Q&A: Fred Durst

Right now I'm getting the second pedicure of my life," says Fred Durst. "In the shower this morning, my feet didn't look so good." The Limp Bizkit singer -- who opts for clear nail polish, by the way -- found time for a little self-pampering in early May, just as his band was finishing work on its new album and preparing to co-headline the Summer Sanitarium Tour. The CD, tentatively scheduled for September, is not the one Durst and company recorded last winter, after giving up on their quest to replace guitarist Wes Borland. Those nineteen songs were ready to go when the band got together with Mike Smith, who had initially been rejected as Borland's replacement but clicked with Bizkit when he jammed with them this spring. They went back into the studio and tracked twelve more songs, which Durst compares to the feel of Jane's Addiction's Nothing's Shocking and Pantera's Vulgar Display of Power: "They're aggressive and rebellious and sad and slightly hopeful." The same description does not apply to the album's title: "I'm either going to call it Panty Sniffer or The Incredible Shrinking Panty Sniffer," says Durst, who has changed the name several times. "I just think there's something fun about it, but it's kind of heavy. Like, I could see that on a T-shirt: 'Panty Sniffer.' "

As a kid, did you see any great outdoor summer shows?

I never really got to go to concerts. I lived in Gastonia, North Carolina, and there were zero concerts there. I mean, I remember going to a parking lot at an Eckerd's drugstore in North Carolina in 1983: There was an eighteen-wheeler set up there, and I went for some break-dancing thing. You could travel to Charlotte and go to little hole in the walls and see alternative bands. And it was always in the summer, and I remember that never, ever did I go to any.

What music do you associate with summer?

My parents used to go to this place in the summer where you drove your trucks. You had to go through mud to get to this little island, and your car would get buried and you'd have to get pulled out. That was their fun -- some redneck crazy swamp shit. And they would always play Bad Company and Foreigner and Lynyrd Skynyrd and Foghat.

Did you have summer jobs?

I worked at McDonald's right when I graduated. It was a 6 a.m. to 2 p.m. breakfast shift. Everyone that I went to high school with was always coming in there getting biscuits and shit, and there I am wearing my uniform. And my dad always had chores, like stacking up, like, a fifteen-foot-high pile of wood or raking the fucking yard. Then I worked at my dad's lawn company and got paid minimum wage in Florida: It was hot as fuck, and I'd be cutting grass all day, every day.

What do you remember about the first Limp Bizkit tour?

Our first tour was with the Deftones in 1995 or 1996. We were driving cars, following behind their very crappy tour bus and playing hundred-people bars. We'd go on when there were three to ten people inside. My biggest reality check is always my own past. I just put myself in my own shoes at certain times in my life, and it always helps me gain perspective.

Do you like touring?

Touring is the best part of our lives. I'm not a guy who just waits to go in a studio and pour his feelings into a microphone. I see the shows as therapy: I want to get lost inside the music and feed off the feeling of the crowd when they're feeling what you are. That's the best thing you can ever imagine.

But you told me that you're a loner, and when you're on tour there's no alone time.

Your bus and your bunk are a little more alone than some people think. But when I say I'm a loner, I mean that I don't have a lot of people close to me. I never let anyone in. I've let my old scars and wounds lock everyone out. It's kind of weird. Maybe I have a problem.

Following Woodstock '99 and 2001's Big Day Out festival [where a fifteen-year-old girl was crushed to death during Bizkit's set], does it worry you when you see crowds getting rowdy?

Yeah. It's scary, now that we've seen the darkness and experienced tragedy. Even when it looks like everyone's having fun bouncing, there could be somebody who fell down and gets bounced on or someone having a panic attack. Anything bad could happen, no matter how positive the energy is. Every single second we're on stage, that might happen. That's what we never considered. Ignorance was bliss.

Do you regret the whole Britney thing?

For one thing, I am not a fan of her music. But through a couple meetings, I became a fan of her. She's just a sweet, innocent, beautiful Louisiana girl. I like a girl who can dance, and she can dance. And then we end up kickin' it. I actually started liking this chick, and I didn't want to at all. I really liked her. We had our moments that were very cool.

Why did you kiss and tell on the Howard Stern Show?

Well, she was kind of making a fool out of me and acting like we were never even hanging out. Like we weren't, like, being intimate with each other. I was already dealing with the big backlash of hanging out with her in the first fucking place, and I was sticking up for her on my Web site, to my own fans. And then she goes on TRL and says, "No, I don't really know him." And Howard kept calling and calling, and he's always been real cool to me. And I got on the air and . . . [pauses] I'm a reactive guy. That's just the way I am.

Have you seen her or talked to her since this all went down?

She left me a message saying, "Let's just be cool" and "I'm sorry everything got like it was." She also left me a message right after the Howard Stern thing. She goes, "Fred, you better watch your back, because you are seriously fucked." It's so funny. I saved them all just in case I ever need them.

Which would be a bigger insult: to have someone say you're not being real in your music, or for someone to say they just don't like it?

Oh, the first one. I can't please everyone. When people come to me thinking that what I'm about is contrived, that's an insult. But if they don't like it, fine. Because that's like me saying I don't like mustard because it's not my thing, which it's not. But I'm not doggin' out the mustard companies and mad at the world because there's mustard.

[From Issue 924 — June 12, 2003]