Anger Mismanagement: Creed vs. Limp Bizkit

Published Aug 5, 2020, 4:00 AM

In the late '90s, a time of peace and prosperity for America, two of this country's biggest bands were Creed and Limp Bizkit. In retrospect, they seem like perfect signifiers for a decadent, bored nation on the verge of a major fall. But at the time, these groups ended up raging against each other, with their respective frontmen, Scott Stapp and Fred Durst, almost coming to blows over a misunderstanding at a music festival. What was it about these bands that so enchanted people once upon a time? And why did they come to hate each other?

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Revels is a production of I Heart Radio. Hello everyone, and welcome to Rivals, the show about music beefs and feuds and long simmering resentments between musicians. I'm Steve, I'm Jordan's and we've tralled angel Fire, Geo cities, and Tripod message boards. They've got the choicest cuts for this beef from the early adds. I'm so excited. We got Creed, we got limp Biscuit, And they're both so fascinating to me because they have these huge sales figures which are then dwarfed by the hatred that they seem to inspire on such a gargantuan scale. I don't know if it's like, you know, a classic case of silent majority rock. I guess yeah. These bands were part of the last era really when rock bands sold millions upon millions of albums. I mean, I think they each sold upwards of like I don't Creed at least as like an album that's sold ten million copies. I think Olympiscuit has a couple of records that that got up that high. And to me, they really were the defining bands of like the late nineties, which was a time in America, where I feel like we were in this like really decadent period. You know, there wasn't really anything wrong going on in the world. I mean, there weren't any wars that we were in. There was no real economic strife. You know, we didn't have social media melting at everyone's brains into mush um, like Bill Clinton having an affair was the worst thing going on. I feel like exactly, But I feel like when there isn't some larger cause that can unite Americans, whether it's like World War two or like the way that the country briefly came together after nine eleven, we turned inward and we get self destructive just because I think we're bored as Americans. And I think that happened in late nineties, so like we gravitated to bands that either peddled self important angst, which was Creed, or proudly dumb party music, which was Limp Biscuit, And of course these two bands ended up turning against each other and sparking a feud. I really listen to both of these in preparation for this episode. And you know I did that with Blink one eighty two and a few other episodes, and with Blink. I was surprised by how much I enjoyed revisiting all that music. I not only was just hit with all these great waves of nostalgia, but I was really impressed with just the quality of the songwriting, and I really appreciated it. This didn't occur when I revisited the music of Creator olymp Biscuit. I have to say I found myself just as confused as I was back when there were radio stables. Yeah, you know, I already feel like I'm in an awkward and frankly shocking position here because I think I might be the one in this episode who actually defend at least one of these bands, which I probably would not do in any other context. I don't want to take my hand too much here, but I will say that self important bands rarely age well, and in fact, I think they seem funnier the farther you get away from them, whereas I think bands that are proudly dumb and don't take themselves that seriously actually seem like a little bit smarter once you have some time separating, you know, from their big peak in the culture. So I guess for now I'll leave it at that. But before we go any further down that road where I'm going to actually defend one of these terrible bands, we should probably get into the background of this feud. So without further ado, let's get into this mess. I guess it's fitting that this all started at a concert called k Rocks Dysfunctional Family Picnic, which it's the perfect name for this. It's so it's June two thousand. There's a bunch of bands playing this radio station festival outside of New York City. The headliners are are very two thousand. I have to say Ozzy Osbourne, Stone Temple, Pilots and Create and Limp Biscuit is also on this bill, but they are not one of the headliners, and Fred Durst is not very happy about this, so he refuses to go on. I could see him being okay with taking a backseat to AUSI n STP, but I don't know. Creed obviously is a sticking point to him, so he refuses to go on. And the band later claimed that there was some mix up over their set time and they were stuck in traffic and all those old excuses, but really they weren't happy going on when it was still light out. I'm guessing at arson fires are less impressive when the sun is still out. I don't know. So finally Sharon Osborne gets involved, and you don't want Sharon Osborne to get piste off. Sharon Osbourne, I should say, to get involved. That's can you just imagine that voice and then the voice you're saying nookie, just like screaming at each other, like it's the unmovable force in the unstoppable object, like the cold collision here, and and I will say to that, like I am surprised that Limpiscuit wouldn't have been a headliner, because they were a huge band at two thousands, certainly bigger than Stone Tuple Pilots Ozzy you want to put up there because of the legacy aspect. But again, I've already set up the idea that I'm gonna maybe be defending Limpiscuit in this episode, which I hate doing. I feel like a defense attorney that is, like defending like a serial killer or something like. But I will say that in this instance, I think Fredger's maybe has a point, although he probably doesn't go about it the right way, as we'll soon find out. Right, So Sharon Osborne threatens to pull Azzi from the lineup of Blimp Biscuit doesn't perform, so they Trapes to the stage and he's still pretty piste off, you know, right or wrong. He's not happy, so he decides to take it out on Creed, specifically Scott's stab. He gets on the stage and he tells the crowd, I want to dedicate this next song to the lead singer of Creed. Doesn't even know his name. Probably that guy is an egomaniac. He says, he's a fucking punk. He's backstage right now acting like fucking Michael Jackson. Fuck that motherfucker and fuck you too, And if you want, there's gonna be a booth with pillows and blankets for when Creed come on. Oh ah. I had to say, like, I've seen the clip of this like a couple of times, and I think it's hilarious when he compares him to Michael Jackson, like that always makes me laugh. I don't know why. I just thought that was a really funny line. But Scott Stapp did not take that as a compliment. No, no, no, nobody did mean. The organizers are already pissed at Fred for delaying the show, and now He's worried they're gonna piss off one of their headliners, so they cut the sound on his mic and was just to give Fred, you know, a couple of minutes to maybe cooled down, but it has the opposite effect. He's furious that they tried to silence him, so he throws every mic off the stage in a fit of rage just to try to like foil the future acts and then he storms off after something like six songs, so not a great performance. Meanwhile, Creed are like in the wings basically going what what the hell? D uh? Scott Staff gets out there, they start their show and he seems to address the this whole thing during his set by telling the crowd you know, it takes a lot more guts to say something to somebody than to say it to him behind their backs, which you know is probably him referencing Fred just saying all the ship about him when he was sitting backstage, probably having dinner or something. In addition to that, they send Fred Durst an anger management manual inscribed to him by the band. This will help you on your emotional and spiritual