Jackson’s all-new signature guitar for Limp Bizkit’s Wes Borland is finally here, and it’s a recreation of his iconic King V that began life as a factory floor reject.

Built on a foundation of Borland’s “boundary-pushing approach to performance and tone” and promising “uncompromising power and raw sonic intensity”, the Pro Series Signature Wes Borland King V has been a long time coming.

Borland's affection for weird and wonderful guitars is well-known. Some of his past hits include a custom four-string guitar-bass hybrid from PRS, and the model that inspired this new signature – which started out as a left-handed factory reject.

Borland recalled the guitar's origin in a 2013 interview with Total Guitar, recalling how he stumbled across the oddball V while perusing a range of faulty builds. After coming across an unwanted southpaw model, he converted it to a right-handed configuration, and it became one of his Number One instruments.

So, yes, this new signature is a left-handed V flipped the other way around – exactly like Borland's original – and the Jackson logo on its pointed headstock remains upside down in honor of that.

Other key features include Seymour Duncan Invader SH8 humbuckers to deliver high-output tones and “razor-sharp clarity,” and a recessed Floyd Rose 1500 Series bridge, which can handle screaming dive bombs until the cows come home. The volume knob has also been kept well out of the way.

Built with a neck-through construction, which in turn gets graphite reinforcement, it can withstand whatever insanity Borland puts it through.

“It’s taking me a long time to figure out what I need as a guitar player,” Borland confesses. And who knew a simple error would lead him to such a unique trademark six-string.

“For me, you just need volume, pickups, a locking tremolo system, and 24 frets, that’s it,” he adds. “Live, it just needs to be as bulletproof as possible. I’ve come to realize that the more streamlined our guitars are, the fewer problems we have on stage.

“Jackson is fun, the over-the-top, shred-a-copter shapes, and my outrageous stage costumes pushing the boundaries, this fits in more with that. It’s fricking crazy; it’s about time!”

It was while recording Bizkit’s trash-tinged record, The Unquestionable Truth, in 2004, that Borland got his first Jackson, grabbing a used Rhoads V from a local guitar shop. That became “a big part of the album”, before producer Ross Robinson gave him his 1981 Jackson Rhoads, and his love affair with Jackson Vs has remained red-hot since.

“Wes Borland is unlike anyone else in nu-metal,” says Peter Wichers, Product Development Manager at Jackson Guitars. “Being involved in the development of his Signature King V has been an incredibly cool project, and I think that shows in every inch of this guitar.”

The Jackson Pro Series Signature Wes Borland King V KV is available now for $1,299.99 / £1,199 / €1,399.

See Jackson for more.

For those chasing every inch of Borland’s sound, the guitar will pair well with his signature STL plugin suite.

Halloween might be a little over four months away, but that hasn’t stopped Wes Borland from getting into the spirit of things by cosplaying as James Hetfield while supporting Metallica on tour.

The Limp Bizkit electric guitar titan has been taking part in Metallica’s M72 world tour, and to celebrate the final stop of the current run, Borland donned a curly blonde wig as he comedically cosplayed as an ’80s-era James Hetfield.

It was an exemplary effort from Borland, who – along with ripped jeans, a classic Metallica tee, sweatbands around his wrists, and white high-top trainers – donned a white Jackson Kelly to troll Hetfield’s own iconic Explorer-style ESP

The Kelly – which tipped its hat to the metal guitar Hetfield frequently played throughout the 1980s – also has “EET PHO” scrawled on its body.

This is a nifty reference to Hetfield’s similarly-shaped 1987 ESP MX220, which has the charming words “EET FUK” written on it. However, a skull mask ensures that the ever-effervescent Borland still has some of his own flair in the look.

Speaking to Playboy in 2001, Hetfield had said, “Limp Bizkit seems a little cartoony to me”, and while that opinion may have changed 24 years on, Borland’s comical cosplay probably does compound that sentiment a little.

In related news, Borland, who released a signature Tonality plugin with STL Tones last year, has spoken about how his beloved Jackson King V guitar started life as a factory reject, but has since become so much more.

Gibson, meanwhile, recently sent Metallica fans into a frenzy in December when it teased a new signature run of Hetfield’s Explorer. Sadly, no such run is yet to materialize, as it turns out it was a special one-off build for Jason Mamoa.

Metallica's hard-working techs have also given an eye-opening insight into the gear needed for the tour. The band are currently touring with 64 guitars, and 36 need to be shred-ready at any given moment. They also go through a ridiculous 6,000 guitar picks each night. A whopping 800 locals are also employed to support the running of each show. And now 1x blonde wig can be added to the band's sizable itinerary.

Limp Bizkit guitarist Wes Borland has long been known for his love of unconventional six-strings.

Well, we can't even really just say six-strings to be honest, because also been known to use a unique four-string baritone guitar, and he, a couple years back, developed a fascinating four-string guitar/bass hybrid with PRS.

Oddball PRS models aside, though, Borland has long been associated with Jacksons, with one of his favorites being a particular King V with a unique origin story.

In a video interview with Total Guitar in 2013, the nü-metal guitar hero explained that, rather than a top-of-the-line custom job involving the best of Jackson's best luthiers, his King V was actually a factory floor reject.

“My rep at Jackson had a couple of guitars that had factory flaws in them and had been returned, and he said, ‘There's a couple of King Vs that I think you'd be incredibly interested in,’” Borland explained.

Borland's Jackson rep went on to tell the guitarist that one of these had a reverse headstock. “But lo and behold,” Borland said, “when we opened the case it turned out to be a left-handed [King] V.”

Undeterred, Borland was “excited to take it on as a project and turn it into a [right-handed V].”

“I had to take a soldering iron and basically just burn new dot inlays into the side and replace the nut with a right-handed nut,” the Limp Bizkit guitarist recounted.

As for the headstock, not only is the Jackson logo upside down, the company's name, as Borland explains, is in a smaller font in order to fit the headstock properly.

Interestingly, given their long-standing relationship, Borland has never endorsed Jackson outright, nor PRS.

Star players opening up their relationships with guitar-makers to make room for multiple corporate partnerships is increasingly common nowadays, though Borland has never felt the need to make things official, so to speak.

“I played PRS through the Chocolate Starfish [and the Hot Dog-Flavored Water, Limp Bizkit's blockbuster 2000 album] era and I’ve started working with them again, as well as Jackson,” he told Guitar World in 2023. “ I’m not exclusive to either one.”

Limp Bizkit guitarist and all-around gear aficionado Wes Borland has partnered with STL Tones for a new plugin suite, Tonality: Wes Borland.

The plugin pros at STL say the collaboration has successfully captured “the sonic and visual anarchy that Wes has become so renowned for”, serving up three different amps and a virtual pedalboard.

To achieve that, its most advanced hardware modeling algorithms were put to the test to trace the schematics of Borland’s most beloved – read: used and abused – amplifiers, pedals, and cabinets. The result is a careful recreation of Borland’s live rig in an affordable digital format.

The three-amp package digitizes the sonic souls of Borland's Roland JC-120 Jazz Chorus, Diezel VH4 and Selmer Zodiac 50 MKII Tremolo.

The two-input channels and three-band EQs on the Roland have seen it become many a player’s preferred clean amp, and this digitized version is said to be just as transparent. Diezel’s “extremely versatile” 100-watt head, meanwhile, satisfies the heavier end of Borland’s tone-chasing thanks to four distinctly voiced preamps, all of which have independent gain, EQ, and master controls.

The amp trio is rounded out by the “chime and saturated breakup tones” of the Selmer Zodiac, which offers a nice middle ground between the transparency and grunt of its stablemates.

Five pedals are on offer here. The Big Wezz is based on Electro-Harmonix’s Big Muff fuzz pedal, the Mini Filter on EHX’s Mini Q-Tron, and the WB7 two-in-one chorus/flanger on the Ibanez CF7.

There are also two delay pedals to get suitably spacey with. The Borland Delay is based on Dunlop’s revered Echoplex tape echo, while a take on Boss’ ever-flexible DD-8 digital delay completes the one-two.

The collection of combo amps, heads, and pedals have been paired with digital repro’s of Borland’s favorite speaker cabinets, which have been measured and scrutinized to provide “the ultimate in realism and accuracy”. For good measure, and to mimic Borland’s artistry, the cabinets have been adorned with some typically weird paintings.

