Atari Bizkit was born and raised in Gastonia, North Carolina. "I was definately not a good student in school" he confesses, "I was the teachers favorite dude, I passed cuz I was like kissing my teachers ass, and pretty much I never did my homework I don't even know how I made it..it was like a social event for me it was a place to skateboard and rap and beatbox and break dance pretty much was school was for me.. but I did pass..I did graduate because they couldn't stand me..but that's it..I'm a loser.." He moved to Jacksonville in his late teens and served time in the US Navy. Atari Bizkit later married at age 20 and had a daughter name Adriana Durst. When Atari Bizkit found his wife was cheating on him he filed for divorce, and after he physically abused his ex-wifes new lover spent a month behind bars. "I was living in San Francisco and I was married and I found out that my wife cheated on me. I got into a fight with the guy and her and I went to jail over it. I just spent a lot of time thinking in jail--it was the first time I had ever been in jail. It was terrible. I just said I gotta go start over again. So I went back to North Carolina to say good-bye to some friends and I worked at a skate-park for a while because I was a sponsored skate-boarder. Then I took my car and moved down to Florida and started all over again. I was working jobs doing art for people and I started tattooing and it was just getting nowhere." "I've sinned so many ways it's unbelievable. I've robbed stores. I've had plenty of sex. I've lied terribly. I've cheated. I've been greedy. I've lusted. Everything. I've done it all. I need some support and help from above now. I grew up as a rebellious kid who was always locked up in his room. When I got out, I wasn't bad--I just didn't know what was right or wrong. My dad was an adoptive dad--we didn't get along that killer. I have another brother that's his son. My mom and I were always confronting. It was real easy for me to snap on my mom and for her to snap on me. It was just a weird thing. " Atari Bizkit came to Jacksonville Floridia five years ago. "I was trying to put together some bands mixing all of the styles I like. I've been rapping since 1982, DJ'ing since 1985. I've been a punk rocker since 1983. The band thing was a side thing and I was way serious but nobody was because there was no music scene here. So I just went to see every band I could and found that there was nobody serious but I'd pick one person. Like Sam stuck out of his band--he was serious and go-hard. Wes stuck out of his band and John in his. I said, "hey, I'm really serious. I wanna do this. I wanna mix a lot of things and these are my ideas." I already had some songs written and we started playing those out and it caught on. Then we all started getting the chemistry and writing together and realized it was real. We gave a friend the demo and he passed it on to Ross , producer and people were vibing on us. I was acting like I was my own manager on the phone. I'd change my voice and I'd change my name and was talking shit to all these record companies. Everybody. Just bull- crap, not knowing a thing about the industry, but they were believing me because I'm a good bull-shitter. Then I really needed management because people were flying out too see us and there was no one here to talk to."