Earlier this month, Limp Bizkit announced that bassist Sam Rivers had died aged just 48 years old. A founding member of the band, Rivers' propulsive bass lines underpinned Bizkit's thunderously fun nu metal ruckus for over three decades, grooving away under Wes Borland's beefy riffs and eccentric sideways widdling to form the beating heart of one of millennial America's most impactful bands.
Sam's passing wasn't just another sad indication that we are losing beloved artists far too soon and far too often: for OG nu metal kids like me, it felt a little like the end of an era.
Bizkit have bumbled through a few lineup changes in their career - Wes Borland leaving for a few years at the height of their popularity in 2001, DJ Lethal taking an extended break around a decade later, even Sam Rivers himself was absent for a couple of tours - but there was something magic about that classic lineup.
Fred Durst, Borland, Rivers, Lethal and John Otto taking us to the Mathews Bridge from behind the kit - that's Limp Bizkit. Those five misfit brothers. Those lovable oddballs. Sparking pandemonium every time they stepped out onto a stage.
It's impossible for anyone who wasn't there to understand just how massive Limp Bizkit were at the turn of the millennium. Yes, Sleep Token are huge, but we're yet to see Vessel stroll out on stage duetting with Chappell Roan. At the 2000 MTV VMAs, Fred Durst was on stage with Christina Aguilera. He Was. Everywhere. Bizkit were everywhere. And for 14 year old me, it was the best thing in the world.
More traditional metalheads were understandably suspicious of the swaggering, crotch-grabbing redneck with the red cap and his mates, flanked by dancers rocking synchronised Rollin' moves. What the hell did all that have to do with Black Sabbath and Slayer?!
For those of us, though, for whom Bizkit were the entry point into metal, it didn't matter. I still vividly remember picking up the Rollin' cassette tape from Virgin Megastore in Hemel Hempstead after hearing the song used as The Undertaker's entrance music in WWE. It had a now iconic cartoon of all five members on the front, crowded around a low-rider. I thought they looked cool as fuck.
On stage and in their music videos, it really felt like you were watching cartoon characters that had come to life, merging hip hop and metal in the most braggadocios way possible, invading the charts, soundtracking pro wrestling and seemingly pissing off just about everyone over the age of 20 in the process. What more could an angsty young teenager finding his way in the music world ask for?!
More than anything else - and here's the thing I really do think a lot of Bizkit haters fundamentally overlook to this day - it was fun. Think of that! Heavy music that's just fun for the sake of being fun! No hidden layers. No chin-strokey concepts. No gimmicks (well, unless you count whatever the hell Wes Borland is doing with his look each night). Just five, locked-in musicians smashing out generational bangers like Take A Look Around, Nookie and Break Stuff. A lovely time incarnate. I adored them. Guttingly, I never got to see them (yes, I was one of the kids who had tickets for that Milton Keynes Bowl show in 2001 that never happened).
As I reached my middle-teens and graduated from nu metal onto the 'proper' stuff - Iron Maiden, Metallica, Ozzy, you know the drill - Limp Bizkit began to feel a little less cool. The metal message boards I frequented treated them and their class of bands with distain, and the public perception of Fred Durst fully soured.
By the mid-2000s, with emo dominating the commercial rock scene and bands like Trivium, Machine Head and Lamb Of God owning the conversation on metal, Bizkit just felt out of place and out of time. I didn't mind much, to be honest - by that point I was head over heels for bands like In Flames, Arch Enemy and Amon Amarth. You know! Proper metal!
Then came Download Festival 2009. Rightly regarded by many as the greatest Download ever, a sun-powered weekend where 80s legends like Def Leppard rubbed shoulders with 90s heroes like Faith No More and modern metal masters like Slipknot, it was a stacked, generation-hopping lineup with countless classic moments (you've all seen that Duality singalong from Slipknot's set, right?).
My favourite moment from that year? Limp Bizkit - the Limp Bizkit, five OG members present and correct - strolling out on stage in the late afternoon sunshine, cruising into Break Stuff and detonating one of the biggest crowds of the weekend. It was magic. It was life-affirming. It was deeply validating for the millennials watching who had grown up being told bands like Limp Bizkit had no place mixing it up with 'proper' metal bands.
Since then, Bizkit's stock has stayed fairly consistent - turn up to festivals, steal the show, do a few tours in between, maybe drop some new stuff here and there. But after the pandemic, there was a big shift. Suddenly, a generation of kids who never got into Bizkit the first time were discovering and appreciating them. A generation weaned on streaming and social media who don't care for genre or pigeonholing - just great songs. And Limp Bizkit have stacks of them.
Now, over twenty years since they pulled out of topping the first ever Download bill (OK, Bizkit did have a terrible record with cancelling gigs, to be fair), people are talking about them as potential headliners again. With fellow nu metal kings Korn making the long-awaited step-up this year, it really feels like it could happen one day.
Of course, I'm making the assumption that Bizkit will continue following Sam's death. I hope they do; it'd feel strange without him on stage, but it'd be a nice way to commemorate him, to give the fans another Limp Bizkit victory lap and just give people a chance to say goodbye to him together.
Somewhere, at my mum's house, I still have that original Rollin' cassette tape. I'll have to dig it out soon. It's sad knowing one of those cartoon characters can no longer come to life. I really hope Sam Rivers passed knowing he played his part in bringing a (g-g-)generation of kids into heavy music, and making it fun as hell in the process. When I was 14, I thought Limp Bizkit were the coolest band in the world. At 38, I often still do.
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