Five different microphones were used in 156 different positions for tireless Impulse Response captures, and they can all be adjusted within the plugin.

Tonality: Wes Borland helps to strengthen and diversify STL Tones' plugin roster. Previously, the brand has worked with producer Will Putney, Josh Middleton, and Andy James, among others.

Of why it has singled out the Limp Bizkit riff-monger for its latest Tonality plugin, STL Tones says: “Borland isn't just a guitarist; he's a living, breathing art piece, redefining what it means to be a rock star.”

The STL Tones Tonality: Wes Borland plugin costs $149, but is currently reduced to $99.

Head to STL Tones to learn more.

Gear Acquisition Syndrome – better known to us guitarists as G.A.S. – is something almost all of us suffer from, at least at some point in our lives. For many, it’s an ongoing battle, taking up every iota of inner-strength to resist the urge to try out everything in our local guitar shop or trawl secondhand websites like Reverb and eBay while the rest of the world sleeps, all in the hope of finding new tools to create with. In more extreme cases, it’s an addiction that needs to be constantly fed which can overtake all rationality and common sense. Make no mistake, G.A.S. can be dangerous.

It’s something Limp Bizkit guitarist Wes Borland is no stranger to, and following last week’s announcement of a huge gear sale through auction site Analogr.com, calling from Munich just a few hours before his band hit the stage for the first night of their European tour, he touches on the huge sense of relief in waving goodbye to a lot of his unnecessary equipment… 

“My habit for buying gear had gotten out of control,” he tells Guitar World, almost as if it’s the start of a rehab meeting or recovery clinic. “Yeah, it’s nice to have a bunch of different things, but how else do you stop a bad habit? I’d been accumulating for so many years that my collection had gotten ridiculous. There were five storage spaces full of stuff that I just wasn’t using. And I’m only getting rid of 60 percent of what I have in storage, like the 27 guitars I just don’t play anymore… 

“My collection was so extensive that it kinda became a burden. It was almost like [reality television show] My 600-lb Life or something! I didn’t know how to lose the weight. It felt like so much work to get rid of all this stuff, which is where Analogr came along. They said, ‘We’ll take anything you don’t want and do all the work for you!’ And I was like, ‘Yes! I have a lot of stuff that I don’t need and want to clear out!’”

Parting with gear is never easy, but once he had the right kind of help onboard, Borland was able to easily deduce which items would be listed for sale. And he’s not done with buying gear, either – so, to some extent, he’s making space for future purchases…

“Arriving at the decision to sell this stuff wasn’t too hard,” he continues. “I simply had too much. It was a bit like if I wanted new things I’d have to get rid of other things, whatever it might be that I haven’t used or played in a year or two.

“There are loads of microphones I got when I was younger that were just sitting there. After all these years of recording and engineering, there’s been a huge learning experience about what works best for me. A lot of stuff I’d gotten when I was younger and more naïve so I wasn’t really using it, for example there was this all-encompassing Telefunken drum mic set that I didn’t like as much as other sets I own. But there were still a few things I felt connected to…”

Like the Mesa/Boogie Dual Rectifier used on Three Dollar Bill, Y’all – which you christened in pen as ‘The Pickled Paprika Lord Leviticus Amen’?

“Yeah! But that amp hadn’t been played in so long. I love that head but I mainly use Diezels and EVHs. I was keeping it purely for sentimental reasons, and it got to the point where it was just taking up space. Every time I moved I’d be like, ‘Ugh, I’ve got to collect it and move it from A to B!’ I was ready to lose the weight.

“I used to have eight Mesa/Boogie heads and still own a few of the cabs. Don’t get me wrong, I probably still have 15 or 16 cabinets in total, around nine EVH heads and two Diezels, plus a load of boutique amps. I’ve decided to only keep the stuff I really like. I’m also selling five Orange heads in this sale because there’s just too much stuff. And it’s nice for the people who want it to have it, rather than it just gathering dust.”

That Selmer Zodiac Twin Thirty, recommended to you by Rick Rubin, must have been one of the harder decisions in the sale, surely?

“Yeah, Rick persuaded me to get that one. And you’re right, that was actually one of the things I had a hard time deciding whether to part with. But I had to think, ‘What do I use this for?’ It was the clean amp for the Chocolate Starfish album, like the tones you hear on the breakdown in My Way where it gets really trebly, it’s the high treble button on that amp.

“I really like that Selmer but later on I got a vintage 1965 Magnatone that was the same model Buddy Holly used and I ended up liking the sound of that more. I had to ask myself, ‘Why do I need both?’ If I want a Selmer again, I’ll buy one again, but right now I need to slim down my life. 

“Another thing I’ve done over the years is think more about what I’m buying. I’ve always wanted a Wal bass like Geddy Lee and Justin [Chancellor] from Tool. My friend Danny Lohner has one too. But they’re too expensive. I can’t justify spending $10,000 on a bass, so what I’ll do is buy something cheaper and similar. That way it won’t sting as much! But I end up accumulating a lot of things that aren’t the thing. This sale is about getting rid of all that stuff. Things that are cool but I end up never playing.”

There’s also one of your Yamaha CV820WB signatures, which were partly inspired by the Starcasters famously used by the likes of Jonny Greenwood and Martin Gore…

“I had several of those Yamahas. This is the second one they made me, but I’m keeping the first. I really like that one, and there’s a white version that I ended up smashing to bits at a show in St. Petersburg, but I glued the body back together and poured resin in it because it’s a semi-hollow, just to strengthen it. I also ended up putting some circuit-bent stuff in there, so that’s a special guitar to me. It looked cooler pieced back together than it did before. So I’m keeping two of them, but losing the one I play the least.”

And there’s a real Starcaster in there too, which looks heavily modded…

“Yeah, I’ve fucked around with that one. It’s one of the Chinese reissue Starcasters. There’s a Lollar pickup in the bridge. I put a Mastery bridge and tremolo system in there, and fitted a Jaguar pickup behind the bridge which has its own volume. I really fucked around with that guitar. It’s a really fun one to play live, I used it quite a bit.”

Perhaps one of the most surprising things you have for sale is a Yamaha Billy Sheehan bass! We had no idea you were a fan…

“I can’t say I’m a huge Billy Sheehan fan. But of course I think he’s an amazing player. The reason I have that bass is that in 2006 I was out of Limp Bizkit for a few years. Ross Robinson, who produced Three Dollar Bill, Y’all, was working on From First To Last’s second record – which is the band Sonny Moore, now known as Skrillex, used to front. I was a Yamaha artist at the time and they asked me to play bass on the record and go on tour for a year. Yamaha gave me a few basses to take with me - one of which being this customized Billy Sheehan signature.

“It didn’t end up being the one that stuck. I ended up getting a Fender Jazz that sounded killer and worked best for that band. But the Billy Sheehan was cool and I did use it on some stuff. My band Black Light Burns were making a video to promote a tour and we ended up hanging that bass from a tree and spray-painted it completely white for no reason. We were just doing a bunch of dumb stuff, which is why it’s that color. We painted it for a gag and it’s been like that ever since, and I just didn’t know what to do with it.”

There’s a few 12-strings, including 1976 Guild acoustic used for the Wish You Were Here cover performed at the America: A Tribute to Heroes 9/11 benefit concert…

“Yeah there’s that Guild, plus a WEM model that sounds really cool and was still in tune when I last pulled out the case, which made me wonder about selling it, and also the Framus. It has this little volume thing that you can turn on for volume swells with your pinky, which is really neat. I actually have two of them – this 12 and a six-string, which I’m keeping.

“And there’s other stuff like the Vigier fretless that got used a bunch on the second Big Dumb Face record for some weird-sounding riffs. I didn’t do much with it after that and haven’t picked up in, say, three years so it was probably not worth keeping. When I first started in the music industry and began buying equipment I’d always tell myself, ‘I’m never selling this guitar or amp!’ I would be very attached to my gear. And I’m trying to break that spell because I’m carrying way too much stuff on my back.”

You like to put your guitars through their paces – for example, the whammy bar work on classic tracks like Hot Dog and, more recently, Out Of Style is pretty extreme!

