The Odd Couple
transcribed by Elegantly Wasted on ETS
(The Kerrang blurb bit)
Fred Durst and Trent Reznor may hate one another but Wes Borland and NIN’s Danny Lohner are best mates. Weirdly, they’ve bonded over fat pets, zombies and a love of Amy Lee.
Since walking out on Limpbizkit in 2001, Wes Borland has kept a low profile. Plans to start a band - Eat the Day - with his brother Scott hit a wall last year when auditions failed to turn up a suitable vocalist. Undeterred, Borland had visions of starting a new outfit with NIN’s Danny Lohner and Filter’s Richard Patrick (the trio, along with APC drummer Josh Freese, had formed the Damning Well and contributed songs to vampire flick “Underworld”) only to see Richard Patrick quit to return to Filter. You might expect the guitarist to be down. But when we caught up with Borland at Danny Lohner’s house in Laurel Canyon, the two were only too happy to talk about their friendship, their plans and er, Maynard James Keenan’s puppies.
What happened to Eat the Day?
Wes: Everybody has dispersed. Interscope has pulled the money until we are ready to move forward again. We’ve separated like a voltron robot thats been waiting for a head for a long time.
What about the band you formed with Richard Patrick?
W: For a little while, it was gonna be the Damning Well and Eat the Day combined into one band; Eat the Well, Damn the Day. We ended up having some creative differences with Rich, and he wants to do another Filter record instead.
Now what?
W: Even though we’d rather be touring, we’re being more production guys right now. We’d love to steal Amy Lee out of Evanescence and start a band with her, but she’s a tease. She goes “ha, ha, ha” every time we mention that.
How did you guys meet?
W: We met at guitar center. And we just kept running into each other.
D: I was messing around with an Eminem remix for “Lose Yourself”, I thought it’d be so cool if Wes played on it.
W: The Eminem remix that will never see the light of day. That was fun.
Wes, what did you do with all your Bizkit corsets?
W: I wore one of them last Hallowe’en. This year I didn’t need it.
D: He could break them out at any minute, He’s waiting for the reunion tour.
What’s a typical day like for you?
W: I get up at 10.30 or 11, have coffee, a smoothie, go right into my studio and start painting or working on music. Danny calls at about noon every day. He usually says, “I can’t get out of bed, I’m so depressed”.
D: I’ve been laying in bed a lot lately. If I have something to do, I’m usually pretty good, and I work. But I’m learning that the older I get, the worse I am in terms of motivation.
Please describe each other’s ideal evening.
W: I think Danny’s ideal evening is to eat at Nozowa (a Sushi restaurant), go see a movie, go to a strip club, then come home and watch “Cops” until he falls asleep. Is that accurate?
D: Thats fair enough. I haven’t been to a strip club in a while, but yeah, I like Metal shop at the Viper Room on Monday nights. Wes’ ideal evening would be picking up a male transvestite, getting a cheap hotel, and playing hide the penis with him. Playing butt darts. No, Wes is a mellow guy who likes to hang with his wife. I’m a good boy, too. We’re kind of more movie people.
W: I’ve been watching Japanese splatter movies, like “Stacy: Attack of the Schoolgirl Zombies”.
Have you had any near-death experiences?
W: I almost killed myself rock climbing at Joshua tree. I got to the top, and then saw that there was no way I was gonna get down! I was about to jump over a 30-foot ravine to a little rock that was 15 feet down. As I was about to do it, I saw my life flash before my eyes. I found a different way down that was very harrowing.
D: I was scared as hell on the rock climbing device they have on the Santa Monica pier for little kids. I couldn’t get back down. I’m scared of heights, man.
W: Well you would have been scared alive. I was like 60 or 70 feet up on this rock thinking, “No one will hear me”.
D: You went all by yourself?
W: Yup. Everybody else was over at this campsite cooking. When they finally came looking for me, I was all white.
What are your guilty pleasures?
W: Well, you like 50 Cent, but thats not a guilty pleasure.
D: I love crime television: Court TV, Cops, anything to do with forensic files. I love [drippy singer songwriter] Sarah McLachlan. I think Avril Lavigne is cute.
W: I like Evanescence.
D: $5 lap dances at Jumbo’s Clown Room. And “Beautiful” by Christina Aguilera. I really think thats a good song. I don’t like her, though.
W: I like her outfit in “Dirrty”.
D: I think Avril Lavigne is a lot cuter.
Do you have any pets?
D: I have a Pit Bull that I got from the [hip-hop label] Death Row dog trainer.
W: He’s ferocious.
D: He’s the Doggie Llama, thats what we call him. He has a gold canine tooth and two buddies that live upstairs: two wing-tailed lemurs, Lestat and Lucien. Lestat bites and Lucien doesn’t. And, like a jackass, I just got two Italian greyhound puppies. Paid a million dollars for them and they’re too fragile to play with, so I gave them to Maynard.
W: I have two cats, Donka and Bunkus. Donka is a big orange Tom who is fat, and Bunkus is a tiny little Burmese crossed-eyed little sexy chubby boy. We had them on the diet food, but they just eat more of it.
D: We have overweight pets. The Doggie Llama lounges all day. He’s meditating.
W: We never let our cats outside. There are coyotes in the canyons.
What are your bad habits?
D: Wes jumps to make decisions fairly rash at times. I’ll say the wrong thing at the wrong time.
W: Danny has social Tourettes.
D: I’ll say offensive stuff on accident and offend people when I don’t mean to. I offended Rich a few times. Rich had a problem with my loose mouth.
W: I have no problem with your loose mouth. I think it’s comedy all the time.
D: It’s fun, it’s not for real.
Do you feel a sense of community in the LA music scene?
D: I think that there’s unity. Like the Rage Against The Machine guys are all buddies with Maynard and Tool, so I’ve become friends with Audioslave through him. There’s a community: Tool, NIN, Wes, Perfect Circle....
W: Then there’s Adam [Jones of Tool] and the Melvins and Tomahawk...
D: And all the Mike Patton projects. There’s like a little web of like-minded people.
W: Adam Jones is a good friend of mine. We’ve talked about working together for fun, but mainly we just hang out and go see movies.
D: We’ve got to stay friends with Tool so we can open for them when we get our band together.
W: And get booed off the stage every night cos their fans just want to see them.
D: And they’ll throw shit at Wes cos he was in Limpbizkit.
