Black Light Burns
Photo: I Am Wolfpack

Fred Durst misses Limp Bizkit, and he misses Wes Borland — a lot.

A few weeks back, LB's red-baseball-cap-sporting frontman updated the band's MySpace blog with an honest and seemingly heartfelt plea to his nü metal brethren to revive the Bizkit and tour the world. "I would love to do a tour with the original [lineup]," he wrote. "The feeling we have on stage as Limp Bizkit is like no other feeling I have ever had, and no other feeling has been so rewarding."

But of course, there's been years of publicly spilled bad blood between Durst — who has been focusing on filmmaking in recent years (see "Fred Durst: The Next Martin Scorsese?") — and Borland (see "Durst Attacks Wes Borland In Song, Blogs Over Bizkit Talk"). The guitarist has since cut ties with Limp to go out on his own (see "Bye Bye Bizkit? Wes Borland Says Limp Are Pretty Much Done"). His band, Black Light Burns, will issue their debut LP, Cruel Melody, on June 5.

"Imagine that me and Wes could work things out together and be a band again," Durst wrote. "We had so many wonderful times ... [and] I am proud to say that I have learned so much from my mistakes and it has taken a long time to evolve to this place where I finally let myself be healed. Without Wes, I wouldn't know what it is like to work with the best."

Well, it looks like Durst is just going to have to settle for a different guitarist if he's truly interested in making a comeback with the Bizkit, because for Borland, there is only Black Light Burns.

"I am in this for the long haul," Borland said during a recent interview with MTV News. "The whole Limp thing is absolutely, offensively impossible. I've been through that several times now, and it's always the same thing. It's very predictable how that group of people, when they come together, what happens. Him calling me out and saying that he's different and wants the band back together ... I mean, I've seen it three times before. And what happens is, I go, 'OK, let's make it work,' and three months later, we completely hate each other. It's nothing against Fred — that's just how it works. I understand that the intentions are good, and that he means what he said, but I can't waste any of my time trying to make that happen, because it's a scenario that just doesn't work out."

While Borland's thankful for the times he did have with Limp — or at least the times he says it worked well — "I am just ready to do something I believe in more, and something that makes me happier," he said. "I'm too old to be farting around with stuff that isn't precisely what I want to do. This is my focus now, whether it blows up quick or it flunks. Either way, I don't really care. I just want to be back in the world, doing music and meeting people — doing my thing."

Borland said Black Light Burns plan to spend much of this year and next touring. He's compiled a touring band that features drummer Marshall Kilpatric, who some may remember from the Esoteric and Today Is the Day. His band will head out with Chevelle for a tour that kicks off in Chicago on April 30 and wraps May 23 in Clifton Park, New York. After that, Borland said they'll head out on their own headlining run, and at some point early next year, he said he plans to begin working on Cruel Melody's follow-up. He's been working with Kilpatric on several new tunes.

"I don't want to take as long to do the next record as this one took, because this one was sort of about finding my own way, and now I know how it works, so it'll be a lot easier," he said. (Borland spent more than three years working on Cruel Melody.) "The band's built, and now I just have to crank out a bunch of songs."

Borland said he plans to work on new material from his bus, over the course of the next few months of touring. And in just a few weeks, the first video from Black Light, for the track "Lie," will be making its TV debut. In the clip, Borland is killed off by the members of From First to Last — a band he did a brief stint with (see "From First To Last Are Done With Wes Borland, Target Rob Zombie") — who are all dressed in masks and robes. His body is dragged off to a party by a gaggle of go-go dancers, and Wes parties his undead ass off. During the video's shooting, Borland nearly lost a tooth.

"We were performing, and there was all this water on the floor," he explained. "I slipped a few times and busted my lip open. And I also chipped my tooth on my microphone."

Making Cruel Melody — which Borland recorded with ex-Nine Inch Nails multi-instrumentalist Danny Lohner, drumming hired gun Josh Freese, and Josh Eustis of Telefon Tel Aviv fame, and features guest spots by former From First to Last frontman Sonny Moore, Limp bassist Sam Rivers, British singer Carina Round and Concrete Blonde's Johnette Napolitano — was a liberating experience for Borland, as he's transitioned from musician to vocalist with ease. And really, he doesn't know what sort of reaction he'll get from fans.