“Yeah! I’ve got a great tech and I’m very finicky about how I like the bars, how close they are to the body, the angle of everything. We switch out all the standard Floyd Rose parts that screw on for gaskets that you tighten with an Allen wrench, just to make sure the bar stays at the right tightness. I don’t like it loose; I can’t play with the bar swinging around loose, or if it’s too tight. I’m very specific. It’s like a racecar clutch… it has to be exactly right.”

What do you think made you end up using techniques like that in your songwriting?

“The reason I write riffs like that is because I couldn’t afford effects pedals when I first started playing. All I had was this Washburn with a licensed Floyd Rose on it and I just started messing around with it more and more.

“As I got further into my career, I realized nobody else was doing this. I couldn’t find any other guitarists using the whammy bar almost like a trombone, bringing notes up and down to create a kind of suction that could work with the drums, coming up to a snare or diving down to a kick. It’s like this push-and-pull conversation, using the bar.”

That’s not the only way you get extra mileage out of your guitars. Songs like My Generation and Full Nelson utilize natural harmonics that create bell-like chimes to extend the fretboard…

“Yeah, it’s the same kind of thing. I like a lot of contrast in my riffs, so it’s not all in one area of the fretboard or octave. I like my ideas to jump around a lot. That’s where the idea for my four-string came about, because they’re tuned AADG with low A from a bass or F#F#BE depending on the project. Having a low bass string and then another A from a guitar allows me to do very quick single-note back and forth melodies and riffs, jumping between those strings. I don’t know why I started doing all this stuff. I just love the contrast.”

Speaking of your four-string collaboration with PRS, given that you’re well-known for being a Jackson artist, how exactly did that come about?

“I played PRS through the Chocolate Starfish era and I’ve started working with them again, as well as Jackson. I’m not exclusive to either one. I just finished playing in Danny Elfman’s band last year – not finished because I’m still in that band – but we completed a tour and PRS really equipped me with amazing stuff for that. They sent me some great Custom 24s with Floyds that sound fantastic.

“I don’t really play guitars that don’t have locking tremolo systems, unless they’re like Jaguar-style models. I really like Bilt guitars too, I have three of those, plus some Jazzmasters with humbuckers dropped into the bridge position. I love those Jazzmaster-style tremolos that Mastery make.”

Given your knack for ambient and atmospheric sounds, you’re definitely well-suited to that Danny Elfman gig, even more so when coupled with Nili Brosh, who is more of an Ibanez-wielding shredder-type guitarist…

“The two of us fit really well together because we can cover really different things. I’m really riff-heavy and am into making noise, while she’s just shredding all over the place. It was really easy to divvy up the parts! My favorite parts of the set are definitely the Big Mess stuff, which is his latest record. The first song, Sorry, is such a crazy ride. All of that material is insanely difficult.

“It’s the most challenging thing I’ve ever done, for sure, trying to keep up on stage with someone that advanced as a musician. I try to sponge and soak up everything I can from Danny. And I also get to play with Josh Freese who has been a good friend of mine for a long time – he’s such a comedian and so much fun to be around. I got to know Stu Brooks and Nili… we got so tight as a unit and I can’t wait to do it again. There are rumors of more stuff coming up. Everybody wants to, that’s for sure!”

So let’s have a quick look through your rig on this European tour. What amps are you running?

“I brought a Diezel VH4S over, which is stereo. We’re basically blending that with the EVH heads. I have this crazy VHT 6x12 cabinet plus one Mesa and one EVH 4x12. The Diezel is running one of the Mesas and the entire VHT cabinet, and the EVH is coming through its own matching cab. We’re using a blend of that, plus using a box to take the DI from the EVH straight to the PA.

“It’s a really cool sound – I think my tone is tougher and more aggressive distortion-wise than it ever has done. I could not help but smile when I first plugged it all in. And then for cleans I have two JC-120s!”

And what about the pedalboard – you don’t tend to travel light…

“I love my Boss delays. Mine are all glued in place so they don’t move and are set for specific songs. I also love the Strymon stuff: I’ve got a BigSky for two different reverbs and a TimeLine for a delay that’s preset for the song Boiler, and another one for Out of Style that’s slower because the song has more of a half-time bounce during those clean verses. I’ve got a Q-Tron Envelope Filter – that’s the sound for Full Nelson and Hot Dog verses.

“I’ve got a wah pedal that I use on songs like Pollution. I don’t really use it as a wah; it’s more to turn on for the EQ. I do run an overdrive for the JC-120s – right now it’s a Fulltone OCD. I also have that old Ibanez [CF7] Flanger Chorus, which has the Wack’d setting that sounds like a ring modulator. I use that for the verses of My Way. They don’t make them anymore, so I always try to buy them on eBay or whatever so we have a back stock.”

And, given your outlandish stage outfits, we’re dying to know – what’s your look for this run?

“I’ve had this custom-made armor mask along with matching shoulder pads. It looks really medieval but it’s also mirror-polished, so it’s going to look crazy on stage on top of my black suit. You will only see a medieval robot in this weird armor.”

There was a decade gap between 2011’s Gold Cobra and 2021’s Still Sucks. Are there any plans yet for new material?

“Yeah, we’re talking about writing during all the soundchecks this year because we’re doing so much touring. We want to get recording – we’re talking about a travel destination to make an album together next year. We’re looking at places, so new music… yessir!

“This thing has been going for so long. I thought it would last for a few years and I’d end up in art school saying ‘I was in a band once!’ But 27 years later, we’re still going, which is wild. I’ve been in Limp Bizkit for more than half my life. We get along better than ever now. No one is taking anything for granted. We’re all just happy to be here and having a lot of fun.”

• Head to Analogr for more information on the Wes Borland Collection.

Wes Borland has launched a huge gear sale and is selling off some real gems from his recording and touring career, including his first ever Mesa/Boogie guitar amp head – as used on Limp Bizkit’s 1997 debut album Three Dollar Bill, Y'All.

“I have been a gear head for 25 years,” notes Borland of the collection. “My mother calls me a hoarder...”

Now the guitarist is feeling the need for a clear-out and has launched a sale with 28 separate lots, covering everything from artwork, to guitar amps, effects and some appealing prototype and custom electric guitars.

“This is what happens when you’re a musician who’s able to buy gear for a long time,” he says, talking through the lots. “This is almost embarrassing to me, because it’s not even all of my gear.”

The headline item is the aforementioned Mesa/Boogie Dual Rectifier head, which like many of the items, comes adorned with Borland’s doodles.

“This was my first touring head,” says Borland. “Three Dollar Bill was recorded on this. It was the only head I had live at one point – just going out [on the road] with no backup.’

At the time of writing, it carries an estimate of $4,000 to $8,000.

Elsewhere, there’s a beautiful custom shop prototype (the second one made) of Borland’s signature guitar, the Yamaha CV820WB, which was built in LA.

“It was kind of based on a [Fender] Starcaster; in some ways based on a German carve on this weird single cutaway-style body and having this weird offset look.”

It was also used on the road with Limp Bizkit for a four-year period, running 2009-2013, before he began favoring Jacksons. “I’ll miss it, but it’s also been in storage so long that I have to be an adult here,” notes Borland.

The Yamaha carries a (broad) estimate of $8,000 to $20,000.

For our money, one of the most interesting lots is the Selmer Zodiac Twin Thirty. Borland notes it was purchased on the recommendation of Rick Rubin during the early stages of the Chocolate Starfish... sessions.

The Zodiac Twin Thirty is a British-built 2x12 combo amp that dates from the mid-’60s. The amps are notable for their tone selector buttons, which bypass the rotary controls.

“Rick Rubin was a big reason [for buying this]... He was like, ‘Billy Corgan hoards these things,’” says Borland. “I really liked the Contra Bass and High Treble settings. The High Treble is just this glistening, tinny, almost radio-like signal, where as the Contra Bass is just super in-your-face, which I love.”

There are four inputs, split across two channels, plus two 12” Celestion speakers and Borland’s has a built-in power convertor. It also features a footswitchable tremolo circuit, which has a pulsing light when engaged.

The Selmer has an estimate of $3,500 to $6,000, which isn’t bad when you consider a 1963 build is currently listed on Reverb for $3,848. It is also the thing that Borland says he is “having the most difficult time parting with.”

The above barely scratches the surface of the sale, though. There’s a heavily modded China-built Fender Starcaster, a Guild 12-string, an array of Orange heads, a USA Jackson Soloist in green sparkle... the list goes on – all the way down to a modded Squier Jaguar and Hohner nylon-string, which have more attainable prices. Then there’s the artwork, the stage-worn costumes and even a full drum kit.

