LIMP BIZKIT's FRED DURST: 'I Told WES BORLAND What To Play'

LIMP BIZKIT frontman Fred Durst recently spoke to Britain's Kerrang! magazine about the group's upcoming album, "Bipolar", and the changes in the band's sound since the departure of longtime guitarist Wes Borland. When asked what his frame of mind was at the time of the interview, he responded, "I'm feeling insecure, as I always do, because I'm my worst critic and my worst enemy. And at the same time I'm really proud of the record: it's very real, very honest and I feel that when I listen to my album. And there's some growth there. It's always scary to think that people won't be ready to grow with you. But I think that we've grown to the point where we still remain LIMP BIZKIT. We haven't changed or evolved personally into not being ourselves. Knowing that, we are really still remain LIMP BIZKIT, and I am LIMP BIZKIT. And I really realized after Wes quit, I had to pick up the guitar and write every single song myself, how much I really had to do with LIMP BIZKIT in the first place. That's why Wes wanted his freedom, because I really told him what to play — I wrote everything, did everything.

"I wrote all the songs [on the new album] myself on the guitar and it was very challenging, because I wouldn't consider myself much of an educated guitar player. I play by ear and can definitely play enough to write songs, and wrote a lot of really cool riffs. There's parts on the album where I and my engineer (Michael 'Elvis' Baskette) play a root note instead of a full accord that I didn't know how to play. I think you're going to be surprised. The great thing about Wes is that he was very innovative. Even if the song wasn't really great a song, as a whole, the guitar riff was cool enough, or neat enough, to drive the song. Now it's more about the song as a whole, from the vocals to the structure to the feeling of it. It's like, less is more. The riffs are strong, but it's not something that overpowers anything else in the song."

With regards to whether he misses Wes being in the band, Fred said, "It was hard at the beginning because we were so used to it and we really thought he was a family member. We always knew he hated everybody and hated doing what he was doing, but we thought that's the way he was and he was still a family member, and we never expected him to bail. I think he didn't like me being in control of situations, and he was like, in competition with me. The struggle for control thing. It was really sad. It's sad when you have someone who's in your family, and you think has you backed forever thought thick and thin, and you find out they don't. And that's hard."