The Armpit : A Tribute to Limp Bizkit

timeline - 1994

Fred was spending some time in the army. and he was married but that didn't work out- he spent a month in jail after physically abusing the guy that his wife was cheating on him with. After that Fred decided that he was going to leave his past behind him and was going to form a band... He started looking for people to be in his band when he met Sam Rivers who was working at a "Chick-Fil-A" in Jacksonville...

timeline - 1995

This year Korn played for the first time in Jacksonville. The guitarist "Head" and bassist Fieldy, met Fred at one of their shows and Fred invited them back to his place for some free tattoo's. By accident Fred tattooed 'Horn' instead of 'Korn' On Head's arm. Fred and Korn developed a strong friendship.. In this way limp became friends with korn's producer Ross Robinson. Wes Borland got kicked out of LB for being 'too weird' and Rob Waters was given his place back in the band. At this time LB was named "limp bizkut". At this time 'limp bizkut' had recorded their first ever demo tape which was called the Mental Aquaducts Records Demo...

timeline - 1996

1996 was the year that Irish hip-hop band the house of pain split up. Limp Bizkit [no longer 'limp bizkut'] and the House Of Pain were very good friends and LB kept in touch with their DJ, DJ Lethal who eventually became a full time limp bizkit member. Earlier in 1996 limp bizkit recorded their three dollar bill y'all $ demo tape which consisted of Counterfeit [demo], Pollution [demo] and Stuck [demo]. This demo was created with the 5-peice limp bizkit which included Fred Durst, John Otto, Wes Borland, Sam Rivers and Scott Borland not DJ Lethal. Limp Bizkit gave this demo tape to korn who then passed it onto Ross Robinson who offered them a deal and agreed to produce their first album.´

timeline - 1997

Limp Bizkit's first ever full length album was released in America in July of this year. The album was produced by Ross Robinson and was mixed by Matt Wallace. Scott Borland who was never really a fully fledged member of the band played keyboards on tracks 1, 2, and 6 of the album. Sales of the album started off poorly, only selling in and around Jacksonville. Limp Bizkit toured almost constantly in 1997 featuring on tours such as The Vans Warped Tour 1997 and the Faith No More tour. All their touring seemed to pay off as sales of their album started to rise due to the success of their single counterfeit

timeline - 1998

limp bizkit really started to get recognised in 1998 when they released their cover of the George Michael classic 'faith'. In 1998 limp bizkit did a lot of tours including Ozzfest 1998 and their own huge tour with korn - the family values tour. limp bizkit toured constantly through 1998 to promote their album. Sales of the album sky rocketed when faith was released and saw the album go platinum shortly after. The video to 'faith' which was directed by fred durst included lots of clips from limp bizkit's family values tour and the video became extremely popular on mtv's trl staying on their chart for which felt like forever...

timeline - 1999

In 1999 limp bizkit hit the studio again and brought out their second album: significant other. It was released June 22, 1999. The album went straight in at #1 and stayed on the billboards for a very long time. The album sold about 1 million copies in the first week, and their first single from the new album "Nookie" became popular all around the world and became a popular saying for the time: 'I did it all for the nookie' The album was produced by Terry Date And Limp Bizkit.

After the release of Significant Other limp bizkit went back on tour. The tours they did were huge and very successful but problems at some venues gave limp bizkit a bad reputation especially after the death of a young girl at the woodstock '99 concert which they were playing at. Fred also got media attention for reportedly kicking a security guard in the head on the Limptropolis tour which they did which also included Kid Rock and Staind.

timeline - 2000

Limp Bizkit had a lot of success in 2000. Firstly they released their soundtrack song for the film Mission Impossible 2 [take a look around]. The song and the film were a big success and it brought the name 'limp bizkit' right across the world. The band started to get more notice from Europe and other countries outside of the US, something they did not have before. After This the band released their third studio album with the short name: "chocolate starfish and the hotdog flavored water". This album included take a look around as well as 2 singles which limp bizkit released at the same time to promote the album. They released 'Rollin' and 'My generation' Rollin' hit #1 in the UK and helped their album to sell millions in the first week. The band won best rock video on the Mtv VMA in stockholm sweden for their 'Break Stuff' video. Fred also had a bit of a fling with Christina Aguilera which ended up with them performing together at the VMA's. He was asked why he did it afterwards and simply replied "I did it all for the nookie...

timeline - 2001

2001'... the year that a lot happened.. (not everything but a lot of things). LB released a lot of singles like my way and boiler.. At the MTV music video awards LB won best rock video again: "rollin" and fred decided to send a letter to WTC to thank them as parts of the rollin video were shot on the roof of the world trade center. The letter arrived on the 10th of September 1 day before the 9/11 terrorist attacks. After that Fred played a cover of "wish you where here" feat Goo Goo Dolls, on the Tribute to heroes. on the 9th of decemeber Wes quit the band... At the MTV EMA's Fred performed with Wes from puddle of mudd and Jimmy Page. They played "thank you" by led zeppelin. on the same night LB took away 3 awards out of the 4 they were nominated for: best group, best album, and best homepage (www.limpbizkit.com). New old songs was released shortly after...