Whether you’re tempted into bidding or not, it’s a fascinating cross-section of the gear accumulated by one of rock’s true individuals.

Head to Analogr to view the full Wes Borland collection.

Back in March, electric guitar maestro Nili Brosh announced that she'd be joining Danny Elfman’s band for the composer's performance at this year’s Coachella festival.

Brosh – along with fellow guitarist Wes Borland (himself filling in for Robin Finck, who had scheduling conflicts) – appeared with Elfman during his Saturday night (April 16) set at the mega-festival.

Along with plenty of classics by his former band, Oingo Boingo, and a number of cuts from his recent solo album, Big Mess – which itself extensively featured Brosh – Elfman also played some of his most beloved TV and film themes for thousands of delighted festival-goers. 

Among these were his none-more-timeless main title theme for The Simpsons, which was re-created in truly shred-tastic fashion by Elfman, Brosh, Borland and a full orchestra. 

Though it's not the clearest footage in the world, you can see the ensemble rock out – with Elfman, Brosh and Borland all getting some tasty, bumblebee-like leads in – on the classic tune below.

For the performance, Brosh wielded a brand-new Custom Shop Ibanez model with a trio of passive EMG pickups, a basswood body, matching headstock and Brosh's own signature inlays.

"I couldn't be happier with how this guitar sounds and looks," Brosh wrote on Instagram of the instrument in February. "[Ibanez's Los Angeles Custom Shop] just killed it – thank you so much guys!"

Often partial to Jacksons when playing with Limp Bizkit, Borland appears to be using a PRS (though not, it would seem, his new custom PRS four-string guitar-bass hybrid) for the performance.

This went into – if Borland's Instagram is to be believed – a Diezel VH4 guitar amp and 2x12” speaker cabinet joined by a Line 6 HX Effects, DigiTech Whammy, Boss guitar tuner, and what appears to be a Boss NS-2 Noise Suppressor. 

In an interview with Guitar World last year, Elfman discussed his approach to Big Mess, and how he wanted his guitar work to interact with the playing of Brosh and Robin Finck on the album. 

“In other words, if we play, Robin and Nili are great, and when you put me in it, it messes it up," Elfman said, laughing. "That was kind of the sound I wanted. My guitar was the feedback and the messiness, and that all came out of me, and all of my vocals were recorded on this little handheld mic up in this room.”

When Wes Borland shot to fame on the cresting wave of the ‘90s nu-metal scene, it was for his abilities on the seven-string guitar, using that extra low-end muscle to add weight to percussive riffs. But in the 21st century, is he about to do likewise with four-strings? 

Don’t rule it out. One, he has form, on occasion favoring a custom four-string baritone, and two, Borland has just taken receipt of a four-string custom build from the high-end electric guitar manufacturer par excellence PRS – and he says it might just be the “most amazing” instrument he has ever played.

Sitting down with PRS to talk guitars, Limp Bizkit’s Still Sucks Tour and of course his Coachella dates with Danny Elfman, Borland said he couldn’t be happier with this four string bass guitar hybrid, hinting that this prototype could be put into work.

“The new four string is probably the most amazing instrument I’ve ever played,” said Borland. “Having a locking tremolo system has very much expanded what I’m attempting with that whole thing. That idea. To have the classic A A D G or F# F# B E tuning that I’ve been using for so long paired with all of the whammy bar riffing I do is on another level for me.”

With Borland’s electric guitar-bass hybrid having been revised last year, Borland says the design is exactly where he needs it to be, and was used on Limp Bizkit’s latest album, Still Sucks, albeit in an unorthodox fashion.

“The guitar is way past prototype in my opinion,” he continued. “I think it’s finally reached the form it was always wanting to be in my head. I couldn’t be happier with it. It actually did end up on the album last minute, but not in a way that showed off its capabilities. I used it on a melodic EBow lead on the bridge of the INXS cover Don’t Change.”

There is no word as to whether this will see a wider release. Borland has been a PRS artist for some time. But the way his name is emblazoned on the truss rod cover, allied to the instance of the word prototype, this looks like it could be a left-turn for PRS.

Of course, a guitar-bass hybrid with a floating vibrato, a pair of EMG humbuckers and an EMG single-coil jammed in there at the neck is quite a controversial spec for the dowdy conservatism of the guitar community but it might just catch on… 

It’s not like it’s that radical or anything – hey, they could have taken inspiration from a vintage '60s Stratocaster and reversed the headstock. Now, that would have caused a commotion, right?

You can read the full interview with Borland over at PRS Guitars.

Limp Bizkit guitarist Wes Borland has confirmed he will be performing with Danny Elfman’s band when they take the stage at Coachella 2022.

Borland replaces Nine Inch Nails’ Robin Finck, who is otherwise engaged on NIN business, and was indeed recommended for the gig as electric guitar wrangler for hire by Finck himself. 

Borland joins Elfman regular and fretboard pyrotechnician Nili Brosh, who, with Finck, helped light up Elfman’s epic solo album, Big Mess.

Elfman’s first solo album in decades, Big Mess is described by the Grammy and Emmy-winning composer as ‘chamber punk’, an anxious, industrial style that abuts metal and alternative rock. 

Written and recorded during the pandemic, with Elfman holed up in his cabin with a bunch of guitars and a laptop, it’s a tense, nervous headache of an album, with songs animated by poorly digested pandemic anxieties and the ever-roiling crises in democratic politics. 

Such is life, but it makes for great art. When speaking to GW back in June 2021, Elfman described Big Mess as a product of its time and a culmination of where his musical tastes have taken him over the past three decades.

“More and more, I tend to like extremes,” he said. “I either want to hear something strangely beautiful and abstract, atmospheric, or really intense, that just grabs me and holds me. I am a big fan of [Einstürzende] Neubauten, over in Berlin. Even though I can’t say their name properly I love their music. I love Tool. I love Nine Inch Nails.”

Elfman sees his role as writing the song and bringing noise and feedback, with Brosh and now Borland’s job to provide the technical firepower to complement it.

“If we play, Robin and Nili are great, and when you put me in it, it messes it up,” said Elfman. “That was kind of the sound I wanted. My guitar was the feedback and the messiness, and that all came out of me, and all of my vocals were recorded on this little handheld mic up in this room.”

Borland confirmed the news that he was Elfman’s Coachella pinch-hitter on Instagram, where he also shared a picture of his rig. It looks quite different to his Limp Bizkit setup, with a Diezel VH4 guitar amp and 2x12” speaker cabinet joined by a Line 6 HX Effects, DigiTech Whammy, Boss guitar tuner, and what looks like a Boss NS-2 Noise Suppressor. 

He also looks to be running a pair of Boss DD-3 digital delay pedals – perhaps one short, one long – and a couple of pedals that readers with better eyesight will have to identify. You can check it out below.

Coachella takes place the weekends of April 15 to 17, and 22 to 24, and is headlined by Harry Styles and Billie Eilish.

Mere weeks after the release of Limp Bizkit's latest album Still Sucks, guitarist Wes Borland has announced the release of Christmas in the Cave of Dagoth, the third album from his Big Dumb Face project.

The LP – the band's third following 2017's Where is Duke Lion? He's Dead... – offers a deeper insight into Borland's diverse guitar playing beyond the Bizkit, as he serves up everything from super-tight harmonized leads (Thundertusk) to acoustic guitar strums (Some People Say) and unrelenting heavy metal riffage (The Possession of Leslie Bibb).

Borland says in a press release: “Mission statement and big dumb plug for my project Big Dumb Face: BDF has always been about being filterless, quickly clever, fast, and most importantly dumb. 

“Influenced by death metal, calypso, electronic, Hawaiian music and artists like Negativland, Ween, Mr. Bungle, Secret Chiefs 3, John Zorn, Moist Boys, and Jon Wayne’s Texas Funeral, I’ve always tried to capture the moment while incorporating field recordings and studio work in order to make records in an incredibly short amount of time while maintaining a storyline and world of characters that mostly connects but can also break its own rules.

“Outside of a few previously harvested bits and pieces, most of the 3rd record was made in 3 weeks. My shortest and most inspired time frame yet on an LP… This is my outlet, it’s an auditory cartoon, it’s ridiculous and fun. I hope you all enjoy it as much as I do. Thanks for listening.”