quest, which, uh is weird? I just wonder, like, you know, back then, it wasn't easy to get your hands on books. I mean, I think Amazon existed, but it's not like get Amazon on Prime. Like, I just wonder, like, how long did it take them to set up this prank where they're going to send him an anger management manual? So their bodyguard had it. I've actually looked into this, which is sad in so many ways. Really, Yeah, their bodyguards just happened to have it on them, so they're like, hey, we can we can we keep this, we gotta, we gotta send it to Fred Durst, and he was cool with it. Obviously he'd read the anger management issue. So Creed is this employing like furiously angry bodyguards who have to consult manuals to control their various rage. And then they realize we can utilize this for a prank against Red Durst. It's like, I guess everything just came together perfectly in this situation. It worked out well. But then they also challenge for a Durst to a charity boxing match, which kind of gaves the whole anger management thing right. Yeah. By the way, I love the charity boxing match gambit, you know, which we've already seen that occur in other episodes. Memorably in the Axl Rose episode where I think him and Vince Neil We're gonna have a charity boxing match. Um, at some point we need to do an episode on Tommy Lee and Kid Rock because that was a feud and I think they were going to do a celebrity boxing match, which I feel like these boxing matches never actually occur. I think the only celebrity boxing match that I can remember, they all involved Danny Bonaducci exactly like, did you ever re challenge Well, I don't know. I'm just gonna but I'm just saying like, if you ever challenge Bonaduci to a fight, it is going to go down like, Yeah, all these other people you can, you can challenge them to a boxing match, and it's going to just be a big bluff, But with Bonaduce, it's gonna be on bring your A Game. So this all goes down on a Friday, and then Fred Durst appears the following Monday on t r L And before we talk about this, I just wonder like, do we need to tell the youngsters out there like what TRL is? Because I know that MTV revived it recently, but it didn't really go anywhere just the idea that, like back in the late nineties, that if you wanted to see a music video, you had to call a major network and you had to put in a request that they were not going to follow anyway, but hopefully later that day, maybe several hours later, Like that is how you would see a music video. You know, there was no YouTube back then. I just find that to be you know, I mean, I lived through it, so I know what it's like. But it's just saying that out loud in our current context. It's just like hilariously antiquated to me. See, I thought you had to get in my car and drive the Times Square and just like stand there with a sign to I guess that was like option B. Yeah, or like if you happen to have like pigeons in your backyard, you could like scrawl like you know, I want to hear oops, I did it again by Britney Spears, and you would attach it to the pigeons foot and then it would fly to New York City and drop the note in Carson Daily's lap like a week later. I think that was the other way that you could quest videos back then. That's how Harry Potter heard the entire Backstreet Boys discography. So anyway, t r L it was this request video show on MTV. It was like basically the hub of youth culture for a few years there in the late nineties and early two thousands, and the biggest things that they played back then were team pop and new Metal. You know, those were like the two poles of the TRL universe. So Fred Durst went on TRL, and of course Carson Dalely the host asks Fred Durst about this feud that is simmering between him and Scott Stapp, And of course, first Fred plays coy. He pretends like he doesn't know who Scott Stapp is, you know, very funny fred Durst, but then he goes off, starts ranting and reiterating a lot of the same points that he made on stage at the k Rock concert. He says that Scott Stapp is out of his mind. He thinks he's a better human than everybody. He says that Scott Stapp claims all the spirituality, but he doesn't give a damn about any of his friends. He says, he ignores everybody. He has this quote where he says, you walk by his dressing room and his people, they look at you and they go you do not approach the band, you do not talk to the band, you do not look at the band. And then you see him in the videos doing Jesus Christ thing. I think referring to the video for Hire, you know that's where he's really doing. Have you seen that video, like where he like outstretches his arms and he starts like levitating. Oh yeah, I thought that was like a tribute to the scene in Titanic. But I could see Jesus too, I mean, because I think Creed has like a Christian rock background or there was some sort of Christian rock connotations. Their relationship to that was so weird because they always like denied it, but it was pretty latent. Yeah, I was always confused by that. I mean, this is like a tangent we I don't know if we want to go down too far this road. But like there was that period like in the nineties, like where there were like a lot of bands that came from the Christian rock scene and they would write songs where the pronoun could be Jesus or like it could be like a hot girl that you're singing on the song too, Like it's not clear who you are serenading in this song, and like a lot of bands got over like that, and Creed was one of those bands. It's like, oh, they could be talking about Jesus, they could be talking about a girl, or they could be talking about you know, some guy that they want to punch out because they bumped them wrong. And then in a weight room somewhere or something like that was the that was sort of like the pretext offic a lot of Creed songs. You know, Fred Durst is is basically calling him out, Scott step for posturing in this very self important way, and and Durst says, come on, man, put your feet on the ground, because one of these days that's going to go away and nobody will have anything to do with you if you keep acting like that end quote and look again, as like the Johnny Cochrane of Limp Biscuit in this episode, I will concede that, like Fred Durst is an imperfect vessel for this criticism. But isn't it fair to say that like everything he just said there was like right on the money. I mean, like that seems like a very valid criticism of Creed. Yeah, I mean I don't know how I've never heard any direct reports from like fans of you know, during meet and great thing like you know, avert your eyes when you approach Scott or anything like that. But yeah, I mean the context clues from the videos would would probably bear that out that they probably took himself a wee bit seriously. And it goes back to my point earlier about talking about how self important people. I think generally they tend to get their come uppets at some point, and and the music that they make looks ridiculous the farther you get away from it. Whereas I think someone like fred Durst, who no one would say, you know, for everything you want to say bad about fred Durst, and we're gonna say some critical things about fred Durst later in this episode, he doesn't seem like a guy that takes himself like that seriously. And in a way, I feel like, no matter what else you want to say about him, all the terrible things about Olympus gets music, or you know, the misogyny or like the violence that occurred at Olympus could shows you know, all that stuff that I think you could criticize them for the lack of self importance. I think in this situation just makes him like more sympathetic to me. What I think is funny though about this is, you know, he's attacking Step for basically being like an egomaniac, but the one area that he doesn't go after is the music, which kind I feel like with exactly doesn't he say like he calls their music dope like on that Tierrel episode and he says yeah, he says, I think they're a good band. And there are numerous instances of