“We all want progress, but if you’re on the wrong road, progress means doing an about-turn and walking back to the right road; in that case, the man who turns back soonest is the most progressive.”
C. S. Lewis
Limp Bizkit‘s fourth album, Results May Vary, was the product of a sixteen-month odyssey that saw the band attempt to break away from their trademark nu-metal sound and establish themselves as career artists. This offering had to be more than just another studio release; it represented a sort of closure for the band, because up until they began, Fred Durst and his bandmates – Sam Rivers (bass), John Otto (drums) and DJ Lethal – had been dealing with the loss of longtime guitarist Wes Borland, who left to focus on other projects in October of 2001. Borland wasn’t just a guitar player; to many fans, he was Limp Bizkit.
An official statement from the band’s management read:
“Both Limp Bizkit and Borland will continue to pursue their respective musical careers. Both wish each other the best of luck in all future endeavours.”
That’s about standard for a press release. Guitarist and band have parted ways; split is amicable, which is usually code for “We hate each other.” Every band that splits up or loses a member has creative differences. One person pushed too hard, another didn’t, it wasn’t working, it’s everybody’s fault, and you don’t need to get into the reasons why because everyone already knows what hating somebody means.
Borland would later explain of his departure:
“Bells start going off, like, ‘This is what it feels like to sell out.’ I’m enjoying all the perks of [Limp Bizkit], but I feel my heart is going black, because this is not what I’m called to do. The little voice inside my head says, ‘You should be somewhere else. You should take the risk. You should let it go.'”
Borland would continue with his then-new band, Eat the Day, alongside his brother Scott. Meanwhile, Durst expressed optimism in finding a replacement:
“We’re going to comb the globe in search of the illest guitar player known to man. … Wes was a big part of the Limp Bizkit you’re used to, but his decision to leave has left us in a place where we know the best of Limp Bizkit is yet to come.”
The platinum-selling, global-touring band would take the unusual step of holding open auditions at Guitar Center stores across the United States, in twenty-two cities to be exact. As in, any random person could show up with their guitar and audition. This trek – titled the Put Your Guitar Where Your Mouth Is tour – allowed the band to look beyond the entertainment capitals on the coasts and connect with some of their fans in the often-overlooked land mass between Los Angeles and New York that is the United States of America.
As the auditions kicked off in January of 2002, Durst emphasised that he wanted hopefuls to show their originality and not just play recycled Limp Bizkit riffs.
“We want to find someone who is hungry,” he said in an interview with MTV, in the days when the cable network was actually about music. “Someone we have chemistry with, who is cool to hang out with. It’s like dating. They need to have something that when you meet them, it makes you curious enough to call for a second date.”
Moreover, he stressed that the band were not simply looking for the next Borland.
“Wes is a legend in his own right,” Durst clarified for the record. “Like if Led Zeppelin needed a guitar player, you don’t get Jimmy Page, because you can’t. Wes is Wes. We don’t have any idea what we are going to do with our next record. So [our new guitar player] has to bring something to the table. We are looking for a band member, not a hired gun.”
This was probably for the best, since Borland had earned an extraordinary reputation as a songwriter and performer – even the most adamant Bizkit hater would admit a grudging respect for the axeman. So, looking for the “next Wes” would have been pointless.
Ultimately – after thousands of auditions and four finalists – the band would not choose anyone from the Put Your Guitar Where Your Mouth Is tour, leading some to speculate that the whole thing was a publicity stunt (allegedly), and a means of getting ideas for guitar riffs to use on the next Bizkit album or some compilation from Flawless Records (ALLEGEDLY). I followed this online as it evolved and didn’t really know what to think at the time, but looking back on it now, I doubt that Fred Durst would launch a cross-country tour just for those reasons. It probably had more to do with preventing frivolous lawsuits from guitarists claiming their material was stolen. As Trevor Phillips would say to his buddy Ron in Grand Theft Auto V, “That’s a conspiracy theory too far, even for you.”
Stoic philosophers discuss how obstacles can become opportunities. That is, provided you have time and resources, which is where and how this album began. And Durst, love him or loathe him, has always had this weird ability to just somehow come out on top, whatever the situation. It’s hard to describe, but it’s like he’s set his losing conditions to either being dead or in a coma.