Big Dumb Face was founded by Wes Borland and his brother Scott in 1998. The duo released their debut album Duke Lion Fights the Terror!! three years later in 2001, with Borland's Limp Bizkit bandmate Fred Durst serving as executive producer.

The pair remained active until 2004, when they went on a hiatus that would last 17 years, which ended upon the release of their second album, Where is Duke Lion? He's Dead..., in 2017.

Check out the track list for Christmas in the Cave of Dagoth below.

1. Your Grandma Got You Khaki Slacks
2. Avoiding The Cyclops
3. Some People Say
4. Christmas In The Cave Of Dagoth
5. Thundertusk
6. This Holiday Season
7. The Possession Of Leslie Bibb
8. It’s Christmas
9. Lost In A Forest Of Christmas Trees
10. El Greco’s Twisted Christmas
11. My Christmas Heart
12. The Necrotic Feast

Limp Bizkit have experienced something of a career revival this year, introducing new material and hits alike to a new generation in a headline-generating Lollapalooza set in July, and releasing Still Sucks, their first new album in a decade, on Halloween.

Still Sucks opens with Out of Style, a hell-raiser of a song that we named one of our essential guitar tracks last week, largely due to guitarist Wes Borland's kinetic, whammy bar-driven opening riff.

We weren't the only ones impressed with the song either. It's already inspired a host of covers, some of which were sent directly to, and drew the attention of, Borland himself. 

To correct mistakes he saw in some of the covers, and to offer some tone tips for the song, Borland took to Instagram over the weekend to give fans an up-close look at how the riff should be played. You can check out the resulting video below.

Armed with one of his trademark Jackson V electric guitars, the Limp Bizkit guitarist wastes little time in getting right to it, attacking the riff with laser-like precision and ferocious aggression.

After finishing it off, Borland notes that "you want to have a Boss [NS-2] Noise Suppressor [or a similar pedal] at the front of your chain in order to really clamp that [the riff] down," and for the mutes in between the jerks of the whammy bar.

Borland also mentions in the video's caption that he's tuned to B, F#, B, E, G#, C# for the song.

It's not the world's most in-depth tutorial, but if you wanted to have a go at the riff yourself, it's certainly a good reference point to start from.

Nu-metal titans Limp Bizkit are to release Still Sucks – their sixth studio album and first in a decade – this Sunday (October 31).

The news was posted to the band's social media, as well as by each of the band members – Durst, guitarist Wes Borland, drummer John Otto, bassist Sam Rivers and turntablist and producer DJ Lethal – earlier today (October 29). They each also shared the album's very Bizkit-esque artwork, which can be seen below.

Wes Borland wrote: “Our first album in over a decade comes out this Sunday! Happy Halloween!” DJ Lethal added: “Limp Bizkit – Still Sucks coming to a cassette player near you.”

The band deleted all previous content on their Instagram page prior to the announcement, kicking off their new feed with a review from an individual named Jake Bacon, who bears a striking resemblance to Borland.

“This really cool band called Limp Bizkit hasn't dropped a record in 10 years or something like that, like 2011,” says the beer-loving, mullet-wearing music journo. “Anyways, they're putting out this killer record – it's killer man – they're putting it out on Halloween. How wicked is that.”

He then proceeds to play several audio snippets from the record, beginning with a monumentally heavy guitar riff from the album opener, Out of Style.

The rest of the album looks like it'll see Durst and co dabble in numerous genres and styles as per usual; there's hip-hop, heavy metal and even an ultra-produced, boy-band-esque track.

Following 2011's Gold Cobra, the album – which was long-rumored to be called Stampede of the Disco Elephants – ties in with frontman Fred Durst's recent retro suburban dad makeover, and will feature the band's latest single, Dad Vibes.

Prior to its official release, the band unveiled the single over the PA during the outro of their set at Lollapalooza in July.

During an appearance on Drinks With Johnny – the podcast hosted by Avenged Sevenfold bassist Johnny Christ – back in June, Borland revealed that the band had been in the studio around seven times over the past 10 years to “try and complete” the record. 

He said that much of the album's holdup could be attributed to Fred Durst not being happy with his vocals.

“We probably have 35 songs recorded instrumentally, and he's done vocals on them and then thrown the vocals away.” he explained. “So I think he's finally at the point now where he's gonna pick a set of these songs that he's finally cool with and finish them and we're gonna finish the record.”

Borland added that “the riffs and the music [on Still Sucks are] the best stuff” he's ever composed as a musician.

Until today's official album announcement, it was unclear whether Ready to Go and The Endless Slaughter – two tracks released in 2013 and 2014, respectively – would appear on the new record. It is now confirmed that they will not.

Still Sucks arrives October 31. Check out the its tracklisting below.

1. Out of Style 
2. Dirty Rotten Bizkit
3. Dad Vibes
4. Turn It Up, Bitch
5. Don't Change
6. You Bring Out the Worst in Me
7. Love the Hate
8. Barnacle
9. Empty Hole
10. Pill Popper
11. Snacky Poo
12. Goodbye

After broadcasting it over the PA during the finale of their July 31 Lollapalooza show in Chicago, Limp Bizkit have officially released their latest single, Dad Vibes.

The track sees frontman Fred Durst – who now sports a retro dad look, with grey hair, shades and a handlebar mustache – serve his instantly recognizable lyrical flows over both stripped-back beats and more guitar-y sections driven by enigmatic six-string slinger Wes Borland. Check it out below.

Regarding the status of Limp Bizkit's new album, reportedly titled Stampede of the Disco Elephants – the followup to 2011's Gold Cobra – the band recently revealed in an Instagram story that “new songs will begin to leak, one after the other in rapid succession, very soon”, adding that a new album will drop “soon thereafter”.

Earlier this year, guitarist Wes Borland appeared on Drinks With Johnny – a podcast hosted by Avenged Sevenfold's Johnny Christ – where he offered a further update on the band's sixth album.

“We've probably, in the last 10 years, been in the studio to try and complete the record, I wanna say, seven times, to different studios,” he said.

But as the guitarist explained, many of the album's delays can be attributed to Fred Durst's discontent with his vocals.

“We probably have 35 songs recorded instrumentally, and he's done vocals on them and then thrown the vocals away.” he explained.

“So I think he's finally at the point now where he's gonna pick a set of these songs that he's finally cool with and finish them and we're gonna finish the record. So, fingers crossed.”

He also said that “the riffs and the music [are] the best stuff” he's ever composed as a musician, adding that he has “no doubt that [Fred will] come and bring it and it's gonna be a great record.”

Limp Bizkit announced the title of the album back in 2012, and subsequently released two singles, Ready to Go and The Endless Slaughter. It's not yet clear these two tracks will appear on the LP.

Wes Borland has spoken out about recent allegations of abuse aimed at Marilyn Manson, stating, “Every single thing that people have said about him is fucking true.”

In an interview hosted on Twitch channel Space Zebra Live, the Limp Bizkit guitarist – who played in Manson's band from August 2008 to May 2009 – said, “Marilyn Manson. I was in the band for nine months. He’s not a great guy. And every single thing that people have said about him is fucking true.”

“So relax about the allegations towards the women. Like when people [criticize] these women that are coming after him right now, fuck off, they are speaking the truth.”

He went on, “He’s amazingly talented, but he’s fucked up and he needs to be put in check and he needs to get sober and he needs to come to terms with his demons. He is a bad fucking guy.”

Borland's comments come after a number of women – including Manson's former partner Evan Rachel Wood – accused the singer of manipulation, grooming and abuse.

In a recent Instagram post, Wood stated, “He started grooming me when I was a teenager and horrifically abused me for years. I was brainwashed and manipulated into submission.”

Later in the interview, Borland supported Wood's claims, stating, “I was there when he was with Evan Rachel Wood, I was at his house, it’s not fucking cool. That’s all I’m gonna say about it.”

He concluded, “Sorry to take this to a dark place, but that guy is canceled, goodbye, don't let the door hit you on the way out.”

Following Wood's statement, several other women came forward to share similar allegations, and Manson was dropped by his record label, Loma Vista Recordings.

Manson responded to the allegations via social media on February 2, saying, “Obviously, my art and my life have long been magnets for controversy, but these recent claims about me are horrible distortions of reality.