like fred Durs saying stuff like this about Creed and that sort of dumbfounds me because I feel like, if you're going to attack Creed and not make fun of their music, what else is there that is I feel like you're leaving like a lot of mock heable material on the table. It's almost like fred Durst is taking the high road. The only time I ever say that in this episode where he's taking the high road, or like he actually likes their music. So maybe you know, again, I say this as fred Dur's lawyer, while I will defend him, it seems like another instance where we could say that fred Durs has terrible taste, right, Yeah, the ankle tattoos and big winter tip off, his his defensive Creed on major network TV shows is another tip off that he doesn't have the best taste in the world. That's true, But then Creed here's about this, and of course they reiterate what went down at the k Rock Show as well. I mean, it seems like Frederick wanted to make this about, you know, Creed being like this again a self important band, Scott Stapp being an egomaniac. But isn't you like Creed that kept kind of bringing it back to this almost like point of order type issue, like where it was like a dispute over the starting times at this concert. Yeah, I mean, Scott stop was always just saying he's called metigomaniac. He's the one who refused to go on because he didn't like his set time, he didn't like being lower down on the bill, and he wanted to go on later, you know, So how dare he tried to make me look like the prima donna when he's the one who's delaying the entire show because he wanted to go on after dark. So I think that was their point. And uh, and Scott said, you know, he wrote a blog post and I feel so much installed that even just saying blog post. But he goes on the band's blog and he says, to be honest with you, do you think Scott Stapp had a tumbler? You know, do you think get like a tumbler like where he was like typing out like follow up boy lyrics, And I think about his innermost I think in zanga or a bloggy or something like that. Yeah, oh man, we love to read scott Steps blog. I wonder it's probably only the way Back Machine or one of those things. I bet you it's archived somewhere. God, I hope so. But he basically claimed that that he never even met Fred Durst, and then this whole thing was just a complete fiction. And Fred's just trying to deflect blame for throwing his own hissy fit for not wanting to go on at the right time. Uh. So the band puts out a statement, Scott has his little blog post. Uh. Fred Durst responds uh to creed statement with a terse one of his own. I think to MTV and he said what I said about Creed, I meant the starting time of our New York show had nothing to do with my comments. I bet some fans who have tried to meet them. Would agree, I don't even care about other people in the business. Say, our fans know what we're about, and that's all that matters to me. Yeah, you know again this is this is fascinating to me. Don tie it back to like what I said earlier about just what America was like at this time, because again I think that it was this very decading period. It was a very decadent period in the music business where I think is like the peak year of record sales of all time, you know, and this was like right as napster was starting to come in, but like not enough people were using it yet, so there were still like a lot of teenagers out there buying records. And because it was this sort of again decadent, you know, even like vapid time, you end up having what to me, this sort of has like a moral component to it, which is a weird thing to say in reference to these two bands because they're both so shitty. But I do feel like in a way fred Durst is like posies seeing himself as like like like if this were like an eighties movie, like he would be like the slobs and create would be the snobs, you know, like he's like the John Belushi and like the and Creed are like the blonde like fraternity guys. And you know, he's trying, I think, maybe in his own way, like wave this sort of populist flag for like the downtrodden or the people that are looked down upon, which again is like a weird thing to say in the context of this ravelry because they're both such dirt bag bands, right. I just have no idea what he's basing that on too, though, Like especially if Scott is you know, I know, and he said he said thing, but like Scott's tell the truth, he's never even really met him, then, Like, I don't know, And I've never really heard of all the things I've heard about Scott Stapp personally in his music, I've never heard anything about him being addict to fans though. Well, I think again, I think it was Creed's image that was again, like you you watched their videos and the lead singers holding his arms to the sky and being lifted and you know, I haven't seen the video for a long time, but I think that video ends with Scott Stapp in the arms of like a crying Jesus Christ who is creating him like a newborn baby. I could be mistaken, I could be exaggerating that, but I mean that's the vibe of that video. Of course, it's possible that I am like totally over analyzing this and this is just a pissing match because Fredericks was mad that they weren't head ending the k Rock Dysfunctional Family Christmas. That is always a possibility here. But I mean again, I feel like, uh, some sympathy to to fred Durst in this revelry. And it is interesting too because like you feel like, Okay, this is sort of like a small thing and it could have ended just right here, but then like, didn't Scott Step end up perpetuating it? Right? This is inexcusable. This is you know, I've actually been defending Creed probably a lot more than i'd like throughout this episode so far. But yeah, you've taken your you're like the defense attorney for Scott step. I know, I don't know how that happened. I know we're both like in a twilight zone of of filth and scumbaggery in this episode. This is bad. This is inexcusable. This is part of my plea deal bargain for Scott, I will admit that he did do the following. He perpetuates this argument between himself and fred Durst. This is about a month after the Dysfunctional Family Picnic incident goes down and um Creed calls fred Durst to task for how he handled a young group called tap Root later of of poem fame. I don't know anything beyond poem. Am I missing anything with tap Root? Anything good? You know? I have no idea. I'm gonna be honest. I could you Your knowledge of poem is like way more than my knowledge of tap Root. Okay, that's that's good. Sorry, Sorry, Sorry all the tap Root heads out there. I'll dig into the back catalog after this episode. So fred Durst does this up and coming van tap Root Dirty. This is during the period when Fred Durst, which I didn't realize, was a VP for Interscope. You know, in addition to his many limp biscuit duties, he was also I guess doing A and R for Interscope. Who knew? So he's one of the many head owners trying to sign tap Root and the band went another direction, I guess, apparently because they hadn't heard from Fred in a while and that he was too busy fighting with Creed presumably. So they go off and they signed with Atlantic. They're real happy they've got a major label deal. And then the lead singer, this guy called Steve Richard, comes home and he's got a message on his answering machine and he plays it and I like to read almost in full because it's it's it sounds like something that would be from like good Fellows. It's it's really incredible. Okay, So it's awesome. It's it's like borderline psychopathic. Oh yeah, I mean it's like a bad screenwriter. It's amazing. Yeah. I don't think it's even borderline. I think like fred Durst lost his damn mind right before he left this message. Okay, so this is from Fred Durst leaving it on the voicemail of a singer who signed with somebody else and not him. Steve fred Durst, Hey man, you fucked up. You don't ever bite the hand that feeds in this business, bro, And you're fucking manager. So called guy is a fucking idiot, a loser, motherfucker