Limp Bizkit frontman Fred Durst has paid tribute to the band's late bassist, Sam Rivers, in an emotional social post, recounting how the pair met and recalling how Rivers was paramount to the formation of the nu-metal heavyweights.
Rivers passed away aged 48 over the weekend and tributes to the “pure magic” musician have since flooded in. With Limp Bizkit, Durst says Rivers could pull a “beautiful sadness” out of the bass guitar, believing him to be the most crucial ingredient in the band's genre-blurring success.
“Sam Rivers was such a truly gifted, unbelievably sweet and wonderful person,” Durst says in an emotional Instagram post.
He explains how Rivers became the vehicle for his vision of a band that mashed together hip-hop, punk, and heavy metal. After several “iterations of the idea,” he stumbled across Rivers in Jacksonville, Florida.
“I had this vision for this particular sound, and I just couldn't get it together right,” Durst says. “So I decided, ‘I'm going to go out and find the right players to do this’. I'd gone into this tiny bar where this band was playing called Pier Seven, and there Sam was on the stage with his band, killing it on the bass. I went, ‘Oh my gosh, this guy's amazing.’ I was blown away. He was playing a five-string bass, too. I'd never really seen someone use a five-string bass.
“In my mind, you had to start with the rhythm section,” the singer continues. “I saw Sam play, and he was so smooth; I could hear nothing else but Sam. Everything disappeared, besides his gift.
“I went up to Sam after the show, and I said, ‘Hey, man, you're unbelievable. I got this idea for this band I want to do...’ and I kind of threw it out there. He looked at me and he said, ‘Killer, I'm in. Let's do it.’ That's kind of how things started to come together.”
It was Rivers who suggested drummer John Otto, his cousin, for the band, given his jazz background.
“With John and Sam, it was a magical thing,” Durst adds. “I felt like, ‘This is it.’
“Sam had this thing about him, where anything I could spit out of my mouth, ‘Try this,’ he could do it, and do it 1,000 times better than I can hear it in my head.”
Rivers’ passing has come as a huge shock to many in the metal fanbase, and Durst has been left to reflect on the life he led.
“It's so tragic that he's not here right now, and I've gone through gallons and gallons of tears since yesterday,” he states. “He did it. He lived it.
“With Limp Bizkit, we've just been on such a journey. We've rocked stadiums together, been around the world together, shared so many moments, and I know that wherever he is right now, he's smiling like, ‘I did it’, and man, did he do it. What he's left behind is priceless.”
In 2000, Rivers was crowned Best Bassist at the Gibson Awards; the same year he was a cover star for Bass Player's October issue.
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