​Q&A with Fred Durst

High Plains Reader got to interview the one and only red-Yankee-ball-capped, Nookie-screaming, Limp-Bizkit-leading Fred Durst.

After an eight-year hiatus, the original lineup is back together and kicking a few new singles, including “Ready to Go” featuring rap idol Lil’ Wayne. The rap-metal band is also currently on a world tour and promoting its yet-to-be-released album, “Stampede of The Disco Elephants.” Fargoans can catch Fred, Wes Borland and the rest of the gang this Wednesday, Sept. 25 at The Venue.

High Plains Reader: What’s the status on “Stampede of The Disco Elephants”? Will it be releasing soon?

Fred Durst: We are looking at the first quarter of 2015. We just keep adding crazy stuff to it, doing different things. It’s pretty intense, the whole experience. It’s so crazy that I can’t even call it a conventional album. I think what we’re doing is trying to do something that we feel you are going to love for what it is and not for how this is 10 incredible hit songs or 10 songs that the popular folks are going to have on their radar.

It’s more like a really exciting, very honest, very visceral experience. We like to call it the nu metal Paul’s Boutique. You know, Beastie Boys, when they made “Paul’s Boutique,” they were so ahead of the curve that I think it threw a lot of people off that were used to one style of the Beasties, but then it changed the way they made music forever … this feels like that for us. We are doing something for us that caters to our attention deficit disorder. It’s like bits and pieces and spurts and things that go together in our mind that wouldn’t maybe go together in someone else’s minds and just crazy honesty and extremely addictive viral grooves.

HPR: There were other groups that mixed rap and heavy metal together during your early times, but Limp Bizkit was definitely one of the first to really find massive, popular success in mixing the two genres. Think back, how do you find the mix compelling enough to want to grow your life around it?

FD: I just love “phat” beats and urban music and I got turned on to hip-hop in 1979, I was 9 years old. I was obsessed with grooves and dancing, but then I also loved rock and punk rock and alternative. I just loved everything and I was inspired on a rhythmic vocal cadence level, rapping style and hip-hop. I just felt like I could dance and rap to any kind of music … and it just felt natural that it all went together, that I could just flow or do anything. So when it came to putting Limp Bizkit together, I was one of those guys who never had any boundaries between the genres.

I don’t think I pioneered it because I was influenced by urban dance and the cross overs with Run DMC in the early days; 311’s first album’s music was really ahead of the curve and of course Rage Against The Machine. But I just felt like with Limp Bizkit, there was something so dysfunctional about my upbringing of being bullied and tortured and the way the band came together, I just had this vision and I just found these players and they believed in the vision. It was just bizarre. We never thought we’d get out of the garage … we never thought we’d be asked to play a concert 19 years later. We can’t freaking believe it.

HPR: As a two-decade-long music industry vet who’s met everything from wild success to controversies to mass criticism to mass praise, what are some of the biggest lessons you’ve learned that fuel you to keep going, especially as an aging hard rock musician.

FD: Well, I guess, honestly. I keep using that word and the description is broad, but the reason we keep doing this -- we have so many different inspirational things that we are emotionally connected to outside of what this is, but the reason we keep doing this is because it’s still in us. We’re evolving a perspective and who we are as people are evolving but there is still some bizarre thing in us that lets us react to this environment in music that gets us going. If we didn’t feel that anymore it would be a little ridiculous but when you see Limp Bizkit now, we’re definitely growing older and we look older but the music feels exactly the same and it’s in fact even more powerful because everybody’s mastered their craft. Before when you’d go in chaotic and not know what’s happening – now we know exactly how to use it.

People should just stay honest and true to whatever they believe and if something gets them success in any type of the way, A-plus for them and A for effort. But if it’s not genuine, not honest or not real, don’t be scared to take another path … just always chase what you know is true and sincere to you. Don’t feel you have to keep doing something just because it’s maybe financially successful. The honesty is going to break through and always rise to the top and if you believe in what you are doing you are always going to be successful.

IF YOU GO:

Limp Bizkit and Blvck Ceiling

Wed, Sept. 24, 8 p.m.

The Venue, 2525 9th Ave SW, Fargo

all ages, jadepresents.com