going nowhere. You have just chosen that path. I took you under my wing, brought you to my house fucking talked about your ass on the radio. Impressed and you embarrassed me and the Interscope family. How am I doing? I just say, like, you read that so chipper, You're like, hey fred Durst, hey man, you fucked up. It's like, wow, this fred Durst is like he sounds pretty chipper for that too. I was like, really going for it. I just imagined him being like Steve fred Durst, hey man, he fucked up. You don't know every bite the hand that deeds. The business bro like more kind of surfer like drawn out and he's probably like superstoned too. I'm guessing like he had smoked some bowls or like done some lines before this phone call, because this, again, it seems unhinged and maybe like a bit of a drunk dial Oh yeah, I mean he sounds like a post off mafio. So he's saying that now you've got enemies and you're sucking yourself already, don't fucking show up at my show because if you do, you're gonna get fucked. You and your fucking punk ass. You're a fucking dumb motherfucker. You're learning right now exactly how to ruin your career. Before it gets started, all of the luck brother, fuck you clip, oh man good, you know, and really it's like Worre's tap Root now you know. Again, as Fred durst lawyer point out out that tap Root, other than poem, apparently whatever the hell that song is, you know, no one remembers tap Root now. Uh. And you know, maybe if you hadn't across Fred Durst and caused them to make this psychotic phone call to your house, you'd be playing stadiums right now. It's probably fair to say that more people remember this voicemail than they do tap Rood song because it starts making the rounds on like early file sharing services. And Creed obviously have nothing to do with this, but they decided to point out the fact that Fred has clearly not read the Anger Management Manual that they so generously gifted to him. So Creed puts out this, they really committed to that bit, the Anger Management Manual bit. You know. It's like it's like we, okay, we have the book, we're gonna send it to you and then we're gonna do a call back the next time that you may explain a scene of yourself in public. So like this is like a recurring bit that they and I gotta say, like, Okay, I've been defending Fred Durst. I will say in this instance, good on you, Creed. That was a good call back to your joke. I feel like the anger management think kind of fell flat at first, but this was a good call back to it. Good call back. But I don't know, I always kind of saw it was kind of a goody goody move, like fingerpoint, like look at what they did? Aren't they bad? How could they do that? We will not stand for these these mafioso tactics in the industries. Vulgar comments. You know, he's worn out his welcome as an artistic spokesperson for our industry. Fred's vulgar comments and violent threats are totally indicative of a mobster mentality that this industry has tried to rid itself of in recent years. It's just this like kind of pearl clutching statement that they put out, which I don't know, it's kind of like, you don't need to get involved with that. I think it's hilarious that they referred to Fred Durst as an artist spokesman for our industry. You know, like that that Fred Durst is like this statesman that all everyone was looking toward for moral guidance. And it's like, oh wait, fred Durst like made a scene of himself on someone's answering machine. This is totally made us rethink all of the faith that we put into Fred Durst as a as a rock solid representative of our industry. You know, Like the great thing about this rivalry is that whenever anyone opens their mouth, they make themselves look like even more stupid than the person that they're criticizing. Like it's the most self defeating rivalry maybe that we've talked about yet. Oh yeah, it's amazing. And the best part of the creed you know, Like Nana Na statement they put out is that they signed off by re upping their ask for a charity boxing match, which is the charity boxing match. Oh my god, I mean I wish I'd seen that go down. That would have been incredible. Well, in spoiler alert, it didn't happen because, as we said before, unless you're challenging Danny Bindy Duchy to a fight, these things never happen. Uh. It's always about I think one person backing down, Like if you're going to have like like one person is going to like really push the charity boxing match, and maybe both people are going to be into it for a while, but like you want to be the one that caves, because you can always be like, well, I would have done it. If they would have done it, I would have done it. But in this instance, fred Durst was the one that backed off, and he made a statement. He said Creed should take a hint and spend more time sending autographs than writing about me. The boxing match sounds like fun, but I'd rather not resort to violence, since I'm busy doing a free tour. And by the way, that was the tour that Olympus get, did I think it was in two thousand for it was the Napster tour. So in this instance, I guess fred Durst was saying that I am an artist spokesman for the community because I'm doing free tours for people. I am the Gandhi of New Metal, if you will, and I don't resort to violence. I'm a non violent man. So he's trying to take the high road while also backing off from the charity boxing idea. All right hand, we'll be right back with more rivals. The next thing that happens in this rivalry, and I think this is like somewhat speculation. I don't know if it's ever actually been confirmed, if this is a response to what was going on, or if we're just reading too much into it. But like Creed put out their album Weathered in two thousand one, kind of to say, by the way that like calling a Creed album weathered, it's uh, it's very self aware, uh, you know, because I feel like if you listen to Creed for too long, like your ears become weathered, you know, like they become very beaten down and aged, and uh, it's just not a great situation. One of the big songs from this record, I guess it's like a I don't think it was a single, it was like a It was a deep cut though that a lot of people liked. It's a song called Bullets. Do you know this song Bullets? Yeah, that's a that's a for Creed. That's a heavy track. That's heavy. Baby, it's a heavy piece of shit. But it's a heavy song. Um. And there's a line in the song that I think it's hilarious and I think it's maybe a reference to Fred Durst where he says at least looking at me when you shoot a bullet through my head, and which I think is a reference to like, you know, Fred Durst going on stage and saying all this stuff about Creed at the Dysfunctional Family picnic um, you know, the you know, in the Summer of of two thousand. I just think it's hilarious though that the conceit of the song is that it's better to shoot someone in the head if you look at them in the eyes. It's like, Hey, if you're gonna shoot me, do the honorable thing and look at me in the face. It's like, how about just don't shoot me? Like I feel like any bullet to the head from somebody is inherently dishonorable, Like if you're going to kill me, uh, you know, this is not a lot of honor in that. So, like, if you get the chance to talk to somebody before they shoot you at the first thing you should probably say is maybe don't shoot me. I agree, that's that's a that's a good yeah. Or else I would say, you know, shoot me in the back of the head. So I don't know it's coming, you know, I'd rather just be on my way having a good day. And then all of a sudden, I'm dead, you know, like I don't realize the bullets coming. I feel like that's the better way to go. So like if I would to write bullets, I would say shoot me in the back of the head, please, I would that would be the sensitive thing to do, Like that would be my lyric. But apparently Scott Step and I disagree on this. So anyway, that seems to be another instance of Scott step perpetuating this very dumb feud, which again, again I choose to