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What's up with that title of your new rap-metal album, Chocolate Starfish And The Hot Dog Flavored Water?
"Nothing," says Durst down the line from L.A. "The same way our (band) name doesn't mean anything. Chocolate Starfish obviously is an a--hole, so go from there."
Sorry I asked.
Durst is talking prior to Limp Bizkit's nearly sold-out show at SkyDome tonight with Eminem (barring any unforeseen difficulties), Papa Roach and Xzibit. Chocolate Starfish, which follows the Florida band's multi-platinum 1999 breakthrough, Significant Other, hit the retail charts this week in the No. 1 spot, both in Canada and the U.S.
It sold close to 100,000 copies in Canada during its first week of release, according to SoundScan Canada, dethroning Radiohead's Kid A, and in the U.S. sold 1,054,511 copies.
Early reviews, however, have been brutal.
"Pubescent peeves and predictability render Limp Bizkit's uh .. HotDog .... impotent," said Entertainment Weekly.
"Loud, dumb and obnoxious, Starfish exploits teen angst to cartoonish extremes," wrote USA Today.
Durst, who is now a record executive on his label Interscope and a fledgling filmmaker, feels his rants serve a purpose -- particularly after Limp Bizkit became the band to blame for the 1999 Woodstock woes.
"I feel like I'm a spokesperson for our generation now," says Durst. "I feel like I'm only going to try to bring our generation even tighter and stronger together. Because to get the buck passed to you, to get the finger pointed at you, it makes you uncomfortable. You need to feel a worth.
"And our generation, it's going to be running things and doing things later, like it or not, and these people need to be made to feel important, instead of looked down on or blamed."
The group's reputation didn't get any better, at least among musicians, when they sought out the controversial music-swapping Internet site Napster to sponsor a free, month-long tour of clubs in the summer.
Durst says the idea was to pay back fans for their support, but it turned into a political football.
"They've caused major awareness for me on the Internet," says Durst about Napster. "It's really been good for me. It's like I don't believe in free music, but I believe in the awareness it causes. And I still believe people are still going to go out and get CDs, that's what I believe. Maybe not in a few years, but now, yeah."
You need to embrace technology, and make it an ally, he says, or you'll be a follower.
"Napster came to the plate with the money, and then we got attacked by (Metallica's Lars Ulrich) and some press. The guy was calling us fake and talking all this s---. It was really wild because we're huge Metallica fans, and it's just, like, really upsetting."
Now Limp Bizkit is stirring up controversy again, touring with rapper Eminem, who is generating controversy in Ontario right now in political circles.
Durst calls him "one of the greatest rappers of all time," and says Eminem's trashing of Christina Aguilera in his song, The Real Slim Shady, which implies she gave oral sex to Durst, is between Eminem and Aguilera.
"I think she's a really, really talented woman," says Durst, who performed with Aguilera recently at the MTV Video Music Awards. "I think she's an amazing performer and singer. I think she's going to stick around for a long time, but I think what's going on in her life right now is kind of diluted and washed out a little bit ... I don't know.
"She's young, and something about her drives me crazy about the way she sings and performs and the presence she has. So I was interested in her. She knows that I didn't do anything. Whatever her and Em have issues on -- that's their thing."