Limp Bizkit Co-Founder Dead at 48

Sam Rivers, the bassist of Limp Bizkit who founded the nu metal band with singer Fred Durst, died Saturday at the age of 48. The band announced his death on Instagram, but did not share a cause, USA Today reports. In a tribute signed by Durst, guitarist Wes Borland, drummer John Otto, and DJ Lethal, Rivers was remembered as "our brother," "our bandmate," and "our heartbeat." The band described him as "the pulse beneath every song, the calm in the chaos, the soul in the sound," calling him irreplaceable.

Born in Jacksonville, Florida, Rivers launched Limp Bizkit with Durst in 1994. He and Otto, longtime friends, originally played tuba and jazz drums in middle school in the 1970s, Variety reports. After switching to bass and guitar, Rivers befriended Durst, and the two formed the band Malachi Sage before ultimately launching Limp Bizkit, which Otto and Borland quickly joined. DJ Lethal, formerly of House of Pain, joined later. The band released its debut album, Three Dollar Bill, Y'all, in 1997 and became a major force in the nu metal scene. Rivers' last performance with the band was at the Reading Festival in England in August, which he called a "beautiful experience." His final Instagram post on the day before his death marked the anniversary of the band's third album, Chocolate Starfish and the Hot Dog Flavored Water, with the message, "Nothing but love."

Rivers left Limp Bizkit between 2015 and 2018 due to health issues, as detailed in the 2020 book Raising Hell: Backstage Tales From the Lives of Metal Legends. He wrote that he developed severe liver disease from excessive drinking, which forced him to take a hiatus because he "felt so horrible." "I quit drinking and did everything the doctors told me. I got treatment for the alcohol and got a liver transplant, which was a perfect match," he wrote. In their statement, his bandmates called him "pure magic" and said his "spirit will live forever in every groove, every stage, every memory."