“It would have been career suicide”: Fear Factory’s Dino Cazares on why he refused to audition for Limp Bizkit

Talking exclusively in the new issue of Metal Hammer, Dino Cazares has reflected on the time he declined an offer to audition for Limp Bizkit. The guitarist for industrial metal pioneers Fear Factory, who will this autumn tour Europe and the UK, was presented with the opportunity to play in front of the rap metal icons in 2001 and potentially replace Wes Borland. However, he shot the chance down.

When writer Matt Mills asked Dino why he wasn’t interested in rollin’ with Limp Bizkit, the guitarist replied: “Because it was in 2001 and I felt that that style of nu metal had already hit its peak.”

He elaborated: “Limp Bizkit’s [sound] was already oversaturated and on its way down. I said, ‘If I actually got that gig, it would have been career suicide.’ Fear Factory, we were pretty much at our peak. And it’s funny because, two years later, I was out of Fear Factory.”

Sure enough, Limp Bizkit’s first album without Wes, 2003’s Results May Vary, would become their lowest-charting since 1997 debut Three Dollar Bill, Y’all$. It reached only number three in the US Billboard 200 charts (a downgrade from Significant Other and Chocolate Starfish And The Hot Dog Flavored Water’s number one spots) and was lambasted by critics. Meanwhile, Fear Factory would continue climbing in the American album charts, reaching their commercial peak with Archetype in 2004: one year after Dino left the band, before returning in 2009.

In the same interview, Dino also told a humorous story about the making of Fear Factory’s second album, Demanufacture. The band’s magnum opus was recorded in the same building that Bon Jovi were using to track their 1995 album These Days.

“Bon Jovi had the other room and Faith No More [who were recording King For A Day… Fool For A Lifetime] had the barn outside,” the guitarist recalled. “One time, our keyboard player, Rhys Fulber, is on a payphone, and a guy walks past who he thinks is a runner. He says, ‘Hey, can you go to the deli and pick me up a ham and turkey? Hold the mustard, extra mayo.’ Someone walks over to Rhys and goes, ‘That’s Jon Bon Jovi! What the fuck are you doing?!’ Ha ha!”

Read the full interview in the new issue of Metal Hammer, which celebrates the 2000s by exploring the nu metal takeover, paying tribute to Dimebag Darrell and interviewing Jackass wildman Steve-O. Order your copy online here.