And, in May of 2002, the band settled into “a cheesy ’70s house in the flats” of Los Angeles and set about writing. Naturally, this house needed to have all the luxuries of modern living. The master bedroom was converted into a studio, Durst sleeping in the closet, with a PlayStation 2, computer, and a few PRS guitars. The backyard pool area also boasted a tiki hut, “for ill pool parties.”
Without a full-time guitarist, Durst decided to try his hand at the instrument, and see if he couldn’t come up with some riffs.
“Limp Bizkit jammed with four finalists after their much-publicized guitarist audition tour,” MTV’s Jon Wiederhorn said, “but now it looks like Fred Durst might be taking a cue from his Puddle of Mudd pal Wes Scantlin and handling both vocal and guitar duties himself.”
Lyrically, Durst was taking a different approach as well. It was a little mellower. Not that he was going the way of teen pop and boy bands, which would have been a little too out of left field, but tracks like “Down Another Day” moved away from the unbridled rage commonly associated with the red cap, and into something more akin to John Mayer, according to MTV’s Joe D’Angelo.
“My approach to [confrontation] now is past the screaming part,” Fred was quoted as saying. “It’s ten times more dangerous to go past that and know what it is that you’re trying to express. That can be therapy, and that’s what happened to me in a weird way. That’s why there is not so much screaming.”
However, while he wanted to learn, which is always good, Durst knew he was no Borland.
“What the fuck am I doing?” he would say as he fumbled a chord. “I’m not a guitar player, but, I’m the guitar player.”
And while Durst seemed keen to set a new direction for Limp Bizkit, he still held onto hope that Borland would one day return to the band. He would then share Borland’s personal email address to the public, inviting fans to beg, plead and/or reason on the band’s behalf, in what would be considered today as semi-doxing. Not surprisingly, Borland would decline.
Writing sessions continued, this time with Rivers and engineer Michael “Elvis” Baskette assisting with guitars, while Durst seemed to be making some progress on the instrument, at least according to management. Around August, Rick Rubin was named as producer, with the band supposedly recording twenty songs for the album – tentatively titled Less Is More at the time – under his guidance. However, like with the early Chocolate Starfish sessions, the Bizkit/Rubin partnership dissolved at some point, since Terry Date is credited as the producer for much of the album.
In October of 2002, Durst would elaborate on his lyrical direction for the album.
“This album is about getting in touch with yourself a little bit,” he would say in another interview with MTV. “About accepting things a little bit more, maybe accepting the fact that you can’t control or change everything and it is the way it is. Sometimes it’s about less is more. It’s about the seed. Thinking about this gigantic tree that you think is so beautiful but it started with this just seed. So ‘less is more’ is sort of the theme.”
So, at this stage, it would have been fair to say that Durst was taking a more considered approach not just to his lyrical subject matter, but to the entire direction of the band, after the in-your-face miasma of Significant Other and Chocolate Starfish and the Hot Dog Flavored Water. Maybe Durst was just getting older, and being a father probably forced him to reassess his priorities, in the media spotlight and out.
While Durst and Rivers had been taking turns writing riffs, the band would also recruit some of the biggest names in hard rock to lend a hand. Korn’s Brian “Head” Welch, Weezer’s Rivers Cuomo, and Helmet’s Page Hamilton were brought in to lay down some guitar and vocal tracks. Of these sessions, only Head’s made it to the final product – the acoustic-led “Build a Bridge.”
It wasn’t all downtuned guitars and rock clamour. Part of the nu-metal genre is the overt hip-hop influence, and Limp Bizkit had collaborated with Method Man, Redman, Xzibit, and DMX to great success in the past. Durst had always wanted to work with Snoop Dogg, and in early 2003, he finally got his chance. A few drinks, some laughs, and a bit of freestyling later, Snoop and Bizkit emerged with the track “Red Light-Green Light,” an awesome collaboration, and one of the album’s high points.
The new year would see the band continue working on Less Is More, while Durst would make headlines for… different reasons. Rumours of a relationship with Britney Spears started making the rounds, after the two were reported as working in the studio together (for her album, not Limp Bizkit’s). What would have been a quickly forgotten story of a celebrity romance turned into a full-blown media storm. A blog post from Durst – essentially saying he had feelings for the pop singer – became fodder for tabloid journalists, who operate on a “where there’s smoke, there’s fire” principle, knowing fully what to do with rumours and gossip.