"All I want is for it to grow, and I just hope that it continues to reach people and sustain us so that we can tour a lot," he explained. "I feel like people don't know what to expect, because it's, like, the dude with the black contacts that was, like, Fred's sidekick — that's probably what most people are thinking. And it's fine, because I don't expect anyone to welcome this with open arms, because it is different from other things I've done. But it's the most real I've ever been before — it's the most pure me. So if you don't like this, you don't like me as an artist."

• Wes Borland
• Black Light Burns
• Limp Bizkit

Mandy Moore in the May issue of <i>Elle</i>
Photo: Gilles Bensimon

Mandy Moore talked about ex-boyfriend Zach Braff in a new interview featured in the May issue of Elle. "Out of respect to Zach, who I still consider a friend and care about and support, I have nothing bad to say about him," she said of her ex, who is nine years her senior. "It just didn't work out." Moore also says she's "OK with representing a different type than the normal Hollywood beauty ideal. ... I've been told that I have to lose weight for stuff before. It's mortifying ... once is enough to make you feel awful." (See Elle shots of Mandy Moore by the beach right here.) Moore will also guest host and perform at the Entertainment Industry Foundation Revlon Run/ Walk for Women, a benefit to help the fight against women's cancers that is set for May 5 in New York and May 12 in Los Angeles. Her next album Wild Hope is due June 19. ...

Lindsay Lohan was interviewed by GQ via BlackBerry over several weeks, following her stint in rehab. Between shooting the upcoming thriller "I Know Who Killed Me," working on staying sober and buying two puppies, Lohan replied to questions that ranged from "Is there anything you fear?" — Lohan responded with a note on what she was wearing (Marc Jacobs, vintage Chanel and Kaviar & Kind) — to "Do you play poker?" ("Weird! I just e-mailed my friend Sara Pantera saying I'm going to start playing poker again!") for the magazine's April issue. In other Lohan news, the actress has been selected as the new face of Jill Stuart's fashion line, and is scheduled to shoot photos for the campaign this week. ...

Miss Tom Morello's all-star jam at the South by Southwest festival in Austin, Texas, last month? The Nightwatchman is buddying up with more friends for three concerts at Los Angeles' Hotel Café taking place Tuesday, April 17 and April 24. A diverse cast of characters is expected to join Morello for the Tuesday performances — be on the lookout for Alanis Morissette, Cypress Hill's B-Real and Sen Dog, Alice in Chains' Jerry Cantrell, Steve Vai, MC5's Wayne Kramer, Switchfoot's Jon Foreman, Disturbed's David Draiman and former Extreme guitarist Nuno Bettencourt, who was spotted at the SXSW jam. The Rage Against the Machine guitarist will also perform as his alter ego at a workers rally in Chicago on Saturday; sign copies of his April 24 release, One Man Revolution, at Hollywood's Amoeba Music, April 25; hit up Coachella in Indio, California, April 28; play a benefit show with Ben Harper in Claremont, California, May 4; support Harper on six dates in June; and perform at Bonnaroo in Manchester, Tennessee, June 16. ...

By now, everyone's heard that tickets to this summer's Ozzfest will be free, but there's been no word on how they will be distributed — until this week. In a press release issued Monday morning (April 9), the festival organizers revealed that, starting May 12, ticket codes will be distributed through several sponsor Web sites, including those for LiveNation, Monster Energy drink, Jägermeister and F.Y.E. The codes will be redeemable starting June 12 via the same Web sites, and there is a limit of two tickets per person. The fest — featuring Ozzy Osbourne, Lamb of God, Hatebreed and more — kicks off July 12 in Seattle and hits 24 cities before wrapping in West Palm Beach, Florida, August 30. ... "Laguna Beach" star Jason Wahler was arrested in Seattle early Sunday after punching a hotel security guard and passing out drunk in a hallway, The Associated Press reports. It was the third time the actor had been arrested since September, and he had already been scheduled to begin serving a 60-day jail sentence in May. The actor repeatedly made racial and homophobic slurs when he was busted for investigation of assault and criminal trespass on Sunday, according to a Seattle Police Department report. Wahler — who had been ordered by a judge last month to go to Alcoholics Anonymous classes and attend a program at the Museum of Tolerance for using racial slurs after a previous arrest — was released from jail after posting bail. ...

