WES BORLAND Talks About His New Band BLACK LIGHT BURNS

Mark Carras of RockMyMonkey.com recently conducted an interview with former LIMP BIZKIT guitarist and current BLACK LIGHT BURNS leader Wes Borland. A couple of excerpts from the chat follow:

Rock My Monkey: Now, in the first week of release, [BLACK LIGHT BURNS' debut] "Cruel Melodies" sold six thousand copies in the U.S. Are you happy with that, and do you think this is the snowball just starting to roll?

Wes Borland: Yeah, it's the snowball just starting to roll. We're starting up on an independent label. We didn't have a crazy promotions for this, so this is a builder. Considering "Three Dollar Bill" from LIMP BIZKIT only sold four thousand the first week, I feel like we're doing alright. Because people have the record for about two or three months before it was released, online. This is going to be good. Most people don't even know this is happening. Through shows and interviews like this we're getting the word out there that this is even a band, with the story attached to it and the people involved and everything. So I'm happy.

Rock My Monkey: Awesome. Now I heard that "Mesopotamia" was inspired by a nightmare. Can you give me more details on that song, and the nightmare that inspired it?

Wes Borland: Basically Mesopotamia popped in my… It was in my head when I woke up from being attacked by a zombie in a dream. I woke up; it was a pretty bad, pretty graphic, livid dream. When I woke up I had this song, like the beginning of the song, in my head. And I just went, "Well, I got to get up and go record, even though I'm really tired." And that happens, that actually happens a lot where I wake up in the middle of the night and have something in my head, because the subconscious is operating on a high level. And I wake up and just go, as the little trickles are fading away, I have to really quickly get up and get over across my bedroom — my studio is basically right outside my bedroom, like in the living room, or set up in the dining room of my house. So I just go zip and try to get in there as fast as possible, and boot it up and go.

Rock My Monkey: Whenever people — going back to your old band — whenever people would make fun of LIMP BIZKIT in the past, I would hear them throw an insult at LIMP BIZKIT, but then basically say that you were the thumb in that set of fingers, and that you were actually too good for LIMP BIZKIT. So does it shock you that so many LIMP BIZKIT haters are actually excited about BLACK LIGHT BURNS?

Wes Borland: Somehow that's always happened where people have been really excited about anything that I'm doing. I don't know how it happened, but I'm really grateful for it. I'm just, I'm doing my thing, and I'm going to do this whether people like it or not, I'm going to be doing this. And anybody who wants to listen is totally welcome, and if you don't, it's real easy to ignore and turn off.

Rock My Monkey: Would you say that BLACK LIGHT BURNS, for you as an artist, do you think that it has maybe the integrity that LIMP BIZKIT… Whereas LIMP BIZKIT went for more of pop hits, and lyrically went for stringing clichés together, would you say that BLACK LIGHT BURNS has the artistic integrity, whereas LIMP BIZKIT was more of a pop band?

Wes Borland: Yeah, absolutely. And what's sad is that LIMP BIZKIT started out not as a pop band, with our first record. Then when… I think Fred [Durst] became influenced by what record label moguls had to say, or whatever, and kind of aspired to be one of them a little bit. Liked how power felt. It went from being sort of like we went from being sort of more a do-whatever-we-want band to becoming like a band that had rules and had to make certain songs sound like songs that had been successful before. When we went into that road, that was the beginning of the end for me. I just kind of went, I understand that you guys want to make money, but the intention is all wrong here. This is finally for me coming back, and you know, as long as I can not have a second job and do this, I want to keep doing it, because this is all, this is like my hobby, and I luckily enough this is my work, too. I want to just keep making records. We're already pretty far into the next BLACK LIGHT BURNS record. The ideas are forming, and I maybe have eight or nine tracks that are taking shape. It's a constant thing for me. It's sort of like I can't stop it. I keep writing all the time. For me, this is the first time I felt really proud and also that there's nothing I would have done differently.

Rock My Monkey: Do you think this cd would have such a strong NINE INCH NAILS influence if Danny and Charlie were not involved?

Wes Borland: No. Charlie was only involved on "Lie", on the one song. But Danny definitely has his feel and sound that he brings to the equation. He was in that band for ten years. Before that he was in SKREW. He's been a programmer for so long. He's just really amazing when it comes to sense and sound design and stuff like that. Then we also have Josh Eustis from TELEFON TEL AVIV which is this big kind of APHEX TWIN off texture so there was a lot of that going on too. I think the next album is going to be — I mean, this was a guitar heavy album, but the next album is going to be even more guitar-heavy and a little less synth. Yeah, I don't think it would have sounded as NAILS-ey had somebody from NAILS not been producing it. But I love it. I'm super-happy with the results.

Check out the entire interview in text and MP3 format at RockMyMonkey.com.