timeline - 2002

In 2002 limp bizkit went in search of a new guitarist to replace wes borlands boots. They toured throughout the whole of america for around 4 months. Many things happened on this tour including fred being attacked by a pie wielding slipknot fan. nothing was heard from limp bizkit for many months until late 2002 when fred updated the official website releasing news about their new album. In the time that they had not been heard from they had been recording songs for their new album and fred announced that the album would be called less is more. the name was then changed to lessismore [no spaces] people started to create fake track listings naming what they thought would be on the album until fred announced that their first single would be called 'crack addict'...

timeline - 2003

In 2003 Limp bizkit made their first performance in nearly 2 years at the WWE Wrestlemania event. Limp Bizkit had yet to find a new guitarist, but Head from Korn and Mike Smith originally from Snot played for this performance. Despite not yet appearing to have a new guitarist, Limp also signed up to do several live tours. Eventually it was announced that Mike Smith would be Borland’s replacement, as Limp Bizkit had failed to find anyone suitable during their “Put Your Guitar Where Your Mouth Is” tour. It was during this time that Limp bizkit’s name was oddly altered slightly to limpbizkit, in order to show that the band had grown into something different. Although the band had already recorded well over an album’s worth of material (much of which featured Fred, Sam and different guests on guitar), they decided that now they had an official guitarist that they would re-enter the studio and try to record another album’s worth of music. After many delays, the band’s new album was finally released and cleverly titled ‘Results May Vary’. The first single released was Eat You Alive, and despite claims that Crack Addict would be the first single, the song didn’t even make it on to the album. The album to this date has been one of Limp Bizkit’s (or limpbizkit’s....) most controversial releases. The album was initially released to almost universal panning by critics. Limp Bizkit had become a band that was seen as a joke by the media, and this album did little to sway people’s opinions. The album has since divided the fan base, with some praising its more mature sound and stronger lyrics, whilst some feel the Limp Bizkit sound they once knew and loved had been heavily diluted. Despite criticisms, the album still went on to reach platinum status, and some of the songs are still held to this day as some of Limp Bizkit’s finest work. A cover of The Who’s Behind Blue Eyes was also a successful single. In this year Limp Bizkit toured on the Summer Sanitarium tour with headliners Metallica, along with Linkin Park, Deftones and Mudvayne to promote Metallica's 2003 release, St. Anger.

timeline - 2004

In 2004 the band continued to tour in support of their Results May Vary album, and it was even announced that they would be planning to work on a new album later in the year. Unfortunately this year however, there were quite a few performances cancelled for various reasons. This year also marked the last year that the band would perform live for what would remain a long time... Before going to record a new album though, a poll was made on the official website for fans to pick the band’s next single. Almost Over was chosen as the next single, but due to events that later unfolded, it was never released. It was also at this time that a Greatest Hits album was announced to come out, but this was also later put on hold. The collection was something the label was interested in releasing, but something the band members have always criticised. The members managed to delay the label releasing a Greatest Hits, by promising to release a new album. It was at this time when working on new material that rumours started to circulate the net that Wes was back n the band and that Mike was out. In August this was later confirmed by the band themselves with simply a picture of Wes in the studio with the rest of the band. Fred simply made a post on his blog saying “well, now the limp bizkit fans know about wes. pretty dope.” Due to Wes being back, the band then dropped all promotions of RMV, cancelled their summer tour plans and got straight to work on their next album. Ross Robinson was later confirmed as the producer.

timeline - 2005

2005 saw Limp Bizkit release The Unquestionable Truth Part 1, a mini album on May 3rd 2005. The approach Limp Bizkit took to making and releasing this album was very different from past albums. The band were doing no interviews and taking a very underground approach to launching their album. They released a video for track #2 The Truth on their website, which had the impact of a flash storm among the core Limp Bizkit fans. The song was released to universal praise by fans around the world, and people hyped to hear the album. Interestingly the band chose not to promote the album at all, and instead selling it on its name alone. Fred described it as something he wanted only the true fans to hear. The year was a troublesome year to say the least, and was only a taste of what was to come... Whilst the first part of TUT could be considered a flop, the band claimed that they chose to not promote it, which is why the sales weren’t strong. Rumours were circulating that John was suffering from drug problems and had left the band. Whilst the rumours that he had left were later disproved, it still remained clear that John was battling with an addiction. As a consequence, John wasn’t featured on the album bar one song. Instead the band pulled drummer Sammy Siegler in to fill in. A short ‘making of’ video was also released with the EP, but this showed a band at breaking point. The video was filled with footage of the band arguing and being very emotional. It also seemed to confirm John’s problems. Fred furthermore made a very controversial comment one time in the lb.com chat when asked about possible collaborations or guests on the album(s). He responded with “"No collaborations, only with one guest-wes b"” which led people to thinking that the band may have fallen out with Wes again. Shows that were then planned for the year were cancelled, but Fred was still adamant that TUT2 would be coming out later in the year. Although this was not the case, Greatest Hitz was released and Fred did do some minor promotional work for this.