Velvet Revolver have been added to the lineup for the U.S. Virgin Festival, scheduled for August 4-5 in Baltimore. Previously confirmed acts include the Police, Smashing Pumpkins and the Beastie Boys. ... Black Light Burns, the band fronted by former Limp Bizkit guitarist Wes Borland, have been tapped as the support act for Chevelle's upcoming U.S. tour, which gets under way May 7; a full itinerary will be announced soon. Black Light Burns' debut LP, Cruel Melody, is slated for release June 5. ...

Christina Milian will co-star with Mario Lopez in "Eight Days a Week," a comedy pilot being produced for the CW, according to The Hollywood Reporter. The series follows the life of four 20-somethings working for prestigious bosses in New York. Milian will play an assistant who left a law career to start over as a gofer at an art gallery. ... Bobby Valentino has decided to take his own advice and slow down. The DTP singer issued a statement about his delayed sophomore album Special Occasion — now due May 8 — announcing he's still in the recording process but will post bonus tracks on his MySpace page that don't make the final cut. The album is set to feature collaborations with Timbaland, Rodney Jerkins, and Fabolous. A MySpace call went out on Sunday asking fans to send photos for display in a slideshow on Valentino's MySpace page ("remember, no nudity") to promote his track "Anonymous," featuring Timbaland. The song is currently streaming on the page as well as his Web site, JustBobby.com ...

Isaac Hanson, the eldest of the three brothers that make up Hanson, welcomed his first child Tuesday. Clarke Everett Hanson was delivered by Isaac's wife, Nicole, in the Hanson hometown Tulsa, Oklahoma. In a post on the band's Web site, the proud father said his son's birth "was an inspiration, and I know that his presence in my life will continue to inspire me."... Microsoft is set to follow Apple's lead in offering songs without copy protection for download. Less than a week after Apple announced it would sell unprotected songs from the EMI Group catalog at a premium, Katy Asher — a Microsoft spokeswoman for the company's portable Zune player team — told IDG News Service, "the EMI announcement on Monday was not exclusive to Apple. ... Consumers have made it clear that unprotected music is something they want. ... We plan on offering it to them as soon as our label partners are comfortable with it." The Microsoft spokesperson said the company has been speaking with EMI and other labels for "some time now" about offering unprotected music on the Zune.

04.06.2007

Ciara, Lil Jon, Lil Wayne, Jermaine Dupri, Ludacris, Young Buck and others have provided audio testimonials for ImNotSigned.com, a new site created by Jazze Pha. The site is intended to connect unsigned artists with producers and A&R executives. It features a virtual "conference room," "studios" and more, and members can log in to chat with some of "Jazze Pha's superstar friends," according to a press release. "If you don't already have a deal, it's really possible now," Ciara said, hyping the site's launch. "You got to get in where you fit in." ...

Fall Out Boy have postponed the start of their Honda Civic Tour, the band announced Friday (April 6). "Unfortunately, because of some personal issues, we had to delay the tour a few weeks," bassist Pete Wentz said in a statement. "We want to put on the best possible show we can and know that this extra couple of weeks will give us the time to put ourselves in the right place." The band's manager, Bob McLynn, declined to specify the nature of the personal issues to MTV News but confirmed that no members have left the band. "Everything couldn't be better with the [band's new album, Infinity on High]," he said. "This small rescheduling will give everyone a better state of sanity and make the tour even greater." The 42-date tour — which also features Paul Wall, (+44), the Academy Is ... and Cobra Starship — was initially set to kick off April 18, but now begins with a May 11 show in Denver. Shows scheduled to take place before May 11 have been moved to the end of the tour, except the May 1 stop in Sacramento, California, which has been canceled. ...

The Killers, Oasis, Razorlight, Kaiser Chiefs, Travis and the Fratellis are among the bands that will re-record songs from the Beatles' 1967 release Sgt. Pepper's Lonely Hearts Club Band to celebrate the 40th anniversary of the seminal album, BBC News reports. Geoff Emerick, the engineer in charge of the original sessions, will record the new versions on the same four-track equipment he used with the Beatles. The results will be broadcast June 2 on BBC's Radio 2. ...

