Staind's Aaron Lewis offered some praise for Limp Bizkit frontman Fred Durst, the man who discovered Staind. Back in the late 90s, Interscope Records gave Durst his own label (and a VP of A&R position) and one of the success stories of Durst's label, Flip Records, was Staind.
During a recent solo gig, Lewis performed the Staind song "Epiphany" acoustically, and then went into story mode about the song's music video, which was directed by Fred Durst:
āHow crazy is it that Billy Zane is the lead character in that? [āEpiphanyā video] You know we spentāwell, we didnāt. Well we didābut Fred spent like a million and a half dollars on that fucking video. Dumb shit. Thereās so many ways I could have spent that moneyā¦ā
[youtube=https://youtu.be/r8cEzdjLn60][/youtube]
A fan heckled that "Fred's an asshole" and Lewis shot back:
āNo, Fredās the whole reason Iām sitting in front of you tonight. And I gotta say that that at this point in my life I call Fred when I need like Dalai Lama advice, for real.
Fred is fucking awesome, he really is. He blows my mind every fucking time I talk to him. He does. Iām very thankful. Iām thankful that afterā¦ Honestly after I offended the fuck out of him, cause I did; The first time we ever met I offended his ass bad.
And Iām very grateful that he was able to get past thatā¦ Every time I hear someone yell something bad about Fred I want to just like screech to a halt and be like āWhat?ā That is the reason Iām hereā¦ [Without Fred] Iād have given it up a long time ago I think and I probably would have written songs that made my kids laugh and I would have been okay with that.
But Fred is the reason that Iām here. So any fucking hate that you may harbor in your heart for no reason whatsoever, because you donāt even know the boy, let it go.
Heās alright in my book.ā
After jokingly singing "I love Fred," Lewis noted that Durst lost everything in the California wildfires late last year:
āSo this is what kind of motherfucker he is. Did any of you know that he lost everything in that West Coast fire that just happened? Everything. Everything.
He drove his Harley Davidson away from his house because he couldnāt even get his car out of the garage. Thatās what kind of motherfucker he is. You donāt know that. Nobody knows that. He lost everything in that fire. So, donāt hate on a motherfucker.ā
[Transcript by ThePRP]