In January 2000, Limp Bizkit returned to the studio to capitalize on their mainstream success stemming from
Significant Others release the previous year. The band initially hired
Rick Rubin to produce the record, though creative differences culminated in him abandoning the project after less than a week, resulting in
Terry Date returning to produce the record. Through multiple interviews,
Fred Durst and guitarist
Wes Borland often expressed that they had very little material prepared for the writing sessions, with Borland claiming during an interview in January 2000; "I don't think that we entered the studio with a method, or there's like 17,000 methods and we used all of them". Recording sessions took longer than expected as the band regularly experimented with newer material whilst simultaneously touring as headliners in
Napster's Back-To-Basics tour. The longtime working title for the album had been
Limpdependence Day, but this was abandoned after the band failed to meet the deadline for their original intended release date of July 4. Despite numerous delays, the band managed to compose most of their new songs by August 2000, and debuted the track "Livin' It Up" at that year's
MTV Video Music Awards in a duet performance with
Christina Aguilera.
Promotion The band appeared at the
2000 MTV Video Music Awards in September 2000 due in large part as they were nominated for multiple awards, and in conjunction with their performance alongside
Christina Aguilera. In a mashup of the two artists following Aguilera's performance of her 1999 single "
Come On Over Baby (All I Want Is You)", the band played an excerpt of the song "Livin' It Up" possibly hinting at the song being a future single, though this never materialized for unknown reasons. To generate further attention for the album's release; the band's management group
The Firm hosted a large scale party at the
Playboy Mansion in Southern California on the night of the album's release. The band aired a full hour-long special on
MTV with numerous celebrities present, such as
Chino Moreno from
Deftones,
David Silveria from
Korn,
Mark McGrath from
Sugar Ray,
Brandon Boyd from
Incubus,
Xzibit and more. Durst had initially approached MTV producers with his proposal for the special, which they later allowed him to cohost per his own request. They also embarked on a fall co-headlining tour with
Eminem called the
Anger Management Tour through North America in late 2000, with
Papa Roach,
Xzibit and
D12 acting as support during the first leg through November 21, 2000. On the second leg from November 24 to December 19, 2000,
Godsmack,
DMX and Sinnistar took over. The tour was unique for its approach to bridging the gap between rock and
hip-hop.
Title and artwork "Chocolate starfish" is a slang term for the
human anus. "Hot dog flavored water" is based on an
in-joke started by Borland at a truck stop while the band was on tour during the summer of 2000, where he saw bottles of Crystal Geyser
flavored water and made a joke about having meat or
hot dog-flavored water. Durst refers to the album name in three songs. First, in "Hot Dog", he tells his detractors to, "Kiss my starfish, my chocolate starfish". Second, in "Rollin' (Air Raid Vehicle)", Durst mentions "Chocolate Starfish" in the introduction. Third, in "Livin' It Up", he declares that, "The chocolate starfish is my man Fred Durst." Borland stated in an interview when questioned on the naming of the album that, "Fred calls himself Chocolate Starfish, because people call him an asshole all the time." It has been featured in several lists of the worst album covers of all time. ==Music and lyrics==