Fergie, Hilary Duff, Rihanna, Omarion, Daughtry, Katharine McPhee, Robin Thicke, Dashboard Confessional and Hinder are on the lineup for New York radio station Z100's Zootopia concert. The show is scheduled for May 18 at Nassau Veterans Memorial Coliseum in Uniondale. ... Also in New York, the annual River to River summer concert series has revealed its lineup. Spoon, New Pornographers, Booker T. and the MG's with Sharon Jones, Menomena, Animal Collective, Drive-By Truckers and Martha Wainwright are among the artists scheduled to perform free shows in lower Manhattan. ...

Joss Stone will kick off her first major North American tour in three years on April 27 in Mashantucket, Connecticut. The trek will hit 18 cities, including stops at New Orleans' Jazz & Heritage Festival (May 6) and New York's Central Park Summerstage (June 8), culminating with a June 16 performance in Fort Lauderdale, Florida. Stone will also be featured at the Concert for Diana, a July 1 charity show in London to celebrate the life of the late princess. Pharrell, Elton John, Duran Duran and Bryan Ferry are among the other artists confirmed for the event. ... Japanese atmospheric-experimental band Mono will hit North America on a tour that starts Thursday in Cambridge, Massachusetts, and runs through a May 17 show in New York. The group's latest album, Palmless Prayer/ Mass Murder Refrain, was released in 2006. ...

Sonic Youth will perform what many consider to be their masterpiece, 1988's Daydream Nation, in its entirety on a handful of occasions this summer. The shows are part of All Tomorrows Parties' Don't Look Back concert series and will take place at the Pitchfork Music Festival in Chicago on July 13; the Berkeley Community Theatre in Berkeley, California, on July 19; Los Angeles' Greek Theatre the following day; and London's Roundhouse August 30-September 1. Likewise, Slint will perform their seminal indie-rock effort Spiderland in full as part of the series. The band, which got back together in 2005, will resurrect the album at 12 shows, only two of which are taking place Stateside: July 17-18 at New York's Webster Hall. ... Tegan and Sara will release their fifth studio album, The Con, July 24. Christopher Walla of Death Cab for Cutie produced the album and AFI's Hunter Burgan and the Rentals' Matt Sharp both play bass. ...

KRS-One is partnering with veteran hip-hop producer Marley Marl for the legendary rapper's next studio project, Hip-Hop Lives. Due May 22 on Koch, the album's title track and "Kill a Rapper" are set to be the first two singles from the release. ... The Afghan Whigs' Unbreakable (A Retrospective), set for release May 1, will be more than just a career-overview disc. The CD features "I'm a Soldier," a newly recorded track, as well as "Magazine," an unreleased cut the band wrote before breaking up. ... Cake fans can pre-order the band's self-released B-Sides and Rarities disc at CakeMusic.com. The collection includes covers of Black Sabbath's "War Pigs" and Barry White's "Never, Never Gonna Give You Up" and promises "scratch-and-sniff album art." ...

This year's first-quarter album-sales numbers are in, and they don't bode well for the music industry. In the first three months of the year, album sales dropped 17 percent in the U.S., according to Bloomberg News. Online purchases rose but didn't make up for the deficiency. Album sales fell 7.3 percent in 2005 and 4.9 last year. ... Mark St. John, who briefly played lead guitar for Kiss, has died from an apparent brain hemorrhage, Billboard reports. He was 51. St. John, the band's third official guitarist, was featured on 1984's Animalize and in the video for that album's "Heaven's on Fire."

• Mandy Moore In The May 2007 Issue Of "Elle" Magazine

• Mandy Moore
• Lindsay Lohan
• Christina Milian
• Velvet Revolver
• Wes Borland

Wes Borland
Photo: myspace.com/blacklightburns

Wes Borland doesn't care about Limp Bizkit anymore. The guitarist can't even say for sure that he's still in the predominant rap-metal band of the late '90s. To hear him tell it, Limp Bizkit may not be an active band — period.

"We're officially on hiatus, maybe even officially over," Borland said. "It's kind of up in the air. No one said, 'We're done as a band.' Everyone's just doing their own thing, and [some members] don't have time for this band anymore. I haven't quit, but I've also decided to stop thinking about Limp. I'm not going to keep trying to breathe life into a dying animal.

