News » interview von universal-guitar mit fred

We talked to Fred Durst on the 9th of November, the next day Limp Bizkit’s Greatest Hitz album was out. I should say we were aware that it was record label’s choice to release the CD and now they’re pushing him to make interviews, so we were a bit afraid talking to a person, who was not excited to talk at all. And even though all of that turned out to be true and the interview started almost an hour and a half later the allotted time, Fred was very nice and talkative.

Of course, the first thing we wanted to ask him about was Limp Bizkit’s new record Greatest Hitz. The album consists of all band’s singles that were released from each album in chronological order from the first release, which makes 14 songs. Others three - “Why,” “Lean On Me” and meshed-up cover of Motley Crue’s and Verve’s songs “Home Sweet Home/Bittersweet Symphony” are new songs, that Fred wished to add on the album. All old songs stayed the way they were on previous albums and weren’t remastered:

“UG: Were the songs remastered for the album? Fred: No… Or wait a minute! Yes, they were. A couple of the songs have never been mastered, so we had to have them mastered. “Why,” “Lean On Me” and “Home, Sweet Home” - those were never mastered.”

Greatest Hitz has pretty unexpected for Limp Bizkit album cover – after six albums with dark, conceptual album sleeves and awesome artwork, this one is in Barbie-pink color and has a ladie’s public restrooms’ sign on it:

“That was mine idea and I did it deliberately. It was the intentional. I wanted it to be very different from the other that I did. I wanted it to stand out on the shelf and I did not want it to look like every other metal band record.”

Fred refuses to say what exactly it means, explaining “I think it’s art, so art it for interpretation. So, it’s up to you I guess.”

Even though Greatest Hitz was released before Christmas – the time CDs are selling best, Fred complains Geffen Records are not promoting it in the USA and are not making a big deal of the album. Neither is he – he wasn’t celebrating it or anything – on the 8th of November, the day Greatest Hitz was out in the USA:

“I hung out with my son yesterday and played the Star Wars video game. They [Geffen Records] are not making a big deal. They’re not even promoting it in the US, they’re only promoting it overseas.”

As for Fred’s own attitude to the release of the record, he says:

“I’d rather put out the Greatest Hits whenever I felt it was time. And I’d rather be on tour and write a new album. I think it’s pretty immature. It’s not time for the Greatest Hits right now and I just wasn’t prepared for it!”

Being on the incline from a valley to a peak, as he describes his own life right now, he’s got a lot of other interesting things going on in his life:

“I’m working on directing my first motion picture. And I have two new bands, that are doing well – Ring Side and She Wants a Revenge.”

As for Limp Bizkit, they’re getting together again and Fred seems to be full of hopes and excited about that. As he says, “I hope the band’s supposed to start very soon rehearsing, like December 1st. And once we rehearse a lot of songs and get all the songs in our memories, so when we go play live, we can play any song we want.” They are already working on booking the tour, but there’s no more certain date, than the beginning of 2006.

The uncertainty remains when we ask Fred about the release of The Unquestionable Truth, Part 2:

“The Unquestionable Truth, Part 2 is another EP and just like the last one, I didn’t tell anybody really that it was coming out. We didn’t market it. I just wanted it to be something special that you could discover on your own and The Unquestionable [part] 2 will also be released in the same [way] - I won’t let anybody know and it would just be put out there for you to discover on your own. These are personal projects of the band, that we feel don’t need to be marketed.”

Sounds like with this record the Unquestionable Truth era is ending and the band will start moving forward:

“The Unquestionable Truth is in certain style. It’s one particular style, that we used for that vibe, so other music we write probably won’t sound like that.”

Fred intrigued everybody by saying in one of his earlier interviews that they have got two new albums “in the can.” Ok, the first one is The Unquestionable, Part 2 and we couldn’t resists to ask about another one:

“The other one is all the material, that was written when Wes was not in the band, and we have lot of songs, that me and Sam and John wrote and we’re gonna put those on an album some time and release them. We don’t know when though.”

We asked Fred if had anything to say to his fans and it turned out he did, so here’s his message to you guys:

“Soak up everything around you and understand that life is what it is. Right now there’s no such thing as the future, it’s only a though. And as each day and each second continues, keep trying to evolve this time and better yourself, as every day is a new day and life is changing every single second. So don’t take it for granted.”

We were quite surprised how Fred’s point of view match his fans’ opinions on many matters, including the immature release of the album. Despite the difficulties in relationship with Wes and their own personal problems, he keeps following his own way, trying to evolve, experiment, while not making a big deal of money. As far as I remember, The Unquestionable, Part 2 is the only album that wasn’t marketed at all before it was out, which is venturous and courageous. Anyway, the unquestionable truth is that Limp Bizkit deserves respect.

....i just wanna make u scream...