Mike Smith (guitarist)

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For other people by this name, see Michael Smith.

Mike Smith

Born	October 11, 1973 in Middle River, Maryland, USA
Genre(s)	nu metal
Affiliation(s)	Snot theSTART Limp Bizkit evolver
Notable guitars	PRS Guitars
Years active	1998(?) - present

Mike Smith (born on October 11, 1973 in Middle River, Maryland, USA) is a musician, best known as the former guitarist of Snot, theSTART, and Limp Bizkit. Currently he is the singer and guitarist for the band evolver.

1 Snot
2 theSTART
3 Limp Bizkit
4 External Links

[edit] Snot

Snot's original guitarist, Sonny Mayo, left in May, 1998, and Smith was recruited soon afterward. Snot set out to work on their second album, but in December, lead singer Lynn Strait died in a car accident. The group decided not to continue on, although the album Strait Up was released in 2000 as a tribute to Lynn, with guest vocalists from various bands contributing.

[edit] theSTART

Smith then went on to form a band called Hero with former-Snot drummer Jamie Miller, as well as Aimee Echo and Scott Ellis of Human Waste Project. In July of 1999, Hero were signed to 143 Records/Atlantic Records and recorded their debut album named "Circles." The band was forced to change their name due to legal issues (it was already taken). At the suggestion of Aimee's mother, they changed it to theSTART. In late 2000, Mike Smith left the band. After various issues, the album was eventually released in July 2001 under The Label/Geffen Records and renamed Shakedown!, with some changes made.

[edit] Limp Bizkit

In late 2001, Limp Bizkit was left without a guitar player with the departure of Wes Borland. The entire ordeal of choosing a new guitarist was taken very slowly, with various options taken into consideration. Initially, a nation-wide audition, entitled "Put Your Guitar Where Your Mouth Is" was carried out to find a guitarist for the band, but nobody was chosen out of the thousands of participants. Smith had known members of the band previously, as they were friends with Snot. They decided to give him a shot at the position, and in 2003, he was chosen as the band's guitarist. Together they recorded at least 14 songs, some of which ended up on the album Results May Vary.

The band toured throughout 2003, and early 2004, and there was even talk of a new single after the tour, but soon things became quiet in the band. It was revealed later that year that Wes Borland had returned to the band, and while the question was never directly addressed, it was quite obvious that Mike Smith was no longer in the band. It is unclear whether he quit, or was fired from the band due to the return of Borland. Fred Durst later said in an interview "We are very content with Mike being gone. We are the type of people that stay true to our family and our instincts and at any moment will act on intuition as a whole. Mike wasn't the guy. We had fun playing with him, but always knew, in the back of our minds, that he wasn't where we needed him to be mentally.". To this day both parties keep very quiet on the issue.