Yahoo Autos Wes Borland on how he ended up playing guitar like a trombone, why he loves four-string electrics, his “out-of-control” gear habit – and what's next for Limp Bizkit
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?
The Selmer 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
“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…
My band Black Light Burns were making a video and we ended up hanging that Billy Sheehan bass from a tree and spray-painted it completely white for no reason
“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!
