Cesar
Limp Bizkit are a band that are kind of hard to group into a fitting genre. Sure, we can be easy and call it Alternative, because let’s face it – anything can and will be called Alternative when there are no genre ideas at that moment in time. It’s an easy out. No one really disagrees with it either.
More often than not, Limp Bizkit are thrown into this Nu-Metal era which a lot of people look back on fondly. Outside of post-Grunge (whatever that is), Nu-Metal was the next big thing and eventually handed the transition of Grunge to Emo/Hardcore music. It was the really weird, spiky haired, step child. The middle child that was really loud, sometimes obnoxious, but always tried to have fun.
When it comes to L-I-M-P, the band has often been labeled as misogynist and bullying-friendly, over their angsty lyrics and aggressive tunes.
As reported by UG – In a new interview with Bill Maher, frontman Fred Durst called out this label, saying (via Louder): “I was bullied my whole life. Tortured, bullied…I was really this peon kid in my city, at school, and ultimately the vehicle I used to put behind Limp Bizkit was, ‘Oh, man, I’ll use this microphone to fight these guys back!'”
For Durst, music was the way for him to vent.
He continued: “But the irony was: the bullies that tortured me were dressing like me in the audience. So this massive art project turned into the most ironic thing…and here I am 25 years later going, ‘Wow, this is unbelievable!'”
What may be the most ironic is that, typically, fair-weather listeners of Limp Bizkit are more steady in gym-bro culture, which, Durst claims is anti-him and anti-Bizkit.
He closed: “People call [Limp Bizkit] ‘jock rock’. I mean, I despise jocks, ’cause those were the guys beating my ass all the time.”
When you really look at it, it seems that Durst and Bizkit had more in common with Grunge and the ethos of it than many other bands within the realm that Bizkit were thrown into. That, of course, being Jock Rock. You can surely hear some Grunge undertones in Limp Bizkit, but they were never as up front musically as maybe more of a mentality and mindset for Durst and the rest of the band.