timeline - 2006

With no official word from the band in months and rumours circulating that the band had broken up, the future seemed bleak for the band. Wes was spending more time on his solo project Black Light Burns, and Fred was gaining more directing work. The fans had no idea what was going on and no one seemed keen to speak out. Eventually after being asked repeatedly by LB fans on his personal Myspace account , Wes spoke out about what was going on from his perspective. He said that he was now concentrating solely on his new band Black Light Burns and that Limp bizkit were officially on hiatus. He elaborated by saying that he was eager to go on tour and release TUT2, but no one in the band was willing to do that. He claimed that the band had recorded about 2 albums worth of material, but Fred had only recorded vocals for the 7 tracks that made it onto TUT1. He also said the band hadn’t seen each other since before the release of TUT1. Wes went on to say even more regarding Limp Bizkit in a MTV interview that followed. A few weeks later, a new short interlude appeared on the Limp Bizkit Myspace page with nothing else. The interlude was rap freestyle by Fred and was an obvious stab at Wes. Fred later released a blog posting attacking his former band mate. He claimed that despite what Wes had said, the band were very much alive and accused Wes of using fans. What followed was a brutal war of words exchanged by Wes and his former band members for a long period of time. Eventually the arguments were dropped, and the band continued without Wes. Initially Fred claimed that TUT2 was still coming out and would be released later in the year. In the meantime a new guitar audition was held on Myspace and Fred encouraged fans to send in their auditions. Morley Tatro and Monkeywaster both gained a minor amount of publicity. However, during this year Fred became more engrossed in his directing career and it seemed more and more unlikely that Limp Bizkit were active. Fred continued to keep the fans interested though by releasing a vast number of unreleased Limp Bizkit songs to the fans via the Myspace page. The official lb.com page was closed, which seemed to indicate that the band were definitely on a hiatus, possibly even a break up.

timeline - 2007-2008

In 2007 Fred continued to keep in contact with the fans via Myspace. He still leaked unreleased tracks every so often whilst he was busy with directing and acting jobs. The other members were also kept busy with their own side projects, and although no official statement had ever been made by the band, it was obvious they were on indefinite hiatus. Wes released his debut Black Light Burns album, and the other members worked on their own music. A few photos did get uploaded by the band though every so often showing some recording occurring in the studio.

As with 2007, 2008 mostly continued with each band member progressing with their own goals. However by second half of the year rumours started circulating that the band were planning a European tour for the following year. Whilst no official statement was ever made regarding this, Dj Lethal, Sam Rivers and John Otto joined the Armpit forums and started engaging the fans. They seemed to be building the fans up for a comeback. They mentioned they were rehearsing for a tour and that they were working on new material. They also posted photos and some of them showed guitarist Terry Balsamo (Cold/Evanescence) in the studio with them. Rumours started to do the rounds claiming that Terry was going to be the new guitarist. However, although this was never confirmed or denied, it was confirmed that Terry was working on music with Sam for his side project.

timeline - 2009

After posting a lot on the forums and promising something big was happening. The band then remained fairly quiet. This left some fans fairly confused as to what was going on. Eventually though rumours started circulating that Wes was back into the fold. Whilst talking during an interview with Metal Hammer. The Download Festival organiser mentioned that amongst many other bands, he was trying to get Limp Bizkit to perform. When asked whether they were still around (as they had been out of the media’s eye for a number of years), the organiser replied that Wes was back in the band and that they are planning a summer tour. The very same day this interview was posted, the Limp Bizkit website was updated for the first time in 3 years. Although the site was still closed, it showed a blank image of each member’s head drawn in Wes’ style. It also showed Wes’ face. This seemed to confirm that Wes was indeed back, but there was still little word from the band. Eventually Lethal posted on the Armpit forums that something big was coming the following night, and when that time came, the official website was opened with an official stamen from the band. Since then the band have gone on to their 2009 Unicorn N’ Rainbows tour to critical acclaim and huge success. The band have spoken out about their choice to reunite and seem to be tighter than ever. Currently the band are writing and recording for their forthcoming new album, which is scheduled to be released late 2009/early 2010... Keep checking us here at the Armpit for all the updates.

timeline | band | extras | music + video