“My intimate relationships have always been entirely consensual with like-minded partners. Regardless of how – and why – others are now choosing to misrepresent the past, that is the truth.”

With touring a no-go, 2020 saw the industry's biggest names take part in some killer quarantine jam sessions. From a stomping Run-DMC medley with members of Anthrax, Volbeat and Suicidal Tendencies to Metallica's acoustic reimagining of ...And Justice for All's Blackened, musicians the world over showed that it'll take a lot more than some pesky virus to dull their creative spark.

The latest quarantine jam sees Jason Rockman and Kevin Jardine, founders of The Kings of Quarantine and brains behind Roadie Relief – an organization set up to financially help out-of-work tour crews – enlist the help of Limp Bizkit's Wes Borland and Mastodon's Bill Kelliher for a cover of Jane's Addiction's Mountain Song.

This one gives new meaning to the term 'star-studded', with In Flames drummer Tanner Wayne, The Used's Bert McCracken, Filter's Richard Patrick, Veruca Salt's Louise Post and 311 bassist P-Nut also appearing.

But perhaps the most notable guest appearance is that of McCracken's daughter Cleo, who serves as her father's mascot, offering some sweet air guitar shreddage.

The cover is now available for $1 on Bandcamp, and 100 percent of the profits will go directly to Roadie Relief. To make a donation, head to organization's GoFundMe page.

From having his pedalboard drenched with a “jacuzzi amount of water” mid song to being fake chair-smashed by Fred Durst, Limp Bizkit electric guitar player Wes Borland hasn’t always had an easy go of things. 

But Borland always perseveres, as demonstrated in a new Instagram post where the guitarist announced he had “nailed” his first show back after recovering from a broken hand.

“I can’t express the amount of anxiety I was having leading up to this but three fingers was enough to get the job done,” he wrote.

As for the Bizkit haters out there that might attest that three fingers is perhaps already two more than necessary to jam, say, Break Stuff or Nookie, may we direct you to Borland’s own words of wisdom from years back:

“Musicians are not mathematicians. Feeling and soul over technique and speed.”

Preach on, Wes, and welcome back.

Limp Bizkit were halfway through their 1999 hit “Break Stuff” at the Boomtown Fair festival in Winchester, England, when a “jacuzzi amount of water,” in guitarist Wes Borland’s words, came crashing through the stage ceiling directly above him and quite literally broke all the stuff on his pedalboard.

The incident, which occurred near the end of the band’s set on August 12, was the result of an excessive amount of rainwater having pooled up on the roof of the venue. Fan-filmed footage captured the moment that the ceiling above Borland gave way and water drenched his equipment—which was followed by frontman Fred Durst letting out a gleeful laugh and cracking, “The pedalboard is gonna go out right now.”

To the band’s—and Borland’s—credit, they finished the song, though not the rest of their set. Immediately after "Break Stuff," Borland exited the stage, knocking over a few pieces of gear in the process. “Unfortunately, the guitar rig just blew up,” Durst says afterward. “Goodnight!”

Borland later took to Instagram to display the damage done. “This is what a pedalboard looks like when it rains all day and the ceiling of the stage you're playing breaks open and a jacuzzi amount of water gets dumped on top of you on the second to last song of your set,” he wrote.

The next day, he was back with an update that stuff was now slightly less broken: “We fixed my pedalboard today. 2 days of letting everything dry out and massive rewiring and problem solving with @kadaver13 who is my hero right now. My looper pedal is gone and half of my power (we're using batteries tonight) but my rig is on the way to recovery.”

Once upon a time, the mere act of strapping on an electric guitar and cranking up an amplifier marked one as an outsider, a rebellious badass who refused to live by the laws of a "decent" society.

But today's cookie-cutter rockers and forgettable pop janglers make studying for the priesthood seem like an edgier pursuit than playing guitar in a band.

Guitar World thought it might be instructive to salute some genuine rock weirdos—25 individuals whose unique personalities and/or playing styles have been dictated not by popular trends, market research firms or knit-capped A&R guys, but by an all-consuming need to express themselves to the fullest. Some have crashed and burned, especially when LSD was involved, and you probably wouldn't want to invite most them to dinner.

But they're all colorful characters whose flying freak flags have contributed much to rock's rich tapestry.

Syd Barrett

Numerous books have been written about the late Syd Barrett, Pink Floyd's original leader and rock's first serious acid casualty. His madcap antics range from the amusing (fixing Pat Boone with a murderous stare during an interview on Boone's TV show; styling his hair with Brylcreem and crushed Mandrax tablets) to the psychotic (locking a girlfriend in a bedroom for days with nothing to eat but crackers). An incredibly inventive guitarist who combined an unorthodox slide technique with various echo units to create a truly "interstellar" sound, Syd unfortunately became synonymous with "losing one's shit entirely."

Hasil Adkins

The wildest one-man band in the history of recorded music, the late Hasil Adkins cranked out warped rockabilly paeans to sex, dancing and decapitation for many decades. A manic-depressive lover man whose diet consisted entirely of meat, nicotine and endless cups of coffee, the Haze liked to scare visitors to his rural Appalachian abode with his collection of mannequin heads, and had been known to send unsolicited copies of his new records to the White House. True connoisseurs of weirdness (including the Cramps, who covered Hasil's "She Said") worshiped his every primal clang and growl.

Buckethead

This reclusive, robotic guitarist (whose personal brand of shred encompasses the most out-there elements of art rock, heavy metal, hip-hop and free jazz) is never seen in public without a white mask on his face or a fried-chicken bucket on his head. According to legend, the latter helps him harness the spirits of all slain and martyred chickens, without which he is powerless. Buckethead has visited Disneyland hundreds of times (He even claims to have jammed with Haunted Mansion house band) and dreams of building his own surreal theme park, Bucketheadland. For more on that, head here.

Roky Erickson

Guitarist and founding member of the world's first psychedelic band, the 13th Floor Elevators, Erickson has claimed at times to be from Mars, and his songs are filled with convincing references to aliens, demons and reincarnation. Busted for pot in 1969, he tried to beat the rap by pleading insanity. Although his habit of tripping four to five times a day might have already qualified Erickson for the nuthouse, the ensuing three-year incarceration (complete with Thorazine and shock treatments) in Texas' Rusk State Hospital for the Criminally Insane certainly didn't help. Roky recorded prolifically in the Seventies and Eighties, but he currently spends most of his time at home.

Roy Wood

The very definition of "weird beard," Wood has always cut a uniquely hirsute figure in the world of English rock. A worrying number of his songs for Sixties psych-pop legends the Move dealt with paranoia, insanity and mental anguish and allegedly resulted from the band's manager instructing Wood to "write about what you know." An inventive guitarist capable of everything from shuddering power chords to delicate classical filigrees, Wood spent much of the Seventies cranking out Phil Spector-meets-Sha-Na-Na Fifties pastiches with Wizzard, doubtless scarring countless impressionable youngsters for life with his hideous glam-clown makeup.

Ace Frehley

Like the man himself, former Kiss guitarist Ace Frehley's playing remains maddeningly unpredictable—to this day, he can sound like a teenager who's just picked up his first electric — but he always injected Kiss with a jolt of electricity. Ace's coked-out 1978 self-titled solo LP perfectly encapsulates his "life is one big joke" philosophy, but it's also one of the great bonehead rock albums of all time, right up there with the first Ramones record and Foghat Live.

Glenn Ross Campbell

The visionary behind Sixties garage-psych ravers the Misunderstood, Campbell could barely play a chord on a six-string guitar. But armed with a pedal steel and a fuzz box, he produced a mind-blowing squall that sounded like the missing link between Jeff Beck's work with the Yardbirds and Jimi Hendrix's Are You Experienced. Inspired by his spiritually oriented mother, Campbell and his band toyed with the vibrational effects of feedback and light, sending unsuspecting audiences in to a communal trance with the sensory overload of their powerful performances. Sadly the Vietnam War draft destroyed the band after it had waxed only a handful of tracks.

