"Nothing bugs me more than when I see my guitar parts transcribed incorrectly!" snarls Wes Borland. In this instance, he's speaking of the bizarre and highly original guitar inventions he forged for Limp Bizkit's latest release, Significant Other. "I grew up studying the transcriptions in guitar magazines, and I always assumed that they were the gospel-that the magazine got the licks right from the guitarist in the band. It was only much later that I found out that this wasn't always the case." Borland is doing his part to right the wrongs of the past. "I know that there are kids out there buying books and magazines with transcriptions of our songs in them, so I want to make sure the parts are shown as I really played them. It drives me crazy to think that they are learning the parts wrong. I recently went over every single guitar part in the Significant Other transcription book [Warner Bros. Publications]. People around me said, 'Why in the world are you going to all this trouble?' and I said, 'Because it has to be right!' This way the kids aren't getting ripped off."
Well, happy Guitar World readers, this is your lucky day. What follows is a guided tour through the innermost workings of Limp Bizkit's Significant Other, courtesy of none other than Mr. Borland.

Guitar World: Let's start with the first single from Significant Other, "Nookie."

Wes Borland:"Nookie" is played on my custom-made Ibanez four-string,which has a very skinny neck, like a banjo, and is tuned the same as my original, homemade four string [low to high: F#, F# (one octace higher), B, E: the string gauges are, low to high: .065 .042 .030 .020]. It's strung just like the bottom four strings of my guitar, except the lowest string is replaced with a bass A string. This low A is tuned an octave lower than the fifth-string A, which is right next to it. So, low to high, it's A,A,D,G, but tuned down one and a half steps, so that the actual pitches are F# F# B E. I could never get used to calling the strings by their "Dropped Tuned" names, so in this tuning I think of the lowest string as A, the next string as A an octave higher, and then the next two strings as D and G.

The very first "slide-up" note can actually be executed from anywhere near the bottom of the neck; you don't need to be that specific about it. The highest point of the slide reaches to about the 12th fret. The initial slide-up is followed by the two low A notes, and then I play a Bb octave on the A and G strings in the 13th position. I fret the lower Bb note with my middle finger and the higher Bb with the pinkie. This same Bb octave is played again on beat four. I play the riff four times with a clean tone, and then eight more times with distorted tone.

The verse riff is a little tricky - I've seen it transcrived incorrectly a few times. Here's the correct way to play it. After I play the initial low A, I fret the 13th and 12th frets of the octave A string, followed by the open low A; then I fret the 12th and 13th frets on the low A string, followed by the open high A string. It sounds more confusing to play than it really is.

GWAt the pre-chorus, you switch to a very rhythmic,syncopated lick.

BorlandThat's right. The pre-chorus lick is based on an octave figure, fretted on the A and G strings in the 12th position, that's played in a syncopated rhythm against the open low A. At the end of each bar, the A octave slides up one fret [one half step] to Bb

After the pre-chorus is played the first time, I go back to the verse section. After the second pre-chorus, I go to the chorus section, which has the same riff as the intro.

GW:During the first verse, at 0:39, a two-note figure descends in a 16th-note syncopation. Is that a guitar?

Borland: No, that's either my brother, Scott, on keyboards, or it's DJ Lethal making that sound with his turntables. This is also the case with the lick behind the chorus, which kinda sounds like bent notes on a guitar.

GW: During the bridge, it sounds like you're alternation between the two open A strings.

Borland:That's right. I play a syncopated figure that uses both open A strings. Actually, on the record, I played both notes on the low A: I switched between the open string and the octave A at the 12th fret. When I play the lick now, I play it on the two open A strings, as it's show here. (it shows guitar figures in the magazine)

GW:During the outro, you play a part that sounds similar to the bridge riff.

Borland: It is similar, except instead of playing the high open A string, I play an A octave on the A and G strings in the 12th position.

GW: "Break Stuff" has turned out to be quite a controversial song in the light of the Woodstock '99 debacle.

Borland: You can say that again! VH1did a thing about all the madness and mayhem that took place at Woodstock '99, and proclaimed, "Limp Bizkit's 'Break Stuff' was the anthem for all of the violence," or something like that. In defense of the band, there was nothing we could do about the activities of the crowd at Woodstock. We just played our show.

GW:That said, how do you play "Break Stuff"?

Borland:"Break Stuff" is really a very easy song to play. I play it on the seven-string, which is tuned down one and a half steps.

You start with an open low E note, which you down-pick, then you quickly up-pick an F#5 power chord, followed by a C [A string /3rd fret] fretted with the middle finger. That one bar lick keeps looping throughout the entire verse section.

