Are we really supposed to buy this backpedaling crap? Limp Bizkit frontman Fred Durst is now telling anyone who will listen that he's a changed man, not the misogynistic fake-ass suburban anger douche we all remember him as. Naturally, these revelations have come on the eve of the reunion of his initial claim to fame, Limp Bizkit.
Limp Bizkit first rose to success in 1997 on the strength of their screamy take on George Michael's "Faith," which was soon followed by the release of their album Three Dollar Bill, Y'all$. By the turn of the century, most music fans outside the deeper reaches of the woods where Deliverance was filmed had wised up to the fact that Bizkit were no more than fans to the flame of displaced suburban caucasian anger-rock, aka "Daddy why don't you love me?" music, and the band faded. In an effort to maintain his greasy hold on the limelight, Durst publicly declared that he slept with Christina Aguilera. When STD tests disproved that claim, he rebounded by actually, legitimately nailing Britney Spears. They reportedly dated for half a minute, after which point Spears dumped him, announcing her regret at being involved with, “someone like Durst.” Then she married Kevin Federline.
A sex tape nobody cared about and a new look (old man) later, Durst claims that he's come to terms with the general sense of asshole that he helped perpetuate in society with his backwards-hat screaming about smashing shit cause "everything is fucked, everybody sucks". To put it all into retrospective perspective, he's pulling out the old "I was abused" story, hoping that someone connected to Oprah is listening.
"I got abused a lot growing up," Durst said. "For years I looked into the crowd and saw a bunch of bullies and assholes who tortured me and ruined my life. They were using my music as fuel to torture other people, even dressing like me. The music was being misinterpreted and the irony effected me and we stepped away." Now, how exactly someone misinterprets a song like "Break Stuff" is beyond me, but I suppose that argument gets lost in the mix when news breaks that Durst was supposedly bullied because he "loved the Cure and Bauhaus and the Smiths." Can't you hear it in his music? "The people in my town weren't privy to that kind of music and I got abused. I discovered the microphone to get out some of that angst." It all seems so clear now.
Now that the band has reunited, Durst hopes to leave the rage behind... at least until it comes time to actually play the shiteous, fake-white-anger jams that made them famous. "I realized after years and years that I can't take all of that on my shoulders," he says. "I can just hope for the best and hope that my music finds its way to the people that I'm trying to connect with. There's some people who are not understanding what Limp Bizkit is about. But, then again, who am I to tell people what they can use art for or how they can interpret it?" How insightful.
As for the band's new album, "The style is not going to disappoint any true, hardcore Limp Bizkit fans," Durst says, apparently believing for at least a screaming second that he actually has hardcore Limp Bizkit fans. "But it also isn't going to alienate anyone that else who is going to discover Limp Bizkit for the first time. It's kinda going to change the game a little bit, but still stay Limp Bizkit — if that makes any sense." Can't wait!