Zal Cleminson

A visual cross between the Joker of Batman fame and Ronald McDonald, Cleminson was the musical lynchpin of Scottish glam terrorists the Sensation Alex Harvey Band. Cleminson's contorted, grease-painted mug, green Lurex body stocking and synchronized dance moves invariably provoked an avalanche of catcalls and projectiles from audiences who didn't appreciate the SAHB's theatrical bent—ditto the band's "talent show" routine, wherein Cleminson recited Shakespeare while tap-dancing. But his deft fretwork and monstrously fat sound endeared him to mid-Seventies rock fans with a taste for something beyond the usual arena fodder.

Dave Davies

Slashing his speakers to create that distorted "You Really Got Me" sound, Davies has clearly been thinking outside the box from the early Kinks days onward. In the late Seventies, Davies became deeply interested in telepathy and mental visualization, and claims to have used these concepts to energize or heal concert audiences many times since then. In 1982, he was telepathically contacted by "five distinct intelligences" from another dimension, who significantly enhanced his consciousness and taught him the principles of "etheric magnetism." Davies loves to scan the skies for UFOs, and extraterrestrial elements abound on Purusha and the Spiritual Planet, the techno/dance/New Age record he recorded in 1998 with his son Russell. DD is going strong in 2016.

Euronymous

The mustachioed fret-mangler for Mayhem, Norway's original black metal band, Euronymous spent most of his downtime concocting explosive potions in his home laboratory, or presiding over pagan rituals and orgies in the basement of Hell, his Oslo record store. When Mayhem's lead singer blew his own brains out with a shotgun, the guitarist harvested the scattered grey matter from the suicide scene, then gleefully ate it in a stew of ham, vegetables and paprika. The accumulated bad karma finally caught up with Euronymous in 1993, when he was stabbed to death by Count Grishnackh of rival black metal purveyors Burzum.

Link Wray

An intimidating enigma in dark shades, greasy pompadour and a black leather jacket, the late Link waxed guitar instrumentals so pungently crude, one of 'em (the 1958 hit "Rumble") was even banned on numerous radio station for being "too suggestive." After losing a lung in his twenties to tuberculosis, Link let his cheap-ass guitars do most of the talking—or swearing, as the case may be. In the Fifties, he freaked out more than a few studio engineers with his primitive fuzz tone, achieved by punching holes in the speaker of his Premier amplifier.

Peter Green

The tastiest guitarist to emerge from the British blues boom of the Sixties, Peter Green was also the most troubled. Originally a brash and arrogant player, the Fleetwood Mac founder decimated his ego with numerous LSD binges and became deeply uncomfortable with is modicum of fame and fortune. He gave most of his money and belonging away to charity—and unsuccessfully tried to convince his bandmates to do the same—and took to wearing flowing robes and crucifixes. Green left the band in 1970 and was later institutionalized, where his schizophrenia was only worsened by repeated shock treatments. Although he still records and performs, the psychic scars from his ordeal remain.

Paul Leary

Ever the straight man to Gibby Haynes' psychotic jester, Leary gave up his stockbroker ambitions to wreak sonic vengeance on the world as the Butthole Surfers' lead guitarist. With his permanently dilated pupils and Rockettes-style leg kicks—and, for a brief period, a hot-pink "sideways Mohawk"—Leary would have been the resident freak in any other band, but he was typically overshadowed by Haynes' lysergic meltdowns and the Buttholes' collection of surgical-training films. Still, there was no denying the potency of Leary's bad-trip guitar grind, or his propensity for smashing and setting fire to his instruments at the beginning of a show. As he explained to Guitar World in 1991, "Why wait for the end, you know?"

Bryan Gregory

No one who saw Bryan Gregory onstage with the Cramps will forget the arresting spectacle of the stick-thin guitarist coaxing scorching feedback from a polka-dot Flying V (several years before Randy Rhoads wielded one!) while wiggling his ass and flicking lit cigarettes into the crowd. With his pockmarked skin, viciously pointy fingernails and impossibly long bleached fringe, Gregory looked like a Times Square hooker returned from the dead, thus accomplishing the impressive feat of making bandmates Lux Interior and Poison Ivy seem positively normal. Gregory allegedly left the band to join a snake-handling cult, though the Cramps have always maintained that his exit was drug related.

Wes Borland

It's one thing to put on a mask or makeup when everybody else in your band is doing it; it's another thing entirely to dress up as a randy satyr or acid-crazed monkey when the rest of your bandmates are all backward-baseball cap-wearin' slobs. In Limp Bizkit, Borland's individualism extended not just to bizarre getups and mind-bending guitar noise but also to his very public discomfort with the band's dumbed-down shtick. Wes also has channeled his ADD-fueled energy into considerably more twisted projects like Goatslayer, Big Dumb Face and Eat the Day.

Jeff "Skunk" Baxter

Worried about American coming under missile attack from evildoers in faraway lands? No doubt you'll sleep easier knowing Jeff "Skunk" Baxter is counseling our elected officials on missile defense. That's right—the beret-wearing former Doobie Brothers and Steely Dan guitarist currently works for the U.S. Department of Defense as an adviser to the Ballistic Missile Defense Organization. Baxter apparently immersed himself in defense manuals and technical weapons texts while his bandmates were out partying, and now peppers his interviews with anecdotes that begin, "When I was in Afghanistan—well, I can't tell you why I was in Afghanistan, but when I was in Afghanistan..."

Robert Quine

The unlikeliest guitar hero to emerge from the New York City punk scene, the bald, bearded and bespectacled Quine looked more like a lawyer than a lead guitarist—before joining Richard Hell & the Voidoids, he'd actually spent three years writing tax law for Prentice Hall Publishing. But Quine's musical presence was commanding as hell, and his ability to whip off the most mind-bendingly surreal solos without breaking a sweat won him work with such notorious hard-to-please figures as John Zorn, Tom Waits and Lou Reed. And on Reed's The Blue Mask, Quine did something no guitarist has accomplished before or since: get a killer tone out of Peavey Bandit amplifier.

Tawl Ross

A sorely underrated player in the annals of P-Funkdom, rhythm guitarist Lucius "Tawl" Ross turned on George Clinton to the high-energy sounds of fellow Detroiters and the Stooges and the MC5, and his distorted, protopunk riffs perfectly complimented Eddie Hazel's freaky leads on the first three Funkadelic albums. Tawl's voyage on the Mothership came to an abrupt ending 1971, following a tête-à-tête he'd had with his long-dead mother while tripping on a winning combination of raw speed and at least six hits of pure LSD. Though he briefly resurfaced int he Nineties, Tawl Ross essentially remains the Syd Barrett of funk.

Skip Spence

The West Coast psychedelic scene's answer to Syd Barrett, Alexander "Skip" Spence was a free spirit who took a serious wrong turn in 1968 during the recording of Moby Grape's second album: believing a bandmate to be possessed by Satan, Skip tried to "save" him with a fire ax. After a stint in New York City's Bellevue Hospital, he wrote and played everything on Oar, a thoroughly deranged amalgam of folk, blues and psychedelia that's since become a cult classic. Unfortunately, Oar marked his last period of prolonged semi-lucidity; doomed to battle schizophrenia and substance abuse issues, Skip was in and out of various institutions until his death from cancer in 1999.

Ricky Wilson

Everyone associates B-52's with Fred Schneider's campy bark and the bewigged antics of Kate Pierson and Cindy Wilson, but these perennial new wave faces wouldn't have gone far without the twangy licks of Cindy's guitarist brother, Ricky. Heavily influenced by the disparate likes of Captain Beefheart and Joni Mitchell, Ricky (who allegedly learned guitar by playing along to TV commercials) used a variety of weird-ass tunings on his old Mosrite, dispensing with the D and G strings entirely. At a time when Dire Straits and Van Halen ruled the rock roost, Ricky's thrift shop, surf-meets-spaghetti western sound was a total revelation.

Hound Dog Taylor

Born with six fingers on each hand, Theodore Roosevelt "Hound Dog" Taylor once drunkenly tried to remove his extra digits with a razor blade. Thankfully, he was only partially successful, leaving his left hand intact to execute his wild Elmore James-in-crystal meth slide runs. Despite his clownish stage persona, Hound Dog loved to fight with his bandmates, and even wounded HouseRockers guitarist Brewer Phillips with a handgun when one dissing session got out of hand. A devotee of $50 pawnshop guitars and busted amps, Hound Dog rarely practiced, and he never performed sober. "When I die," he sagely predicted, "they'll say, 'He couldn't play shit, but he sure made it sound good!'"

