Limp Bizkit’s Wes Borland on Their Bizarre Resurgence

Limp Bizkit’s place in music culture has shifted dramatically. In the late ’90s, they sold millions while critics dismissed them. Now, they’re recapturing old fans and making new ones on the main stages of festivals like Louder Than Life and Aftershock. Wes Borland, the band’s guitarist, has a straightforward explanation for the reappraisal.

“My wife just usually goes, ‘I think it’s like you guys just are having fun finally. And people can see that,’” Borland said in a recent interview. He traced the turnaround to a shedding of old tensions. “There was a time where we had a lot of inner turmoil… I feel like our fans were, like, ‘Ugh… some dark shit is going on.’” With the exception of the loss of bassist Sam Rivers, he noted, “what else terrible can happen? We’ve already been through all of it.”

That levity is visible. Frontman Fred Durst now performs in goofy costumes; Borland’s own stagewear remains otherworldly. The 2021 album Still Sucks poked direct fun at the band’s legacy of backlash. Borland sees it as audiences letting go of old stigmas. “When people stop taking things so seriously and just relax a little bit… you just go, ‘Oh, I don’t care about this stigma so much. I like this band.’”

The result speaks for itself: festival headline slots and a two-night stand in Nashville this October. As Borland put it, maybe they’re finally having fun—and it shows.