I have read Fieldy's book (the bassist of Korn) "Got the Life: My Journey of Addiction, Faith, Recovery, and Korn", and I found an interesting part of Fieldy tolding the history with Limp Bizkit! I decided to post here this part! You can read below!
By the Way the book is too cool and interesting! Buy it and enjoy!
Well Done Fieldy!!!
"As an attempt to balance my excessive rock star life, I
threw myself into music practically as hard as I was partying.
I found an interest in discovering new artists and cultivating
their talent. I first met Fred Durst in November 1995 outside
of the Milk Bar, a small club we played in Jacksonville, Florida.
He was waiting for me after the show. When I walked out
of the club, he grabbed Head and me and said he wanted to
talk to us. Fred said he was a tattoo artist and he’d do our tattoos
for free. I was down with that. Today, my entire body is
pretty covered in ink, but back then I still had lots of places I
wanted done—and free was always a good price so it seemed
like an excellent idea. Fred told us his studio was right down
the street. I thought, All right. Let’s roll.
On our way over, Fred started pushing a little more than
tattoos, saying he had a demo tape of his band, Limp Bizkit,
for me to listen to. I wasn’t all that interested in hearing about
his band so I kept talking about what kind of tattoo I should
get. We finally got to his friend’s house where there was a
makeshift tattoo studio. Fred got all set up and wanted to
know who was going first. Head said he’d go. Man, am I glad
he said that. I watched as Fred attempted to tattoo “Korn”
across Head’s lower back. It was a simple design, something
that should have taken a pro less than fifteen minutes. Four
hours later . . . well, needless to say, I didn’t really want to
go next. It was getting late and I was pretty tired. We’d all
been throwing back lots of Coors Light so I decided to go to
the bathroom and fill my empty beer can with water so no
one would know I wasn’t drinking. (This didn’t happen very
often, but on this particular night I was just tired from our
show and waiting around for so long.)
When I looked at the finished tattoo, I didn’t want to be the
guy who told Head that his tattoo looked more like “Horn”
than “Korn.”
Fred turned to me and said, “You ready?”
“Uh. . . You know what? It’s getting kind of late. I’m going
to fly but I’ll come back and do it another day.”
Free or not, there was no way I was letting Fred do a tattoo.
Even so, Fred kept pushing his demo tape. He pleaded with us
to listen to it, saying, “It’s so phat.” He was obviously pumped.
I have to admit, he intrigued me by the way he described the
rap-metal sound of Limp Bizkit. I thought it sounded really
cool, like something I could actually get into, so I gave him
a break and asked to hear what he had. I really liked what I
heard. Their songs “Counterfeit,” “Stuck,” and “Pollution”
were all on the tape. I told Fred that we were heading back to
L.A. to record but he should definitely keep in touch.
I mentioned Fred and Limp Bizkit to Ross Robinson, our
producer. I insisted he had to check them out. I was relentless
in my attempts to convince Ross it would be worth his while.
After hearing their tape, Ross was down with wanting to produce
them. I told Ross I could get Fred to come by while we
were recording. I didn’t know it at the time, but Ross called
Jeff Kwatinetz, my manager, and told him about Limp Bizkit
and said he should come by to hear the tape too. When he
heard it, Jeff didn’t like it at all. He didn’t get their sound
and wasn’t into their whole vibe. I thought he was completely
wrong. I begged him to give these guys a shot, this one time,
to take my word these guys were going to be big. After a lot of
groveling, I finally convinced Jeff to at least meet them.
Fred and I had been talking back and forth a lot. I told
him I thought I could get my managers to take the band on
as a client, and they would be produced by Ross Robinson.
I gave him my word that I would oversee the whole thing.
With everyone onboard, it was time to bring Fred to California
to meet everyone. I knew Limp Bizkit’s music was good,
but I also liked their whole look and vibe. I figured Jeff might
“get it” if he met Fred face-to-face. All of the groundwork
had been laid. I expected Fred to be psyched, but he wasn’t.
He told me that Wes Borland, his guitar player, had recently
left the band and Fred was unsure about what to do. I didn’t
care about this dude who had left the band. I told Fred I could
find ten guitarists to take his place. We had to take a shot. He
agreed but said he really wanted me to produce Limp Bizkit.