believe it's about Fred and I guess because obviously this feud was still sort of in the news when when they released Weathered, it was only a year after the k Rock Dysfunctional Family picnic. He's asked about Weathered, and Fred says it's really a good album. He takes it really well. In fact, he's talking to MTV dot Com. He says, a great record, no filler. It's like, these guys know how to write songs. They know how to write songs, so the melody and the words and the things, you just wake up the next morning and you're singing it. So Fred Durrist is walking around his house singing Creed songs, which I really like that and all those things are wrong, by the way, all those things you just said are wrong. It's not a great record. There's tons of filler. They don't know how to write songs. There's some melody, but not enough. And if you sing the songs, you hate yourself because you are mad that there are Creed songs in your head. It's like you're in a few dude, like make fun of their record, make fun of their music. He called My Sacrifice the biggest song of the year. There are many frustrating things about this ravity, but that is the single most frustrating thing that like Fred Durst, did not make fun of their music. It's like, if you are going to fight Creed, you have so much great material there. And we've already made fun of them in this episode, and not even as much as we should. I mean, I made fun of the video for Higher. We haven't even talked about the song with Arms Wide open. You know they're big power ballad. I remember on some show. I don't think it was like the MTV Video Music Awards or it was the Grammys. Scott Steps sang that song like while holding his baby on stage, like did you see that performance. Oh my god, I blocked it out until just this moment. Holy shit, I forgot about that, just singing this like incredibly modlin sentimental. Uh well, a good point. I don't know. Maybe it was like they rented a baby because it's like, hey, we need a prop for this like pathetic power ballad that dullards are gonna like get into and cry when they hear this song, and they're gonna like like, oh, he's holding a baby. That's a good point. He probably kidnapped that baby. Probably know. Yeah, I'm gonna kidnapped that baby, held it for ransom just for that performance. But anyway, getting back to the point, it's like whatever fred Durst has asked about Creed, he's just talking about them like they're Led Zeppelin or something. Yeah, he's very well. You see, this is a couple of months after nine eleven, and he goes on to say, you know what, anything that went on between us water and the bridge, you know what, I really I don't want to put any more negativity out in the world. I said what I said. I had an opinion. He said, I had an opinion. They're like assholes. Everybody has one, which is uh, classic fred Durst right there. Yeah, it's spoken like a true artist spokesman for the entertainment industry right there, like a true paragon of the industry. And and and then Creed backed off too, And what I think it is hilarious. I mean, there's many hilarious things here, but like as a as a peace offering to Limpiscuit Creed. I don't know if they actually did this, but they considered taking Puddle of Mud on the road as an opening act because Puddle of Mud was like a protege of fred Durst, which again, that's like another thing you could nail fred Durst for right there, Puddle of Mud. Like, don't get me started on Puddle of Mud. I mean, they're worse than either one of these bands as far as I'm concerned, But I just thought it was again that's like another instance of like whoever is talking in this rivalry totally undermining themselves, like by their own idiocy, you know that, Like Creed is trying to make amends, and their peace offering is We're gonna tour with this incredibly shitty band that, like fred Durst took under his wing. They should have really toured a tap root. That really would have been the best way to end this feud. Oh man, Yeah, dude, a Creed put mud tap root triple bill. Are you kidding? That's like butt rock Heaven right there. So the feud is essentially over. But before we move on, I really want to talk about this hypothetical charity boxing match a little bit more like I think I would have won that. Well, okay, so you have Scott Stapp, who I think at that time was probably in better shape than Fred Durst. When you say, I mean he'd always wear those like white tank tops that showed off his arms. Oh yeah, he had some guns, absolutely. I mean just check the arms. It's probably they're probably huge because he was always like spreading them out. It's probably like exercise. I mean, it's like bowlers of those huge arms. It's probably like that. So yeah, and also, as we know, I mean like from the Footsteps poem that he had Jesus walking alongside of him wherever he went, So like Jesus was his wingman who could assist on kicking anyone's ass if Scott Stapped got into a fight Fred Durst, you know, in comparison, I mean, I don't know what he would be like as a fighter. I don't know if he's ever taken any martial arts or anything. My assumption is that he would be like a dirty fighter, you know, like probably wouldn't fight fair. Oh yeah, well I know exactly how it would be as a fighter, because have you ever played the Fight Club video game? He is a character in the Fight Club video game. What. Yeah, I didn't know there was such a thing. I mean, he was terrible and I don't even remember. Like one of my friends had to remember playing it and was like, okay, you know, it's Tyler Dirton going through, and then all of a sudden, it was just Fred and you click on it and it was Fred Durrist and he had like the Red Yankees hat and he was I don't know what kind of string I guess what he was saying that Tapper was not a lie. He's a powerful man who can pull strings and get himself in the Fight Club video game, which check it out. It's pretty amazing. I don't understand like what the context was for Fred Durst to be in the Fight Club universe. You know that he was just somehow fighting at Norton all of a sudden on a video game. It's very very intrigued by that. Um well, anyway, So okay, so you have some reconnaissance from the Fight Club video game that suggests that Fred Durst might be a good fighter, and we also have Scott Staff, who we both seem to agree is probably in better shape. I have to say that for me, if these two were in a real charity boxing match, um, I would probably take Scott's Staff, just because I think Scott Staff would probably take it more seriously, and you know, I just imagine him doing like the Rocky for training regiment, like when you go to Siberia and you're like dragging boulders up the mountains, you know, Like I think Scott Staff is crazy enough exactly. I think he would take it seriously and train and make sure that he could like break Fred Durst. I think Fred Durst would probably show up with like the red ball cap backward, you know, some playboy bunnies, you know, having partied all night, and would maybe look at it as a joke and then you'd get in the ring and realize that there was no joke and that he was going to be in big trouble. So that would be my prediction, you know, I probably would go with Staff too, but I could also see fred Durst. I mean, listening to that voicemail lets me think that there's this whole other side that he can tap into, that of just unrestrained fury. And I could also see fred Dre's just binging on training with like a diet of jolt soda for days on end until he's just completely wired. So I don't know I edged the Staff, but it would be close. I think it would go multiple rounds. What's interesting about this ravelry to me is, you know, again it was short lived, and I think the reason why we're looking back on it is again, I feel like these two bands signify something not great about the late nineties and early two thousand's, but I think something important about American culture. I think again, the popularity of these bands, I think says something about I think the boredom of