Limp Bizkit Guitarist Is Dreading Next Week’s Nü-Metal Cruise

Neilson Barnard/Getty

Limp Bizkit Guitarist Is Dreading Next Week’s Nü-Metal Cruise

Neilson Barnard/Getty

Wes Borland is the guitarist in Limp Bizkit, and you probably remember him as the guy with the makeup and the weird contact lenses in the band’s videos. Even when the band was at its commerically dominant peak, Borland was something of a reluctant participant. There was a “Nookie”-era SPIN cover story that described him a the guy who tries to make the rest of the band listen to Ween on the tour bus, and he said that he didn’t imagine he’d be in the band for much longer. Well, he wasn’t, and then he was again. Borland has quit and returned to the band a few times over the years. But now he’s back in, and he seems to really, truly hate it.

As Metal Injection points out, Limp Bizkit is currently gearing up to play the ShipRocked cruise, which also features bands like Buckcherry, Sevendust, and P.O.D. This is not a dream gig for Borland. In a recent Instagram post, here’s how he described his feelings:

Getting all packed up this week for Broatchella 2015. It’s the same as Brochella but it’s off land. Can’t wait to see me some roided out tribal tattooed spray tanned Jell-O shot filled bohunks do their best drunk MMA impressions in the top deck mosh pit. Whenever we aren’t on stage, I’ll be curled up fetal position in my cabin, palms up, while I desperately cling to the last week of my thirties as it slips through my hooked fingers. So, I’d like to give a shout out now to all the other over-the-hill late nineties/early 2000s bands going on the cruise: Let’s give these people the raging alcohol fueled nostalgia fest they’re paying for guys! I know we can do it if we tune down low enough!

Also, there’s this:

And this:

Remember when Kid Rock shouted out Bizkit on “American Badass”? Happier times…

Borland’s story is a pretty fascinating one. He’s an art-school kid and a jazz-guitar virtuoso who would rather be playing with his industrial side project. But he keeps coming back to Bizkit, presumably because it pays the bills. Plenty of us have had to work jobs we hate, but Borland’s job is to be the guy who used to be on TRL, and if he hates it, he really just has himself to blame. Michael, who will certainly weigh in in the comments section, regards Borland as one of the people who profited by destroying metal in the ’90s. And that makes sense! But don’t you feel just a tiny bit sad for him?

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