Wes Borland

Wes Borland (born Wesley Louden Borland February 7, 1975 in Richmond, Virginia) is a musician, best known as the former guitarist in the band Limp Bizkit. He has been in several other bands as well, such as The Damning Well, Goatslayer, Big Dumb Face, From First to Last and currently Black Light Burns. Borland's family moved from Virginia to Jacksonville, Florida where his father took a pastoral job at a Presbyterian Church. In Florida, Borland met bassist Sam Rivers, but the two did not get along due to rivalries between local bands. He went to school with John Otto. He spent his summers in Montreat, North Carolina, working in the sound booth for Montreat conference center, a Presbyterian Church institution.


When Limp Bizkit was looking for a guitarist, John Otto threw out his name, stating he was more of an artist than a guitarist, but the band decided he'd be worthwhile for the position. In one of these bands, Borland sang and played guitar but did not use a guitar pick. He would only play guitar using the two hand tapping style of guitar playing that he would go on to use in Limp Bizkit songs such as "Stalemate", "Sour", "Re-Arranged" and "Indigo Flow".

Fred Durst left to Philadelphia for a short while, leaving the others to speak to Wes Borland and see if he'd join the band. Borland accepted, and the three practiced, while keeping in touch with Durst over the phone. Later Durst came back to Jacksonville, and the band had a show scheduled. Durst and Borland met for the first time and played their first show together 30 minutes later. On stage, Borland was known for his eccentricity, frequently wearing elaborate face paint and black-tinted contact lenses.

In the very early stages of Limp Bizkit, Borland's brother and future Eat the Day bandmate Scott Borland played keyboards, but with the early inclusion of DJ Lethal, the band eventually became a success. Scott played with Limp Bizkit as a session keyboard player on Limp Bizkit's first three releases, until Borland quit in 2001, which is when the two brothers formed Eat the Day.

On October 12, 2001, Borland left Limp Bizkit because, he claims, the band limited his ability to express himself artistically. Before leaving Bizkit he formed the band Big Dumb Face as an outlet for his creativity. Big Dumb Face has since been put to the side. Borland then started the band Eat the Day with his brother, Scott Borland. Eat The Day was described as heavy and dramatic, with Borland pushing the envelope of his heavy and soft playing within epic, normally over five minute song lengths.

Borland and his brother Scott were initially going to both be the lead vocalists to avoid the stigmas associated with singular frontmen, but both Borlands felt their guitar playing was starting to suffer due to having to contribute vocals at the same time. They first tried fixing this with going through Interscope Records' demos to find a singer, only to find nobody they were satisfied with. During this period of Eat the Day, the band's website released several mp3s with no vocal tracks, asking for interested vocalists to record over the tracks and submit their recordings as an audition to front the band. The songs "Beeblicowcarapis", "dAdA", and "Taste My Gun" were initially released (and still are available via the internet) as their full length selves, but later, Eat the Day only put up the beginning portions of the songs to have vocalists to sing over. This gesture was similar to the Limp Bizkit national guitarist audition after Borland left the band, and proved to be ultimately futile, other than showcasing what the ultimate sound of the project could have become. The members of Eat The Day instead decided to take a small break from the project and focus on other things to see if a vocalist would naturally pop up. Borland also played bass for the band dobmyer for a short time.