like a country that has too much money and too much time on its hands, you know, a very decadent, fat, you know, over rich country that's about to maybe be taken down a peg, you know, And that's what America as you know, like right before nine eleven and all the weird things that have happened in the last twenty years of the twenty one century. You can really see what these two guys specifically to that like, after this ravelry, you know, after their their their feud here, their careers took ahead, both went down. I think like right after this, I mean it was like, I mean, like within a year or two. And uh, it's just interesting looking back on them because I mean, they seem like such products of their time, and you feel like these two guys couldn't have existed much longer after this, you know, because American culture was changing so much. Thought of Creed and Limp Biscuit being sort of like the part where American culture the way of crested is such a depressing thought for me that I'm having a hard time even like contemplating at the end of this episode right now. But I mean, but but you think, I mean, but like they seem like archetypes of like a rock front man that doesn't really exist anymore. Oh yeah, I mean I always thought that, you know, that they each take on these archetypes of like asshole rockers of the past. You know, You've always thought fred Durrist was kind of more like Axl Rose with his on stage tantrums, the sort of shameless ship talking followed by failure to actually fight when invited, and then sort of the ego mania to the like you know, no, we're not gonna go on stage when it's light out and I'm gonna go up storm off stage after six songs and stuff like that. So and the metaphor even fits the whole band. Really, you've got the departure of wes Borland and after that the band just went south. And it's kind of like when Izzy left g n R. And you even have when Biscuits sort of long gest dating Stampede of the Disco Elephants, which I think has been in development hell for like eight years now. They've been promising that album something like that. Uh is kind of like their Chinese Democracy, except no one cares about that album. That's a difference. Like people were curious to hear Chinese Democracy. I'm not hearing a lot of Like there's no like online petitions about release Stampede of the Disco Elephants. You know, we must hear this album. I mean maybe there's like you know, a dozen people in Florida or something I want to hear that curious, but this album, it's like eight years or ten years in the making. I gotta say at that point, I am curious. I mean, we're curious because we're lunatics, you know, But I feel like the average sane person is not going to care about that record. But we'll see. And Scott Staff always struck me as kind of like you know, fellow Floridian Jim Morrison, sort of this boozy, boorish brawler with the Messiah complex and delusions of self righteous spiritual advancement. Yeah. I mean, it's worth noting obviously that's Scott Staffed, like Jim Morrison, struggled with substance abuse and mentally almost for many years, and thankfully he's moved beyond that now. But and it took a huge toll on his not only his health but his public image. And as you said, the two thousands for both these guys not a pretty time. Yeah, you know, I think when you know, we look at both of these guys and there are since the early auts, to me, like Scott Staff seems to have had a harder go of it. I mean, you know, we'll talk about Fred Durst here in a minute, but you know, you mentioned who struggles like with alcohol abuse and and and not illness. And you know, we've been having some fun with Scott staff. I don't want to make like too much light of that stuff, though, because it does seem like it's been a serious problem with him, you know, even when it's come up in context that are kind of funny, like I mean the two thousand two story, for instance, like where a concert they actually got sued, Yeah, like where they got sued by their own fans because like the show was so terrible, which I don't think that's ever happened before, Like where fans actually came together in a class action lawsuit to sue a band for sucking. Like you know, not even the shittiest bands in the world have had that happened to them, but it happened to create And the reason why they weren't very good that night had a lot to do with Scott stab and it it seems like he was going through something that night, if he was under the influence of like drugs or alcohol, or if he was maybe having just a hard time that night, but it seems like he was. He was pretty off, and I think that case ended up getting dismissed, right, I mean, I don't. I don't think that those fans actually one that they did a decision based on a bunch of Chicago Cubs fans tried to sue the Cubs for having a terrible season, and so that was and and they lost. So that was the precedent set, and I think that they threw the case judge through the case out based on the Chicago Cubs ruling. So the creative and put on the same you know, legal standard as the two thousand two are of Chicago Cubs, which is probably a club you don't want to be. That's sad, that's tough. And then there was another thing that happened. This was in two thousand five, and this is like, I guess, like a sub rivalry that will that we could talk about in this episode, which was between Creed and three eleven because uh, like Scott Staff apparently was in a bar like a hotel bar with the members of the rap rock collective three eleven, and apparently Scott step was not a fan of three eleven because he was like heckling these guys and uh apparently he was like throwing up like watted up uh napkins at them and just being obnoxious and like one of the guys in three eleven said that Scott Step was actually like he was pounding shots and then slamming them on the bar and like shattering the shot glass like everywhere, Like that's how hard he was doing it, which is an incredible mental image, you know, just a magic Scott Step slamming down shot glasses and breaking them. But like he was heckling the band and and baiting them, and he actually ended up taking a swing at one of them. And I think he also consulted like one of their wives, like just acting like very borishly in this hotel again attacking the rap rock collective three eleven. I mean, it just gets weirder and weirder with him. It's like he's going He's like he's running through like every rap rock band in the world. Yeah, feuds with Oh yeah. The worst part about that was one of the guys that just had surgery and his stitch is ripped open in the middle of us. It was just blood everywhere, shot glass fragments, bits of waded up napkins, and he's thrown off them. Yeah, that's a mess. That's a mess. Amber playing somewhere so in two thousand six. You know, Scott Snappy's trying to get his life back on track, and you know, he gets married to a former beauty pageant contestant. You feel like, oh, that's great. You know, that's a great thing for him. Hopefully he's going to settle down and and and and maybe get away from the rock and roll life. But then he gets arrested the next day for trying to board a plane in Hawaii while drunk, which again, you know, we'll say I think most people board planes the Hawaii when they're drunk. I mean, like, if you're going to Hawaii, it's pretty festive occasion. You know, maybe yeah, maybe you're just you know, trying to party and maybe you're nervous about flying. And you know, that's not a totally unique situation, but you feel like he was probably being belligerent in some way that caused him to get arrested. So that's sad. And then that same year, he's caught on a sex tape with Kid Rock and like multiple women. And I think this was like filmed like several years earlier, like in the late nineties, so it's not like he was cheating on his his beauty pageant life, but that's an embarrassing thing that goes on and then he ends up. I think by this time was Creed broken up again. Yeah, Creed broke up in in two thousand four, and that