Freud Durst: Nu-Metal Psychiatrist

On symbolism…

Sometimes a cigar is just a cigar, you feel me? You can’t read too much into that shit. But then other times, it’s not just a cigar – like, maybe it’s a fat Dutch that somebody emptied out and filled with Chronic and Purple Haze. And if you smoke that blunt thinking that it’s just gonna be a cigar, you’re in for a big surprise, man. Get your mind blown – there’s more than meets the eye. Shit’s real latent.

On regret…

Ugh. I only regret two things: that cover of “Behind Blue Eyes” and all that stuff about banging your own mom. God, I never heard the end of it over that Oedipal stuff – and trust me, seeing the family for the holidays wasn’t exactly pleasant after I let the cat out of the bag on that one, either. Not that all of those theories weren’t crazy prescient, by the way. I love how when people heard the term MILF in the 90s, everyone was like “Ha ha, that’s so funny!” And then like a million porn sites about having sex with moms cropped up. I said that shit a hundred years ago, you dumbass charlatans!

On Carl Jung…

Come at me, bro.

On tattoos…

I like tattoos because they allow us to mark ourselves with the images that fascinate us – it’s a way of making the unconscious very, very conscious, a way to map our deepest feelings. That’s why I’ve got a big tattoo of a guy with a knife for a penis.

On Marilyn Manson…

Marilyn was hot, as far as Goth types go. It’s not really my style, but I dug how Marilyn twisted up people’s hidden sexual desires. Unifying the identity of Marilyn Monroe, the ultimate sex goddess, with Charles Manson, America’s homicidal mad man – I thought that was dope. Lots of phallic imagery, too – I think there was some definite penis envy going on. But it was also sexy in a strange way. We toured together a bunch of times and…well, let’s just say, we have a history. Kind of like me and Christina Aguilera, you know. Things got a little wild on the tour bus with me and Manson, right? You feel me? …I’m saying I had sex with Marilyn Manson. Pretty cool, huh?

On discovering that Marilyn Manson is a man…

Yo, WHAT?!?

On free association…

People criticized free association when I invented it at the turn of the 20th century to examine the unconscious and they criticized it when I used it to write nu-metal lyrics in the 1990s. Haters always gon’ hate, you know? “How can you say that these random thoughts reveal anything about me?” they’d ask. Or, “How can you write nonsensical lyrics like ‘I did it all for the nookie/So you can take that cookie/And stick it up your… yeah!’?” Most people are only willing to accept the literal – they’re afraid of abstract thinking. Mainstream society is really wack like that.

On cocaine…

Yes, please.

On transference…

It’s incredible how much people transferred onto me in both of my professions. When I was an analyst, people would project their own sexual hang-ups and personality disorders on to me. “Oh Freud, you’re such a creep, maybe you’re the one with penis envy!” Or, “Freud, you really are passive aggressive, aren’t you, you dirty old man.” It was mad stupid. The same thing happened in my rap-rock career; “Durst, you talentless assclown – all you care about is sex and partying!” Uh, maybe all you care about is sex and partying, dude. I’m just over here writing records about chocolate starfishes and hot dog flavored water. So don’t project your perversions on to me, okay? It’s like I’m the goddamned Pervert Martyr.

On Korn…

I’ve got nothing bad to say about Korn – well, okay, here’s one thing: they were a little too up front with their issues, if you ask me. I mean, one of their album titles actually is Issues, for Christ’s sake! Look, I know I’m an analyst, but it was just a little TMI, even for my taste. Check out some of their songs…“Daddy,” “Hey Daddy,” “Bottled Up Inside,” “Deep Inside,” “I’m Hiding,” “Alone I Break,”…they were oversharing just a tad, don’t you think? Everything felt like a diary entry from an unpopular 7th grade girl with braces. I wish they would’ve done everybody a favor and repressed some of those feelings, because it was pretty fucking pathetic. Great guys, though.

On the name Limp Bizkit…

Believe or not, it’s a penis joke. I know, right?

On his lyrics…

So much of my work regarding psychosexual development was about infantile stages and the perpetual desire for gratification, so it’s no shock that my lyrics were about fucking and hurting people. I exposed those needy cravings unabashedly and without censor – straight from the knuckle-dragging frat boy Id that inhabits each of us. Basically, I was wrote all of Significant Other from the perspective of a really horny baby.

On his most Durstian psychoanalytic writings…

Jeeze, have you read them lately? Everything I wrote was Durstian. That’s just the way things were back then – we were obsessed with sex and anger and conflict. Not just me, either – pretty much everything that came out before 1950 was like that. Go reread some Hemingway…it’s like the lyrics to an articulate 90s nu-metal song. Anyway, here are some of my most Limp Bizkit-esque academic musings:

The goal of all life is death.

Anatomy is destiny.

Unexpressed emotions will never die. They are buried alive and will come forth later in uglier ways.

According to the prevailing view human sexual life consists essentially in an endeavor to bring one’s own genitals into contact with those of someone of the opposite sex.

Wait, check out this one I wrote in a love letter to my fiancée. I swear to god I don’t remember this, but I was out-of-my-fucking-mind high during that entire courtship:

Woe to you, my Princess, when I come. I will kiss you quite red and feed you till you are plump. And if you are froward, you shall see who is the stronger, a gentle little girl who doesn’t eat enough, or a big wild man who has cocaine in his body.

On his most Freudian Limp Bizkit lyrics…

I don’t even know what I should say/’Cause I’m an idiot, a loser, microphone abuser/I analyze every second I exist/Beatin’ up my mind every second with my fist.

Well, that or:

It’s my ass and your perfume/That make temptation hard to refuse/So I guess we undressed/To have sex…dirty sex.

I’m very proud of that one.