The Durst/Spears arc continued, with Durst doing little to deflect the rumours. Spears’ team had to address this at some point, with a representative denying any romantic involvement between the two. Spears herself would address the matter on MTV’s Total Request Live, saying “He’s not my type” when prodded by host Carson Daly.
Spears’ denial lit a fire under Durst, who had previously made an effort to be more reflective in his songwriting. This arc, however, made him wind up and bring back the venom. Songs like “Let Me Down” and “Lonely World” may have been congruent with Durst’s mellow side, expressing the feelings of jadedness and disappointment that come with a failed relationship, but it was the raw, unmixed diss track “Just Drop Dead” that would represent a no-holds-barred account of Durst’s frustration:
“Not only were you kissing, this fool you’ve been dissing,
You was playing me out, now you’d better listen…”
Spokespeople for the band would deny any association between “Just Drop Dead” and Spears, but the timing was a bit convenient for some. While it was not known at the time whether the song would make the album – now tentatively titled Bipolar – it was confirmed that it would not be the first single. It was just a leak. It wouldn’t make the final album cut either.
Lyrical inspiration, perhaps, but this episode was one of many distractions Durst didn’t need. Of course, going on Howard Stern’s show and going into detail didn’t exactly help matters.
And, as a plural entity, the band had other problems. Limp Bizkit had been tapped for Metallica’s Summer Sanitarium tour, along with Linkin Park, Deftones, and Mudvayne. What would normally be cause for celebration – the prospect of playing arenas ahead of one of the biggest metal bands of all time – became something of a crisis. The band and their management had to call a sort of all-hands-on-deck emergency meeting. The issue was preparing for a nation-wide tour without a guitarist.
Borland was gone. And while Head was happy to help out in the studio, he had his own commitments with Korn, who were recording their next album, Take a Look in the Mirror. The band needed a guitarist who could handle the immediate pressures of touring. They couldn’t just pick up some random guy off the street.
Enter Mike Smith, formerly of Santa Barbara thrash-punk outfit Snot. Both bands toured together when they did Ozzfest ’98, and now Smith was in a position to try out for the band and help his buddies.
“I ran into [drummer] John Otto at a bar one night and they were still looking for a guitar player,” Smith would recount during a tour stop. “I thought I might come down and jam with them if he wanted. And we kind of made that happen.”
Smith knew the band were under enormous pressure to rehearse for a tour and put out a new album, and that he needed to make an impression. The band already had an album’s worth of music in the can, and could have just recruited him for the tour, but Durst and co. found the chemistry with the guitarist to be “so dope” that they shelved what they had and decided to record fresh. Considering the shoes he was filling, this was astonishing.
Smith’s setup was similar to that of Borland in terms of guitars, amps, and effects (he names PRS, Mesa Boogie, Dunlop, and Dean Markley as endorsers in the sleeve’s acknowledgements section). Downtuned and heavy, but punchier and more mid-scooped than his predecessor. In terms of raw tone, Smith was a welcome remedy for a band starved of a guitar player for well over a year.
These sessions would give the album its heaviest tracks, including “Eat You Alive,” “Gimme the Mic,” “Almost Over,” and “Head for the Barricade,” to name a few. This direction in sound was seen as a plus by all involved, including the label.
“What people think you do is that,” Jimmy Iovine enthused of the new, heavier material, which is precisely what motivated Durst and the band to record another album’s worth of material with Smith.
With their new guitarist on board, Limp Bizkit would make their return to the stage at Wrestlemania XIX on March 30, performing “Crack Addict” and “Rollin’ (Air Raid Vehicle).” Head also joined the band onstage, marking a rare occasion where Limp Bizkit would perform live with two guitarists. The band would also perform a cover of Metallica’s “Welcome Home (Sanitarium)” at MTV Icon: Metallica in May.
With Smith recruited and the album’s overall instrumentation essentially done, all that was left was the lyrics. The band members would prepare for the upcoming Metallica tour, while Fred Durst confined himself to the studio to finish his parts. Of these tracks, the last to be finished was “Underneath the Gun,” a song fittingly about not only the pressure of the album, but also Durst’s life. It took a few late night sessions, but he finished it. The new album was finally complete.