"It just ground to a halt," he continued. "We just basically stopped talking. I feel bad for the fans that [might] think something's actually going to happen with Limp [in the future]. It's not happening. The Unquestionable Truth (Part 2) is not coming out. If it does, I'd be super surprised. But you can never say never. Anything's possible. As of right now, none of my future plans include Limp Bizkit."

Borland, who rejoined Limp Bizkit nearly two years ago, said he's moving on with an all-consuming focus to his new band, Black Light Burns. Even if Bizkit frontman Fred Durst were to call him to discuss reviving the group, he said he'd have to think long and hard about involving himself in what would, in essence, be a side project for him.

"I can't keep my life in a holding pattern, and I can't think of a band that's completely inactive as my main project," he explained. "Black Light is all I'm focusing on."

In fact, Borland even considers himself more a member of Florida post-hardcore band From First to Last (see "From First To Last Are Done With Wes Borland, Target Rob Zombie") than he does Limp Bizkit. The guitarist strapped on a bass during the recording of FFTL's forthcoming LP, Heroine, and even toured with the band last fall. "I am definitely writing their next record with them," he said. "I'm basically the studio bass player for From First to Last, and we have an agreement that whenever I can make it out and play shows, I will."

These days Borland's been concentrating on Black Light Burns' debut, Cruel Melody. Due this summer and featuring 12 tracks, it boast guest spots by Bizkit bassist Sam Rivers, British singer/songwriter Carina Round, Concrete Blonde's Johnette Napolitano and From First to Last frontman Sonny Moore.

Borland intends to assemble a touring version of Black Light Burns, since the musicians he'd worked with on Cruel Melody (renowned session drummer Josh Freese, former Nine Inch Nails guitarist Danny Lohner and Telefon Tel Aviv keyboardist/programmer Josh Eustis) will likely be preoccupied with other projects.

Before Black Light Burns' debut hits stores, Borland hopes to embark on a brief club tour. This fall, he said, the touring version of the band will be opening for From First to Last as part of a full U.S. trek; Borland will take the stage with both bands, playing two sets a night. And that's fine by him.

"It took me a long time to find my voice as a singer, and I'm happy that I did," he explained. "I can't stress enough how good it's going to feel to get back out there again. This is it for me — finally. It's everything I've ever wanted to do, every kind of music I'm into, all cemented into one statement."

So what's happening with Limp Bizkit, who have largely disappeared since the release The Unquestionable Truth last May? Borland said Durst is currently bolstering both his film résumé (see "Fred Durst: The Next Martin Scorsese?") and his A&R credentials, signing bands like She Wants Revenge to his Geffen Records imprint, Flawless. Rivers is producing local talent at his Jacksonville, Florida, recording studio. DJ Lethal is producing as well as working with House of Pain and his other band, Tarzana.

Although "Fred and I have never gotten along," Borland admitted, he said relations within Bizkit were amicable after he reunited with them. But tensions started to mount in the weeks before the release of The Unquestionable Truth.

"When [Fred] came to us with the idea of not promoting it at all, and not touring, we were like, 'Huh?' And he said, 'Yeah, it will be great — like we're starting from the underground all over again,' " recalled Borland (see "Limp Bizkit: What Happened?"). "I just said, 'Um ... all right. So we're going to release a record and not promote it and not tour, and this is going to do well how, exactly?' It was like, instead of firing an armor-piercing round out of a 10-story cannon at the moon, we got out the BB gun.

"Maybe he was already unhappy with the music, and he didn't really want to put it out there," Borland continued. "It was definitely self-sabotage. I don't think Limp is actually very relevant [to] people anymore. We've been one of the most hated bands in the world for a long time, and I just think people are over it.

"I have never really been a fan of what we've done," Borland said. "It's what we did, [albeit] not what I wanted to listen to all the time. I was 100 percent participating, but [I never felt as if] 'this is the end-all, be-all band I want to be with.' I always felt like I was placed with the wrong band, but I still felt it worked well."