Marc Bolan

He claimed to know only five chords, but nobody ever whipped a Les Paul with as much effete elan as the T.Rex main man. The bisexual elf's Freudian fixation on guitar flagellation began during his stint with mod provocateurs John's Children (wherein he routinely beat his ax with chains during live shows) and continued long after he'd morphed from acoustic folkie to high-heeled glam warrior. Bolan's weirdo credentials were more confirmed by his impressive string of gibberish-laden hits—songs like "Metal Guru," "Hot Love" and "Telegram Sam" so brilliantly walked the line between genius and idiocy, no one is sure to this day which is which.

Jim Martin

"I'm from outer space and I'm here to kill you all," was a favorite between-song threat of the erstwhile Faith No More guitarist, and frankly it wasn't hard to believe him. With his Furry Freak Brother beard and man—the latter gradually turning into an unsightly "reverse Mohawk," thanks to pattern baldness—his penchant for wearing several pairs of sunglasses at once and his unapologetic love for classic rock, "Big Sick Ugly Jim" always seemed the odd man out in the groundbreaking funk-metal band. Since parting ways with FNM in 1994, the reclusive Martin as lent his searing tones to a handful of projects but his main interest seems to be growing giant pumpkins that tip the scales at well over 800 pounds.

Bobby Beausoleil

The pretty boy of the Manson Family (Charles, not Marilyn), Beausoleil was a talented musician who played rhythm guitar in Arthur Lee's Love, back when they were still known as the Grass Roots. In 1967, Beausoleil landed a gig playing guitar and sitar for the Magick Powerhouse of Oz, an 11-piece rock band formed by filmmaker Kenneth Anger to provide soundtrack to his occult film Lucifer Rising. After a headed argument, Beausoleil stole Anger's car, camera equipment and 1,600 feet of his film—the latter of which he gave to Manson, who buried it in the desert and demanded $10,000 in ransom. While in prison, Beausoleil has built a wide array of electronic instruments, including the Syntar, a stringless, digital, touch-controlled guitar.

Angus Young

Angus is such an established member of the rock pantheon, most of us don't even flinch when AC/DC's diminutive lead axman duck-walks across the stage in full schoolboy drag, despite the fact the dude is several decades past his 16th birthday. But how's this for a job description: not only do you sport a velvet jacket-shorts-and-cap look on a nightly basis but you do it while playing impossibly loud blues licks, punctuating each performance with a striptease and a full moon of the audience. If that isn't a weird way to make your living for 40-plus years, we don't know what is.

Black Light Burns, the Los Angeles-based quartet fronted by Limp Bizkit guitarist Wes Borland, released their sophomore album, The Moment You Realize You’re Going to Fall, August 13 via Rocket Science/THC Records.

Amid preparation for a fall tour with Psychostick and The Witch Was Right, Borland sat down to discuss the new album, gear, sonic experimentation and a lot more.

GUITAR WORLD: Given your history in visual arts, does music travel similarly through your mind? When writing and producing, what do you see? Math and numbers? Colors and movement?

First, I’m sort of thinking about a lot of different things that have happened in my life as well as different cinematic landscapes or ideas. I’ll think about a lot of things I’ve seen recently, because I am a painter too. I’m always looking at other artists and trying to get inspired by different things. I just collect images from clippings from magazines or whatever.

I’ll sort of think about all of these things and start writing, and I think a lot of these visuals inspire me to think about what those images would sound like. Like, I know how it looks, but how does it sound? And I do that a lot as far as trying to paint things that I hear and make music that I see, I guess.

They kind of go back and forth and cross over into each other. It’s never about math. Ever. I’ve never really been schooled in music theory. I’m a guitar player, and I attack the guitar in a certain way that it not fully unique to me, but it’s more unique that some other people. I’m not a shredder, and I’ve never aspired to be a virtuoso player. I’ve always wanted to be a songwriter and a storyteller and somebody who conveys a feeling to the listener or the viewer.

As Black Light Burns and Limp Bizkit progress, do you find it more difficult to keep stylistic differences separate?

Not really, especially because they’re progressing further and further away from each other all the time. I feel like Limp Bizkit is going in a direction that allows me to access some wild and experimental elements of myself, but it is primarily aggressive hip-hop/rock/pop music. The feeling of it is more of a party and is, musically, how I’d spend my Saturday night [laughs].

Like if I was with a bunch of people in Manhattan that wanted to go bar-hopping, it’s something I would normally do with Limp Bizkit, but it’s more of a light-hearted good time, whereas with Black Like Burns it’s more so like opening my chest up and vomiting out all of my emotions.

I won’t say Black Light is completely a mourning experience. It’s not a funeral. Our shows are definitely fun, and we are light-hearted about having a good time as far as when we play and put 100 percent into all of our shows. It’s still born out of despair and emotion. That’s the heart of it, and our albums get more and more experimental all the time.

I don’t think it’s hard; I think the first record, Cruel Melody, overlapped a bit with Limp Bizkit, but now if I write something that’s more experimental, I’ll pitch it to Black Light. The same goes for Limp Bizkit if I write something that is a bit more poppy and commercial sounding. Now they are just getting further and further apart.

To have people react to a song and just know it is so flooring. It is such an incredible feeling. It never gets old, either. Even with really old songs with Bizkit. We could be performing some of the first songs we’ve ever written together in front of an audience and have them react, and they’re still like, “Wow.” I’m sick of the song, but they make me not sick of it, you know? It’s like watching one of your favorite movies with someone who has never seen it before.

When playing any song in front of an audience, you’re watching them experience it, and it changes. In a lot of ways, it’s almost like the music is just the background buzz to what’s happening between you and the audience in the room.

What different guitars, amps, effects and various instruments were used for the recording of The Moment You Realize You’re Going to Fall?

We used a 1964 Gibson Thunderbird bass and an Ovation Magnum II, which is one of the only good things Ovation has ever done as a company, and they stopped doing it. It’s a really weird-looking bass, but it’s got a unique sound, and I just love them for some reason. They are really weird, and I guess they were just a failure at the time. I tend to gravitate toward instruments that were failures and that they stopped making because they don’t sound like a PRS or Les Paul. It’s something so different.

For the guitars, I think it was mostly Telecasters for the neck pickup position, a Hagstrom 3, an old Teisco Japanese Jaguar sort of guitar that sounds really nuts and has a bunch of electronic problems but it's really rowdy. I really wanted to make a record that was heavy but not metal. I wanted a lot the heaviness to be in the bass and have the guitars be more of a bite-y rock sound. I think that worked out.

We used a lot of little amps, a bunch of 10-inch-speaker Epiphone and Gibson amps as well as a couple Fender amps. We were using a lot of Zvex pedals that are just kind of unruly and have a bunch of different types of fuzz. We were just experimenting a lot and chaining a bunch of stuff together. One pedal that was really cool was a green pedal called the Bag of Dicks. It actually comes in a paper bag [laughs].

I think I found it at Tour Supply in LA. That thing just generates constant noise if you’re not playing through it. It only had two knobs, gain and volume, but somehow it just had all of these different positions you could put them in that just did terrible things. It was just like, “Why is that happening?” and “I don’t know why it’s happening, but hit record!”

There was a lot of that kind of stuff going on as far as experimentation, but it was really fun. A lot of it is improvised, even to the point of sampling circuit bent toys. We were careful about experimenting. It was controlled and edited. It wasn’t like we said, “Oh, we’re gonna go fart in a buck and record it.”

Many people will argue that anyone can pick up an instrument and learn how to play. You've always incorporated visual aesthetics and unconventionality into your music. How would your differentiate an artist from a musician?

I think there are people who aren’t artists who are musicians, and I think there are people who aren’t musicians that are artists. There are people who are both, but I don’t feel like there are things that are created from musicians. There are people who are amazing violinists, but they don’t really write very much. Or when they do write it all falls into these parameters that they’ve been taught -- sequences. It’s the mathematical thing we talked about. Musicians can tend to get mathematical and just go, “Here you go. Sounds great.”

That works well for scoring film, but I think that a lot of those people don’t have a screw loose, and maybe that’s the difference. Maybe artists have something inherently wrong with their brains and musicians don’t. Artists have this handicap [laughs], and that’s what makes them somehow digest things and spit them out in a way that only makes sense to some people.

Keep up with Black Light Burns at their official website and Facebook page.