-- by Corey Moss with additional reporting by John Norris
One dreary afternoon last fall, Wes Borland put his ailing cat to rest. Itwas a devastating event, and he returned to his Los Angeles home feelingdepressed. Borland knew he had more than his pet to move on from, somethinghe'd been putting off for months. He picked up the phone and called his LimpBizkit bandmates one by one to announce his departure from the group.
The way Borland tells it, leaving Limp Bizkit after six years was simply amatter of following his heart. He was the most widely respected musician inone of the biggest rock bands in the world, but deep down he was no longerhappy with the music he was playing and he wanted something different. Hewas remaining in Limp Bizkit for all the wrong reasons. He was,metaphorically speaking, doing it all for the nookie.
"If I were to continue to be in that band it would not have been for real,"Borland said, reclining in his home studio, staring at walls lined withpackaged "Star Wars" figures and his own eerie graffiti. "It's just moneyand fame, and I kind of went there and did the whole fame and money thingand it's just not as important as making the music that I want to make. Icouldn't be proud of what I was doing and couldn't stand completely behindit, and if you're somebody who is doing something they don't want to do,bells start going off — like I'm actually selling out, this is what itfeels like to sell out. I'm enjoying all the perks of this job, but youknow, I feel my heart going black because this is not what I'm called to do.The little voice inside my head said, 'You should be somewhere else, youshould take the risk, you should let it go.' "[RealVideo]
A few weeks later, in the midst of a nationwide search to find a new guitarplayer, Fred Durst sat in a Guitar Center in New York, pondering why his oldfriend felt so artistically deprived in Limp Bizkit. Durst, who has neverbeen one to hide his conflicts with others, had been relatively quiet aboutBorland's departure, saying only encouraging things about the guitarist andthe future of Limp Bizkit. During one interview, Durst even compared Borlandto legendary Led Zeppelin guitarist Jimmy Page. But now Durst was feeling alittle hurt.
"That, I would agree, is selling out," Durst said after reading Borland'scomments on MTVNews.com. "And so if that's how he felt, then he sold out,but [not] Limp Bizkit. He can't put a label on the whole band, 'cause he'salienated himself from the whole band. He knows in his heart how much webelieve in our music and how much we really believe in just not settling forsomething unless it's really moving us, 'cause he's been a part of it thewhole time. It seems to me like he wanted the article to feel like we'remaking music for money and he wasn't down with that and he just wanted toget back to music. But I hope that's not what he was saying, because it justseems so rude and wrong, because we love what we're doing and we don't wantto turn the page and say that about him, because that's just not right. Wedon't want to get into some type of war like that."
A war this is not. After all, this is the band that denounced "the hesaid/she said bullsh--" in the enraged rock anthem "Break Stuff." When LimpBizkit announced Borland's departure, they called the spilt amicable, and ina joint press release the two sides wished each other "the best of luck inall future endeavors." They both still stand by that.
"They're treating me with respect and I'm treating them with respect,"Borland said "But it's like a divorce. You don't want to talk to the personimmediately after it happens. It's gonna take a lot of time to, you know,heal. There's definitely not any bad feelings, but we're not going to go andhave lunch anytime soon."
Durst on Borland, Borland on the band ... NEXT
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Wes Borland on his diminishing enjoyment of Limp Bizkit's music [RealVideo]