Track list for Black Light Burns' Cruel Melody, according to Borland:

• "The Mark"
• "Animal"
• "Lie"
• "Coward"
• "Cruel Melody"
• "I Have a Need"
• "4 Walls"
• "Stop a Bullet"
• "One of Yours"
• "New Hunger"
• "I Am Where It Takes Me"
• "Iodine Sky"

• Limp Bizkit
• Wes Borland

From First To Last
Photo: Jeff Gross

Guitarist Travis Richter and his post-hardcore band From First to Last are on a bit of a lucky streak. When it came time for the Los Angeles group to start writing the forthcoming Heroine, the follow-up to 2004's Dear Diary, My Teen Angst Has a Body Count, From First to Last had one producer in mind: Ross Robinson (Glassjaw, Slipknot, Blood Brothers). And although it took some convincing for Epitaph, the band's label, to fork over the extra coin for the likes of Ross, the band got its wish.

And who do you suppose Richter and the boys wanted to mix their Heroine, which will hit stores on March 21? Andy Wallace (Nirvana, Avenged Sevenfold, System of a Down), of course. And Wallace agreed. Next, they'd like to work with Rob Zombie.

"We want him to direct the video for our first single," Richter said of the in-the-works clip for "The Latest Plague." "It's going to be the story of how our band got together, presented in a really crazy way. We are all independently living really boring lives, and we're just breaking out of it. It's going to be chaotic. We'll be driving around in a van like maniacs, going like 100 miles an hour, hitting cars and stuff. It's going to be sick."

The way From First to Last see it, getting Zombie to helm the video is not outside the realm of possibility. "We sit around and come up with the ideas and give them to our manager and the label," said the guitarist and lead singer. "A lot of cool stuff has happened to us this year that we didn't merit."

The band has nailed a support slot on the upcoming Story of the Year trek with Every Time I Die and He Is Legend. That'll be followed by the Fall Out Boy tour, which kicks off sometime in March; Hawthorne Heights and All-American Rejects are also on the bill. Oh, and then there was the time they dumped their bassist, Jon Weisberger, just as they were heading into Radio Star Studios in Weed, California, to start recording Heroine, and Robinson called on an old friend to come down and help From First to Last.

"Ross is a really good friend, and he asked me to come play bass on the record, and I just loved it," Limp Bizkit's Wes Borland said. "I think it's really going to break them out of the emo/screamo genre that they're in. Its cool stuff, and they're really talented guys and real young. I felt like a geezer around them. I did it up and played all the bass and wrote a bunch of bass parts and wrote a song with them."

That song wasn't one of the 11 tracks to make it onto Heroine, which includes the songs "Afterbirth," "World War Me," "We All Have a Hell" and "Waves Goodbye." Borland "learned all the songs, and recorded them in just three days," Richter said. "There was just a fire and chemistry with him." Tim Armstrong guitar tech Alicia Simmons has been brought on as the band's temporary touring bassist.

From First to Last have also received an invitation to headline this summer's Warped Tour, Richter said. The band is still weighing its options and hasn't RSVPed just yet. For now, Richter wants to focus on the release of Heroine, the making of which, he said, proved a "life-changing" experience — because of Robinson.

"When we started writing the demos for the album, we just decided to write whatever we wanted," he explained. "Ross adds another dimension to music that you don't even think about as a band. You know, rock and roll has lost a lot of its edge. And that's something we're trying to bring back to the table, an extremely sort of 'f--- it' mentality. And Ross isn't like a lot of producers, where he'll write your songs or try to make them more radio friendly. He'd pick out parts of songs and say, 'That's cool. But let's make it cooler.' And he would make us make it cooler, or more complicated, more intricate, more powerful, heavier. He's like a muse almost."

With Heroine, Richter said he and the rest of the band wanted to avoid making it "too ProTools," and instead capture the raw essence of From First to Last. Fans of the band's debut disc will notice the addition of "heavy pianos" and augmented tone, achieved by "playing our guitars direct, rather than through amps." The chord progressions are "insanely dark — sort of what you'd expect from Cradle of Filth." Richter also thinks it's beyond classification.

"This album is its own thing," he said. "You can't even put it in a genre of music. We could have gone in and written a perfectly pop rock record, but I think there's plenty of that out there already. So we decided to be just real musicians. I want people to see a difference, to see what we're doing and be like, 'That is obviously something completely different from what anyone else is doing.' If that happens, I can go to bed every night with a clear conscience. This album's some of the heaviest sh-- that's been rocked in a while."

• From First To Last
• Wes Borland
• Rob Zombie