For Limp Bizkit guitarist Wes Borland, success did not come with out its justifiable share of turbulence. In a latest interview on the Disrespectfully Podcast, Borland opened up concerning the band’s early struggles, his personal hesitations about becoming a member of, and the string of misfortunes that in the end led him again into the fold.
Borland, who famously left Limp Bizkit in 2001 earlier than later rejoining, revealed that he had truly stop as soon as earlier than—proper when the band was on the verge of being signed. Regardless of their regional touring success within the mid-’90s, tensions between Borland and frontman Fred Durst led him to step away simply as they started engaged on their debut album, Three Greenback Invoice, Y’all$.
“It wasn’t very lengthy, It occurred fairly shortly. We did a few regional excursions. We truly… Fred and I’ve had an attention-grabbing historical past of making an attempt to get together with one another, up till, like, the final seven years, and now we’re superior. However It took us actually rising up, due to egos and similar to totally different concepts of what the band must be,” Borland recalled (by way of ThePRP).
“Proper earlier than we bought signed, I used to be like, ‘No, I do not need to do that.’ And I went again to working at a espresso store. They usually bought totally different guitar gamers and type of reformed the band. They bought signed. I am out. My brother – Scott Borland – was initially in Limp Bizkit too, on keyboards, and he was like, ‘For those who’re not doing I am not doing it.’ However, we had been younger and silly, and similar to, you understand, knuckleheaded individuals not being adults,” he added.
With Borland out, Limp Bizkit moved ahead with different guitarists, secured a document deal, and drove to Los Angeles to start recording. However issues shortly took a disastrous flip.
“They bought signed, purchased a van & trailer, drove out to LA to begin making their document with out me, with out my brother, at DJ Deadly‘s home, who was in Home Of Ache on the time, he was going to provide. And the man driving, certainly one of their pals — I sort of knew him somewhat bit too — however in the course of Texas, he flipped the van, went off the street, flipped the van,” Borland recounted.
“Everyone, everyone… like Fred‘s ft went via a window, destroyed. Everyone was minimize to ribbons. The guitar participant flew out of the window. They confirmed up in LA… they had been within the hospital, they confirmed up in LA on crutches to begin recording. And the individuals in LA that had been doing the document had been like, ‘What is occurring?'”
“Then the guitar gamers, in the course of the night time, stole all of the gear — all of the guitar gear — and rented a automobile and drove again to Florida. Then it was similar to, they began calling me and going, like, ‘Do you need to do that once more?’ And I used to be like ‘No. I do not need, I do not need any a part of it,’ you understand, being cussed.”
“I feel lastly they went to New York, and had been making an attempt to document in New York with some individuals, and I lastly simply went, ‘Yeah, I am going to come as much as New York and we’ll attempt’. And that is once we began writing the primary document. It has been wild, like wild. Once I suppose again, I do not take into consideration just like the previous days, however what number of horrible, bizarre issues occurred to get us the place we had been.”
The album’s preliminary singles, “Counterfeit” and “Bitter,” failed to achieve a lot traction, leaving the band’s future unsure. However the whole lot modified with the discharge of their cowl of George Michael‘s Religion.
“So we had like two singles that got here out that did not do effectively, that did not actually hit. After which ‘Religion’ got here out, and we made a horrible video for ‘Religion’. After which Fred was like, ‘We’re trashing this. We’re gonna do like a Mötley Crüe-style tour video that reveals us, like our footage on tour. And he introduced a movie crew out, and the video was simply us on tour. I feel, the mixture of doing the quilt of “Religion’ and folks seeing truly what the reveals had been like, that is when it actually hit, and that is the primary time… We had been recording our second document on the time when ‘Religion’ got here out. That was similar to, the final ditch to see if we might get any traction.”
By the point “Religion” gained traction in late 1998, Limp Bizkit was already recording their second album, and the last-ditch effort to generate momentum had labored. From there, the band skyrocketed to mainstream success, which fits on to show that generally, chaos and near-disaster are simply a part of the journey.
