Loudwire recently caught up with Limp Bizkit guitarist Wes Borland to talk about the band’s forthcoming album with Cash Money Records, life in Limp Bizkit without DJ Lethal, and his war of words with Dream Theater fans. A couple of excerpts from the chat can be read below.
Borland said that he had not been in touch with DJ Lethal since his ungraceful departure from Limp Bizkit earlier in the year: “He’s been very volatile online as far as the things he’s said, he’s gone on rampages.”
After parting ways with the band, DJ Lethal launched a full scale verbal attack on his former bandmates, calling vocalist Fred Durst a “tyrant slave driver” and adding, “the rest follow like sellout money-hungry slaves.”
Despite Lethal’s hostility, Borland conceded that he wouldn’t rule out the possibility of him returning to the fray at some point: “Before we talk to him again, that stuff needs to come to a close,” Borland explained. “He needs to take all the things that he’s been saying online and figure out why he’s saying those things. He needs to talk to us in private instead of making it public. Then we might be able to have something to work on and move forward with.”
In the meantime, Limp Bizkit is hard at work putting together a new album, tentatively titled ‘Stampede Of The Disco Elephants.’ Borland revealed that after six broken months of exertion, several songs were starting to take shape: “We’ve had several studio sessions now where we’ve been writing. They’ve been kind of short, three songs here, two songs there, four songs here.”
He added that the band was considering releasing a “more raw and heavy sounding” EP at the same time as ‘Stampede of the Disco Elephants:’ “We released this really, kind of strange EP called ‘The Unquestionable Truth’ in 2005 when we got back together and realized that we were still in the period of hating and not forgiving each other, and then we broke up again. We made that record, it was really different for us, kind of more raw and heavy sounding. We’re actually talking about following up that with another record that is sort of raw and heavy sounding as well.”
However, Borland admitted that not even one record, let alone two, was anywhere near completion: “As of right now, I can’t say that the beginning of a record has started to form. Whenever I’m making a record – I don’t know if this is true for other musicians – there’s a certain point in the writing process where the record shows its face for the first time and you go, ‘Ahh, so that’s what it looks like, this is what we’re building off of, this is the focal point.’”
He elaborated: “That might be a couple of songs that work together or three songs that all sound like they belong together with a couple of other ones that seem like they could be a good pivot point to break into different dynamics on the record. There is always a point, and we have not reached that point yet. Right now, we’re kind of just shooting things at the wall to see if they stick.”
In April this year, Borland let loose with a string of verbal assaults against progressive metals heavyweights Dream Theater and in doing so, set in motion a massive counter-attack from Dream Theater fans.
Borland told Loudwire how and why the war of words erupted: “I don’t hate Dream Theater,” he said. “I’ve always felt that I’m kind of a painter and a songwriter that ended up learning how to play guitar just to get what I wanted to get across, across. Someone on Twitter was saying, ‘You’re no John Petrucci.’ Come on, man. Who cares? What’s so great about Dream Theater? Are they writing amazing songs? I don’t get it. Then it was just an avalanche. So I went, ‘Oh, goodie,’ and kept throwing gas on the fire. I thought it was funny at the time. I couldn’t believe people picked the story up.”
He added that he would not repeat the same mistake twice: “It was a good learning experience that no matter what you do on Twitter somebody is going to report on it. I actually met [ex-Dream Theater drummer] Mike Portnoy and talked to him about it. He said, ‘Yeah man, you can’t mess with Dream Theater fans.’ I guess they’ll never let it die. Lesson learned.”
If LB is gonna continue, they have out do their previous works. “Instrumentally”, I’m sure they can pull it off. However Fred Durst’s choice of lyrics and style of delivery will be the deciding factor. If he goes the way he usually does, The next album will end up in backstock like gold cobra did. Fred Durst seems complacent with his vocal styling, however look at what heavy music has progressed too nowadays. LB fans have grown up, some have grown out of LB all together. Lets see what they got, I was once a LB fan in my yngr years. The last 2 or 3 albums just didn’t deliver anything to keep me interested. LB is gna need some Badass Heavy Hooks to get peoples attention. keeping it is gna be hard work for them as well. Seldom hear a Limp bizkit song nowadays.