Chicago The Family Chicago show they were sued for sucking was not a good thing for the band for many reasons. But Mark Tremonti's family was I guess in the crowd that day too, and so that kind of that kind of piste him off. And then Scott stopped stopped doing sound checks to try to like kind of save his voice. And that had been where the band kind of trying to make up bits of songs on the spot, and that was really a huge component of their creative process. So when he started sitting that out, I guess Mark Tremonti later would say that was kind of when we stopped making music together. Was because he wasn't there. And there were other things too. I'm sure the substances played a huge role in just the communication breakdown. But I think in two thousand four they officially broke up. But then I think all the other members got back together and formed another band without him, called alter Bridge, which is that's not with Kennedy. Yeah, exactly, they're just like, we gotta get away from this guy. Although they did get back together with him again in two thousand nine, Cree put out that reunion record, Full Circle, which I think sold pretty well and it debuted pretty high on the charts. But I mean, Creed has not been the band that they were at their peak. And again, like Creed was an absurdly popular band for a long time, I think people forget that or they want to forget it. But you know, they've definitely fallen down from a pretty high peak in their career. So yeah, it's been pretty sad for Creed, you know, in the time since they were at their peak and and and feuding with Limp Biscuit and of course Limp Biscuit, I mean, they've gone downhill as well, pretty dramatically. Oh yeah, I mean have you seen the two thousand MTV Video Music Awards duet between Fred and Christina Aguilera. Oh yeah, it was brilliant being sarcastic, it was awful. It was terrible. And also I don't really understand what he was doing there because he really wasn't involved in it, and he was asked about it at the time he said I want the girl, that's it, which is not a very gallant thing for fred Durst to say. But this is this is sort of a theme with him. Piste off Christina goes to the press and said, you wish you got some nookie from it. He got no NOOKI that did not happen. It's some really crazy stuff that people want to insinuate and people want to say it, and it's hurtful. So that's not good. You don't you don't take a shot at Christina Aguilera and miss that's that's not very nice, and it gets worse. Yeah, didn't do the same thing with Britney Spears, didn't He like reclaimed that he had like slept with with Brittany oh times a thousand. Yeah, I got this one. This is just that was just a preamble with Christina for for the main event, which is the Britney Spears controversy. He's I guess writing I think three songs for her for for what was gonna be in the zone in two thousand three. And I would give anything to hear Britney Spears singing Fred Durst song. I guess all it exists are his own demos, but um, he would claim that they had a fairly brief affair, and he actually went on his own band's blog and to basically tell fans, you know, I never would of fun I felt this way, and I never thought I would have felt this way about Britney Spears. You guys, be nice to work because I guess some fans were kind of like, you know, ripping her for I don't know it was maybe they thought it was bad for his image to be associating with this like pop person who knows. Uh, And so he defends her on his blog and says that how much she means to him and everything. Brittney goes on TRL and is kind of like, what, no, I mean, he's he's really sweet. That's a direct quote. He's really sweet, which is like the most friend zone thing ever. But he's not my type. Fred apparently after this TRL thing happened, withdrew his songs for consideration from the in the zone. Uh. He goes on Howard Stern and he swears on the life of his son's baby Blue Eyes that they really did have a fling, and Britney's team puts out a statement says, you know, this is really sad. He's decided to make up stories and this whole situation feels really junior high, so Bomber he's just been friends zoned publicly by Britney Spears. And he did this again when he does the cover of Behind Blue Eyes with Halle Berry that he directed, and he said, I guess they kissed on screen, and he later tried to make it seem like they had an affair of there too, and when Hallie Berry was asked about it, she literally just laughed. Yeah, it's like pretty sad, Like he's in the stage of his career, like where he's like claiming all these relationships with like famous women and Limp Biscuit. I mean, they were really considered a joke. I think by this time in their career they attempted a couple of different comebacks. There was that come back a two thousand and five the record The Unquestionable Truth Part One, which I think was a very optimistic title. There was like put Apart one. Yeah, there was no part two. Um, you know, I think that record sold like nine copies in its first week, which, now if any band sold that much, I mean that would be like a great first week. But like in two thousand five, like that was not very good. And it was only five years after like Limpiscuit was selling like a million records a week, you know, so like their popularity had just plummeted by that point. And then they tried to get in two thousand nine to come back, and I think they put a record called gold Cobra in two thousand and eleven, which I remember hearing once because I was just sort of morbidly curious about it, and uh, yeah, I mean they were not at their peak at that point. And again, I think when you look at both of these bands, it just underlines how they really seem to belong in their moment, and that once you took them out of that like four or five years stretch in like the late nineties and early two thousand's, like they just did not fit in. Like it was just something that was not going to work. It was like America had changed. We weren't in that decadent board place anymore. You know. By the end of the odds, it was like a much different world. Uh and uh it was like I think people wanted to leave these bands in the past. We're gonna take a quick break to get a word from our sponsor before we get to more rivals. So now the part of the episode that I've been dreading this entire time, the pro case for both. Yeah, you know we've we've both have joked about being like defense lawyers for uh, you know, Scott Stappen, Fred Durst. I've been defending Fred Durst. You've been defending Scott's staff. So why don't you give the pro creed side first. I just gotta say, I gotta give them a slight edge for having better songwriting chops and Mark Tremonti's guitar playing, and you know, although it's definitely not my favorite, Scott's stabs voice has a power that's undeniable. I hate that. I just said that on Jesus Christ, and I will say I actually experienced the power of Scott Stabb's voice at very close range. My My first job was I was working at VH one on their website and they had a morning show for a couple of years. And the whole stick with it was that it was just like filmed on the floor, like it was. It was intentionally super low budget, although I'm sure it was also actually low budget and they didn't have green rooms or anything. So I came into my little cubicle one morning and Scott Stapp was just standing in there singing higher. I can't do a Scott st that voice, but singing the word higher over and over and over again as I'm like trying to just type of my little old Dell computer. So I gotta say, having Scott Stapp behind you singing the word higher for probably five ten minutes, it was powerful. So you know what, for that reason alone, it was unforgettable. I'm gonna say, Scott Stapp powerful voice. There you go. Oh man, See, I really want one of our listeners to like take just a sound bite of Jordan's saying, Scott s Tapp has a power that's undeniable. And if we could make that a pull quote that is applied to Creed and it's also