Before Mike began in limpbizkit he was in the group SNOT. In the early days of these bands SNOT and LB became good friends and did some tours together and fred appeared on stage with SNOT a few times back in '98. In mid 1998 SNOT's original guitarist sonny mayo left the band and was replaced by mike smith. SNOT started on their second album and tensions started building within the band which lead to mike smith and SNOT's drummer jamie miller leaving the band in september of 1998, Sadly on the 11th december 1998 SNOT's lead singer james lynn strait got killed in a car crash along with his dog dobbs [who appears on the front of their album 'get some']. Mike then started a new band with the bassist from SNOT. this band was called 'Hero' which later changed their name to 'theSTART' heres a bio about them:

Signing with 143/Atlantic in '99, a group known as Hero featuring former Human Waste Project members Aimee Echo and Scott Ellis along with Jamie Miller and Mike Smith of Snot fame entered the studio with producer Josh Abraham (Orgy, Crazy Town) to record their forthcoming major label debut. However, due to some legalities, the group was forced to change their name and as a result, in January theSTART was born. Originally set to release their new album entitled "Circles" in the spring, the group decided to shift labels and join with the as of yet to be named new label which is being put together by management powerhouse The Firm. Faced with a considerable amount of downtime because of the choice, the group played a few live shows in the Los Angeles area, while front woman Aimee snuck into the studio during the spring to record a guest appearance for the forthcoming Professional Murder Music album on the track "Does It Dream". Keeping a relatively low profile throughout the better part of the year while their new label got its footing settled, all was seemingly well until guitarist Mike Smith parted ways with the group in the fall. Quickly replacing him with Jeff Jaeger, they headed back into the studio to record two new songs for their album as well as re-track a few parts for it in December. Now, with all the tracking completed, they plan to finally let the public give it a spin this spring when it arrives with guest appearances from both Jay Gordon of Orgy and Troy Van Leeuwen of A Perfect Circle/ENEMY fame included. Considering 2001 will be littered with releases from heavyweight hard hitters like Slipknot, Tool and Korn, perhaps theSTART's unique mesh of new wave meets new metal led by the angelic voice of the ever electrifying Aimee Echo, will be exactly what is needed to start something new.

SNOT's unfinished album was to become a tribute album to james lynn strait which was called 'strait up' the album featured fred durst on the song 'forever' and dj lethal on a hidden track '313', the cd was released in november of 2000.

In 2001 wes borland left limp bizkit guitar-less which ended up with LB going on a tour of america looking for a replacement, sadly they didn't find 'the one' through this tour. In may of 2002 rumors start running rampant that mike smith from SNOT was the new guitarist but nothing else was really heard, then Fred took up the guitaring himself which then quashed these apparent rumors. Then limp bizkit announced on the 7th of march 2003 that they would perform their first new material in 2 years live at WWE's Wrestlemania 19 but the question was who would play guitar?? then in one of freds posts on the 26th of march 2003 fred said: "we are playing wrestlemania this weekend. on the guitars will be head from KORN and mike smith from SNOT. we've been working with mike for a while. he's dope." after mike played at WM with the rest of limp bizkit, it was confirmed 2 days later by fred himself that mike smith would be LB's new guitarist....