With the album wrapped, Limp Bizkit hit the road for the Summer Sanitarium tour with Metallica, Linkin Park, Deftones, and Mudvayne. Crowds filled the arenas for these bands, all of whom were more than worthy of headlining their own shows. Limp Bizkit’s set was a best-of selection from previous albums, with the addition of two new tracks: “Head for the Barricade” and a cover of the Who’s “Behind Blue Eyes.”
The tour was not without incident however. After a New York show, Smith was taken to hospital after pinching a nerve while performing a jump during the band’s set. A hostile crowd in Chicago, Illinois forced the band to finish their set early, with a number of concertgoers suing for ticket refunds.
Other than that, the Summer Sanitarium tour was mostly fine for Durst and co., and after a few European festivals, the band returned to the States for the album’s release. They had a few working titles during recording and production. Given the selection of tracks recorded over multiple sessions, Durst came up with the final title:
Results May Vary, to be released on September 23, 2003.
Durst announced this on the band’s website, “The album title is Results May Vary. Like a prescription drug, each person’s reaction to the ingredients will be different.”
“Prescribed by Dr. Tyler Durden,” apparently, and a “dosage for everyone.” Take so many times daily, et cetera. Not bad at all, Fred. Like many kids of my generation, I grew up loving Fight Club (the novel and the film), and seeing this name-drop seemed very cool at the time.
Every band recording with a major label gets used to hearing the words, “We need a single,” from the label’s executive staff. Limp Bizkit were proud of the work they’d done on Results May Vary, it was just a question of which track.
“Eat You Alive” would be the album’s lead single, with an accompanying music video featuring Thora Birch and Bill Paxton. The track would sit at #16 on the Billboard US Mainstream Rock chart, while the album debuted at #3 on the Billboard 200, selling 325,000 copies. A number like that in itself is no small feat, but compared to the success of Significant Other and Chocolate Starfish (which both debuted at #1, selling 643,874 and 1,054,511 copies in their first weeks, respectively), Results May Vary was something of a rude awakening that the music world had moved on. This time, the album chart and overall music climate dominated by Atlanta hip-hop duo Outkast, with their unbelievably awesome, monumental double-album, Speakerboxxx/The Love Below.
The band would find greater success in the second and final single from Results May Vary, “Behind Blue Eyes.” The video featured Halle Berry, promoting the film Gothika, while the song itself would join the ranks of the Billboard US Hot 100 and become a hit across the charts in Europe and Australia. To this day, it is a staple of the band’s live set, so they must have done something right with this one.
Limp Bizkit would see out 2003 by co-headlining the Xbox Live Back 2 Basics tour with longtime friends Korn. Both bands were keen to recreate the energy of the days when life was less about charts and tabloids, and more about music and hanging out. What’s more, with the tour sponsored by Xbox, fans got to see all kinds of gaming-related content and even karaoke contests. It seemed that both bands had accepted being in a post-fame, post-success era and were just taking things as they came.
Longtime fans generally don’t consider the album to be Limp Bizkit’s best work, and I can see why. Many would have made up their minds before listening simply because of Borland’s absence. Others swear by it, considering the album a work of misunderstood genius. My take is that, regardless of the line-up, after Significant Other and Chocolate Starfish, Results May Vary had to be the way it was. More introspective, lyrically, and an effort to move beyond the red-faced frat boy ethos of previous works. And if it seems unfocused, that’s probably because of the many distractions in Durst’s life at the time, whether they be personal, public, or just general pressure from the industry.
My only gripe with Results May Vary is that the band didn’t use Smith’s tracks fully. Seven of them made it to the final cut, but tracks like “Cowgirls from Hell,” “Masturbation,” and “Poison Ivy” would fit just fine as well. They were never officially released, but have been floating around online as a series of bootlegs referred to by fans as Off the Record. Some of these songs were released as b-sides, others were “leaked” during the MySpace days. I guess an official compilation will never happen, but hey-ho.
That said, Results May Vary is an album that lives up to its name – a diverse effort with tracks pulled from different sessions with different guitarists and lyrical designs.
I’m glad Limp Bizkit did it. I’m glad they put it together and put it out there.
Lawrence Deveney 