GW: On the chorus, how do you execute the very subtle bends on the F#5 power chord?

Borland: I fret the same F#5 chord, but I add some tiny bends to it by pulling all of the strings down toward the floow. For the dead-string hits at the end of the bar, I lay the for fingers of my left hand flat, covering all of the strings, and strum hard with the right hand.

For the bridge riff, I use the same notes and chords as the intro, except they're reversed, I start with the C note {A string/3rd fret], and then I switch to the F#5 power chord.

GW: How do you play the second half of the bridge section, where it shifts gears into a much more syncopated figure.

Borland:I think of that part as being like a drum pattern. I play the same notes that I use for the previous figures, but in this section I just play a low F# note instead of the F#5 power chord.

GW:Behind this guitar part, it sounds like there's another guitar strumming muted strins in steady 16th notes and treated with some kind of shifting oscillation effect, like a DigiTech Whammy Pedal.

Borland: That's a turntable played through a Marshall stack. Often, when you think you're hearing guitar, it's really DJ Lethal. I've been staying away from the Whammy Pedal because, when I use it, it screams Tom Morello.

GW:"Just Like This" has some really aggressive, heavy guiar parts in it.

Borland:"just Like This" starts with this riff,[shows riff], which is played up in the 15th position. After that, I drop the entire riff down an octave. I think of this as the main riff of the song because it goes behind both the intro and chorus sections.

The only other part I play in the song enters halfway through the verse section [0:47]. It's played like this [shows figure]. There are'nt any other guitar parts during the verses; all the other stuff you hear is keyboards.

GW:"Re-Arranged" is one of the few tunes on Significant Other that features a two-handed tapping technique, akin to the songs "Stalemate," "Indigo Flow" and "sour," from 3 Dollar Bill Ya'll$.

Borland: That's true. I'm a big Les Claypool fan, and I first got into using the two-hand tapping approach from listening to him. hat's why my approach to using this technique has more to do with trying to devise solid rhythm parts, as opposed to playing flashy, guitar-solo-type licks.

The verse rhythm part is played like this [shows figure]. My right hand index finger taps the 12th fret of the low E string, and the middle finger taps an E note an octave higher, on the 14th fret of the D string: the two fingers alternately tap in steady 16th notes. While the right hand taps this part, the left hand index finger taps the high E string at the 3rd fret, and then pulls off to the open string; the left-hand part is played in a different rhythm than the right-handed part.

Since I have an "extra" high E string. i hammer onto and pull-off from both of the high E's, which gives the lick sort of a 12 string guitar sound. You don't have to have two high E strings though; the lick works fine on a standard six-string guitar with one high E string.

GW: Why does the high -E-string part sound more complex on the record?

Borland: I think that the sound of the steady 16ths of the right hand makes the left-hand part sound more complicated than it really is.

I alter the verse lick slightly for the pre-chorus. I continue tapping the same pattern with the right hand, but I use my index finger to hammer-on and pull-off from notes at the 7th and 8th frets on the two high E strings.

GW: How do you play the chorus?

Borland: The right hand does most of the work. I begin by tapping with the right hand as before, but I sneak in a low G note, which I tap with my left index finger.After the low G is tapped the first time, the right-hand alternating octave figure is moved up to the 15th position; after I tap the low G the second time, the right hand moves back to the 12th position.

For the second chorus, I basically play the same part, but I extend it a little further. This lick ends with both hands slapping the fretboard: on beat four, I first slap across all of the strings, once with the right hand, once with the left, and then twice more with the right, all in steady 16ths.

GW: Toward the end of the song, at the third chorus [3:14], the guitar parts become very heavy. What's going on there?

Borland:At that point of the song, I switch from tapping to strumming, with the pick and I strum everything for the rest of the tune. The whole heavy part is just strummed octaves: for the first two bars of this section, I play octaves on the D and B strings, which I fret with my index finger and pinkie. That figure is played only twice. The next lick is almost exactly the same, except for the second measure: here, I substitute a sliding two-note power chord, fretted with the index finger and pinkie, for the E octave figure.

GW:How do you play that phat, dense-sounding chord that kicks off "I'm Broke"?

Borland: That's an E (B5) power chord that consists of three notes: the open low E; the Bb, fretted at the 1st fret on the A string; and the octave E, fretted on the D string at the 2nd fret.

For the chorus section, I play a part that utilizes the extra high E string as a drone.I usually play sliding octaves on the G and the higher of the two high E strings, with the "inside" high E string ringing open as a drone.You can get the same effect on a six string guitar; just play the octaves on the D and B strings and use the regular open high E string as a drone.