I was cool with that, though I knew Ross would need to stay
involved. I told Fred to come up to the studio so we could
start getting some songs together.
Fred rented a van and made the drive from Jacksonville,
Florida, to California. Somewhere in Texas, the driver fell
asleep and rolled the van, causing it to flip over and over. By
the time the guys made it to the studio, they were all bashed
up. Thankfully, no one was killed, but Fred was on crutches
while the other guys were all bandaged up, wearing arm slings
and casts from broken arms. I could hardly believe my eyes
when I saw them—they looked like they’d been through a war.
When I checked out the van, there was blood everywhere. I’m
not even sure how they made it the rest of the trip but there
they were. We were back at the Indigo Ranch laying down a
few new tracks when Fred and the rest of the guys showed up.
It was a tough sell convincing Jeff these broken-boned dudes
could make great music, but somehow we did it.
Fred made arrangements to record at DJ Lethal’s home
studio. I knew DJ Lethal from his days of being in House
of Pain, though he would later join Limp Bizkit. One night
I began messing around on the stand-up bass he had in the
corner of the studio, adding some bass lines to the song the
guys were working on. It sounded hot. We ended up partying
until it got really late. I realized that the ranch was a solid
forty-five minutes away from where we were in the Hollywood
Hills. My friend Jeffy had driven me to the studio and
I needed him to take me back to Indigo. Even though we were
wasted, I told Jeff we had to go. As he made his way down the
windy roads of Laurel Canyon, Jeffy began to hot-rod a little.
Laurel Canyon is a really winding road that cuts through a
mountain leading from West Hollywood to the San Fernando
Valley. The road can be pretty treacherous, especially at
night. Sure enough, Jeffy hit a sharp turn and skidded out of
control. We spun around and slammed into a tree on my side
of the car. I was knocked out cold on impact. The air bags
deployed, which probably saved our lives, but the car continued
to slide down the canyon until it came to stop over a fire
hydrant. When I came to, water was shooting straight up in
the air and pouring into the car from underneath, filling it up.
I tried to get the door open, but it was stuck. I pushed as hard
as I could until it finally gave way. Water came gushing out
of the car as I staggered alongside the canyon road, trying to
get my bearings and to snap out of shock from the impact. We
were both still wasted and weren’t quite sure what we should
do. I didn’t want to go to jail so I said, “Let’s just walk.”
We left the scene and started walking down the curvy
canyon road in the black of night, hopeful that no one saw us
crash. A car slowly approached us from behind. The people in
it pulled over to see if we were okay. When they did, they recognized
me and asked if they could give us a ride. They took
us all the way back to Malibu. Thankfully, when Jeffy finally
dealt with the police, they couldn’t prove we were drunk, so
neither of us faced charges.
I ended up paying the price for that error in judgment
anyway. The next day, I could barely move my neck. It was
painful to sneeze or cough. I wasn’t sure if I had suffered
any internal injuries, but my whole body felt like it had been
jerked around on the inside. It took a solid year or two to get
my body back to where I didn’t feel any pain or discomfort
from that night, which sucked because I am pretty aggressive
when I play the bass, so performing during that time was pure
agony.
Something told me that producing Limp Bizkit’s album
wasn’t in the cards for me. Between those guys crashing their
van and my crash with Jeffy, I decided it wasn’t the right time.
Nothing seemed to be working. Even so, Ross Robinson said
he’d do it. And they were able to convince Wes to come back
to the band so I knew they’d be okay.
Funny enough, I did end up getting a tattoo from Fred.
While he was waiting for Limp Bizkit to really come together,
Fred got a job working in a tattoo shop in Hollywood. With a
little practice, he actually ended up doing pretty good work. I
decided to have him tattoo “Korn” on my ankle. At the time,
I really liked the font Kid Frost was using for his stuff so I had
Fred use that same lettering for my tattoo.
As I predicted, Limp Bizkit ended up becoming a huge success,
selling millions of albums worldwide. They toured with
us when we promoted Life Is Peachy, but we lost touch after
their first album came out. They were out touring nonstop
and we were really busy as well."
