Limp Bizkit guitarist Wes Borland quit the band in 2001, only to rejoin once again in 2004. Borland revealed in a recent interview with Let There Be Talk that he lost all his money in the stock shortly after quitting the band, and that all his then ex-bandmates experienced something very similar.
Interviewer: At one point, was it just massive money?
“Yeah, like a ridiculous amount of money. And all of my money got really aggressively invested in the stock market – high-risk stocks. Because at that time, this is one of the things, this is one of the ideas of arrested development – because I was just like this you said, when you’re in it, you think it’s never going to end!
“Because people are just stroking your ego going, ‘You guys are the best thing ever, this ride is never going to end,’ and positive, positive, positive. The buzz is on, and then you’re like defeating boy bands on TRL – we felt like gods! And so I was just like, ‘Yeah, man, invest it all! If we lose it all, who cares? There’s more where that came from!’
Interviewer: And did you lose it?
“All of it. 9/11 happened and I lost well over a million dollars in the stock market. Just gone – poof! And what’s crazy is – I was just like, ‘Whatever.’ But I had nothing! That was all my money!
“And I was like, ‘Don’t worry, we’ll make more money.’ And then I was like, ‘Actually, I don’t want to.’ And I quit.”
Interviewer: Oh my god! So you quit and you had no money at that time?
“Yeah, and I look back on this it’s just like, ‘God, you’re an idiot.’ And everyone listening to this will think I’m an idiot too, but this is how hard-headed I am and was at the time.
“They were like, ‘All the money’s gone, you lost all your money in the stock market. We have touring set up next year and you’re gonna net 5 million next year.’ And I said, ‘You can shove it up your fucking ass. I’d rather be poor.’
“And I left. I was in the management office and they were just like, ‘Okay.’ Yeah, I’m like the most hard-headed idiot.”
Interviewer: Now, when you look at it the other dudes, were they broke too?
“Yeah, because their money was kind of invested in the same way.”
Borland also explained why he quit Limp Bizkit in 2001, saying he just couldn't take being in the band anymore.
“I think [I quit] two times, but mainly it was the one where I was just like, ‘I can’t take this anymore,’ you know, the money, everything – I can’t. I can’t be subjected to this kind of insanity anymore. Because I think what happens is – I became a part of creating a public persona that wasn’t really… I just play a small part in that because it’s also everyone else’s idea, or presentation, or the way that they are viewing whatever is going on.
“And that was a weird time where people were like – whenever a band gets big enough, there become these really strange folks that – maybe they’re not strange, maybe they’re just totally normal, but they write fan fiction. And I was getting all these like – people sending me stories they’d written about the band. It was just bizarre, just people get way in there, way into it, and just get in a whole dream world of thinking about people.
“And I was just like, ‘This is gross, I don’t wanna do this. I don’t wanna be in magazines, I don’t wanna be…’ Because at first, you’re like, if you haven’t ever been in a magazine or been famous, it seems like it’s going to be awesome! And it’s just weird. You’re like, ‘Yay, I’m on the cover!’ And then you’re like, ‘I don’t want to be, I don’t want to do this anymore. I don’t want to be tricked into the photographer telling me to make a certain pose and we won’t use that one, we just have to get it.’”
Check out more highlights of the interview on Ultimate Guitar.
[via MetalSucks]