attributed to Jordan's for the rest of his life, I would love that Creed. Honestly, I pride myself on being empathetic to tow bands, to like trying to understand what can be good about them. I have a hard time with Creed. I think that they are a very obnoxious, bombastic, annoying band. I will say I have interviewed Mark Tremonti and he was a nice guy. He's seem like a smart guy. I've heard other people say that about him, like when they've interacted with him, that Mark is a good dude. I have friends who played guitar who have said that Mark Tremonti, in their opinion, is a good guitar player. I will also take them at their word for that. But in terms of my own personal opinion, I think Creed is awful. I think they are one of the worst bands of like the last thirty years. I can't stand them, so that is the best I can do in terms of making a pro case for Creed going to the Olympiscuit side, Limpiscuit is not a great band. However, I will say again that if if you have a choice between a band that takes themselves way too seriously and has no right to take themselves seriously because they're just a ridiculous, stupid band, which I think Creed is, and you have a band that is stupid, but they own their stupidity and they're not trying to present themselves as being smart or profound. They're just like a dumb party band. I'm gonna take the Dumb Party Band, because I guess I value self awareness and I think Limp Biscuit is more self aware. And I think Fred Durston the comments that he made about Scott Staff, the criticisms that he made from that k Rock incident, as minor as that is, I think that he was in the right in that instance. I'll also say that there are a couple Limp Biscuit songs, and this, by the way, is the part of the episode where if someone wants to take a sound bite of me saying nice things about Limp Biscuit, this is the part you want to take a sound bite of. I think that there are some Limp Biscuit songs that have held up pretty well and that I enjoy listening to if they happen to come up on a Spotify shuffle, Nookie my Way, and break stuff. I will defend those three songs as being pretty good songs, and I think that they are signifiers of an era that, uh in a way, I have nostalgia for, because it seems like it was a simpler time in a lot of ways. Talking about the late nineties, it also seems like it was a very corrupt time period as well. Um, but I think olymp Biscuit, Uh, they define that period with those songs. So that's my defensive Olympiscuit. Do you have anything nice to say about limp Biscuit. I I have a really hard time with this section because I just I hate rap rock sonically. I think specifically Fred's rhymes are are terrible. I find his bottomless rage towards both the man and also women in general off putting and even slightly poisonous. I think his lyrics are underpentently violent and sometimes homophobic and misogynistic. I think he's tapping into the alienation that a lot of teenage boys feel and then transmuting it into violence, and it reminds me of like Eminem Slim Shady Care, but without the artistry or satire. I think it's the worst part of the pro side, George, this is the pro side, man. I don't know. I mean, maybe this is a gross generalization. I haven't like sat down and listened to the discography front to back in a while, but you know, I view it as like droop music, like from a clockwork Orange. I just thinking of it as like nihilistic violence, and I Google, I really tried to research the section. I actually googled why do people like fred Durst? And Google responded with do you mean why do you why do people hate fred Durst? And and in their defense, and this is where I go into the pro thing, most people on Google answered why do we hate fred Durst? Because they cite the infamous Woodstock ninety nine riots, for which I think they were unfairly blamed. And I know you have a lot to say on this. You've done a whole podcast series on one Stock ninety nine. But the fires that everyone sort of sees in their mind when they're thinking of wood Stuck ninety and I didn't even go down the same day that that fred Durst performed. So that's gonna be the crux of my pro Olympiscuit argument is that they shouldn't be held responsible for the woods Stock now nine. Hell's came there, There we go. I said a nice thing about Limp Biscuit, And look he he's also directed movies. Fred Drson Scott step hasn't directed any movies he's I don't think they're any good. He directed that John Travolta movie, The Fanatic. Have you seen that? Oh my god, it's funny. So I mean, and the poster is so great too, because it looks like, you know, alternate cover art for chocolate Starfish and hot dog flavored Water. It's like, really creepy. He turns John Travolta into like this creeptastic demon. It's great. So when we look at these two bands together, first of all, I'm glad that they feuded, because I think it's hilarious that these two almost came to blows fred Durston Scott Stapp, and I wish that it actually would have happened, because seeing anyone punch Scott Stapp in the face or fred Durst in the face, it would be very entertaining. But you know, look, I hated both of these bands in the moment, but now I tend to find them more interesting than hateable. I guess I don't find them hatable anymore because they're not being shoved in my face all the time. You know, they they've receded back into history and now they just stand as signifiers to me for like the pre nine eleven America that no longer exists. And perhaps that's for the best, but I find myself contemplating what it was about these bands that made them seem attractive to people at the time, and you know, I feel like you can learn a lot about America in the late nineties by listening to these bands. So again, well, I don't think that they're great bands or even good bands. I think in their own way, they are important and uh, you know, they're Bellweathers for a corrupt age, you know, both of them, and I think that's their ultimate I guess place in history. Now that's, as usual, much more intelligent take than than my own. My take is a tired, not very interesting take, and I admit that off the bat, but it's also a genuine feeling to me. Fred Durris and Scott's Staff are like the devil and Angel of suck Nous like one may represent goodness and light in the form of Scott's Staff, the other is darkness and chaos in the form of Fred. But at the end of the day, they're unified. Because of how much I hate them, I be it creeds, preachy, do me self seriousness, or limp biscuits penchant for perverting multiple genres to craft odes to want in destruction. I will never be able to appreciate either of them. To me, the two sides of the same coin, and I want to take that coin and cast it down a bottomless wishing well. And my wish is to never hear either of their music again. Well, Jordan, I gotta say, like, when I heard you saying all that stuff, you really took me to a higher place. I thought my arms being lifted and being carried to the great Spirit above. So I want to thank you for your insights on both of these shitty, terrible, no good bands. I'm glad because all I feel that I want to break stuff right now. Well, on that note, I think it's time to wrap up this episode of Rivals. Hopefully next week we'll be talking about artists that we actually like and are worth remembering. Until then, thank you all for listening. We'll be back with more Rivals next week. M H Rivals is a production of I Heart Radio. The executive producers are Shawn Tytone and Noel Brown. The supervising producers are Taylor chicogn and Tristan McNeil. The producer is Joel hat Stat. I'm Jordan run Talk, and I'm Stephen Hyden. If you like what you heard, please subscribe and leave us a review. For more podcasts, for my heart Radio, visit the I heart Radio app, Apple podcast, or wherever you listen to your favorite shows.

Rivals: Music's Greatest Feuds

Beatles vs. Stones. Biggie vs. Tupac. Kanye vs. Taylor. Who do you choose? And what does that say ab 
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