Tim Commerford still can’t believe that Limp Bizkit are actually a thing that happened to the world, and the Rage Against The Machine bassist blames himself.
“I do apologize for Limp Bizkit,” he tells Rolling Stone in a new interview. “I really do. I feel really bad that we inspired such bullshit.”
The Bizkit have covered Rage’s iconic 1992 stormer Killing In The Name over 100 times across their illustrious career, and frontman Fred Durst has openly cited the band as influencing him to embark on his own musical journey.
“When I first heard [Killing In The Name], that shit hit me right the fuck here,” he told a Limp Bizkit crowd in New York City last year, pointing to his heart. “And this next part” (singer Zach de la Rocha’s repeated screams of “Fuck you! I won’t do what you tell me!”) “changed my life.”
But, unfortunately for Durst, the feeling is not mutual.
“They’re gone, though,” Commerford adds, seemingly unaware that the band still tours. “That’s the beautiful thing. There’s only one left, and that’s Rage, and as far as I’m concerned, we’re the only one that matters.”
The string-slapper infamously pulled a Kanye West (before pulling a Kanye West was even a thing) during Limp Bizkit’s acceptance speech for the ‘Best Rock Video’ gong at the 2000 MTV Video Music Awards.
After Durst & company’s Break Stuff beat out Rage’s Sleep Now in the Fire for the award, Commerford crashed the stage, scaled a 20-foot palm tree and refused to come down.
“It’s aged like wine,” Commerford says of the notorious incident, which many cite as a factor in the band’s breakup, which happened soon after. “What was uncomfortable and a little bit bitter in 2000, now I savor it.
“I get more people that come up to me now,” he continues. “Back in 2000, it was like, ‘Dude, I saw you do that. What was that all about?’ Now, it’s like, ‘Dude, I saw you do that. That was so fuckin’ awesome! I love that.’ It feels more comfortable now to talk about.”
And when asked if he had any regrets about the stunt, which saw him arrested for disorderly conduct and forced to spend the night in the slammer, Commerford admits to only one:
“I wish I would’ve swung on that thing and brought it to the ground and just destroyed it,” he says. “If I could do it all over again, I would’ve ripped that thing to the ground and shredded it.”
Shredded it like a FRED DURST GUITAR SOLO, amirite?
Watch: Fred Durst Guitar Solo
Watch: RATM Tim Commerford Arrested
