projects going on in the schools, but a lot of people don’t know that they’re connected,” Ransom said. “So by supporting the Roots Festival, you’re supporting these very specific teaching projects that have been developing in schools in Bend. We’re going to show what kind of style of experience the kiddos potentially have, but also we have classes for adults as well, the community at large.”

Community has been the underlying theme for the Roots Festival since Ransom and bassist Patrick Pearsall — bandmates in local roots rock band The Mostest — founded it a decade ago. To that end, the festival this year will feature a new Kids Zone and Community Art Garden in front of the Deschutes warehouse. Activities here will focus on visual arts, including a community canvas project that will become the backdrop for the Black Butte Porter Stage at next year’s festival; and a Roots documentary film project.

“The footprint of the event is becoming more defined and memorable, so yeah, we feel like it’s our new home,” he said.

As in past years, the Roots festival will feature more than 100 acts spread out on six stages, with a heavy focus on local and regional music. The acts are a mix of old and new: Moon Mountain Ramblers, Elektrapod, ¡Chiringa!, Downhill Ryder and Portland’s Butterfly Breakdown all return from previous years, while newcomers include Pete Kartsounes, student band The Forgotten Classroom and The Cutmen.

DeGeorge — who will host a workshop, Mechanics of Fluid Guitar Playing, at 11 a.m. Saturday on the BIGS Stage and perform at 4 p.m. the same day on the same stage with his trio — is another festival newcomer, but hardly a stranger to the local music scene. He was one of the producers at last year’s inaugural Make-A-Band event, and up until a few weeks ago hosted the open jam every Thursday at Silver Moon Brewing.

His career stretches for more than a quarter-century, including session and touring work with his own solo projects and other bands. By age 9 he knew he wanted to play guitar for a living after hearing his sister blasting KISS’ “Destroyer” album, but it took another four years to convince his parents to buy him one.

“I wanted to play drums at first but I forgot the permission slip from school to sign up for it,” DeGeorge said. “… But then when I heard this distorted guitar, I was like, yeah, that’s what I want to do.”

He ended up meeting KISS guitarist Stanley years later when they performed together on the morning show “Good Day Philadelphia.” The guitarists had a mutual friend who passed DeGeorge’s music on to Stanley before the show.

“So I’m on ‘Good Day Philadelphia’ and I’m playing them in and out of commercial breaks, and he comes in and he’s knocking on the glass and he’s like, ‘I heard your stuff, it’s awesome,’” DeGeorge said. “… And then he came on, I performed ‘Rock and Roll All Night’ when he came on, and he does his little thing and he and I were chatting afterwards. And he had super nice things to say about my stuff.”

At one point DeGeorge was playing three to five gigs per week, touring up and down the East Coast. But in 2009, shortly after the release of his first full-length instrumental album “Cosmic Playground,” he was in a car accident that took him out of commission for more than three years.

After his recovery, he and his wife decided to relocate to Bend with their family. He recorded a second instrumental CD, 2015’s “Quantum Dancing,” before moving out here, but is about to begin writing a new vocal CD with his trio — drummer Karl Lindgren and bassist Warren Zaiger (Tyler Cranor will fill in for Zaiger at Roots Fest). He has also kept busy on social media, releasing a new video every Thursday on his YouTube channel, youtube.com/roddegeorge.

“It’s much more laid back (in Bend), which we enjoy personally,” DeGeorge said. “… I’m also approaching things a little different now. (Back East) I was a guitar player in a band where it was a democracy — but there was a definite leader, but I was the guitar player. Here I’m doing my own thing, focusing more on my material, which is a little more niche market than general pop music.”