Musical
revolutions can foment in
the oddest places: Athens,
Georgia. Aberdeen, Washington.
Bakersfield, California.
That's right, Bakersfield;
a bleak, arid little town
just west of Death Valley
that could double as a David
Lynch movie set-if there
were anything going on,
that is. As a kid Fieldy
Arvizu spent much of his
adolescence "standing
around in dirt fields, drinking
beer, watching other kids
fight." At some point,
Fieldy and some friends
decided their time would
be better spent taking out
their frustrations on musical
instruments instead.
And rock music would never
be the same.
So Fieldy, James "Munky"
Shaffer, David Silveria,
Brian "Head" Welch,
and eventually, an assistant
coroner with a troubled
past named Jonathan Davis
left Bakersfield for Los
Angeles and collectively
became known as KORN. It
helped that they all had
common influences--the angry,
urban stylings of hip-hop,
the heavy, riff-driven angst
of death metal. But the
sounds emanating from this
band's Huntington Beach
rehearsal space would soon
set an entirely fresh musical
precedent--and set off a
wave of imitators that eventually
threatened to engulf the
band itself.
After touring for nearly
two years, KORN was signed
by Immortal and released
their now-classic eponymous
1994 debut. KORN opened
with the prophetic, gravel-throated
challenge "Are you
ready?!" before kicking
into the heaviest guitar
sound yet heard in rock
thanks to the team of Shaffer
and Welch, who tuned their
already-low 7-string guitars
even lower and played with
no regard for traditional
harmonic consonance. The
sound was metallic sludge,
but tempered oddly by bassist
Fieldy and drummer Silveria,
who added a mix of porn-soundtrack
funk and hip-hop rhythms
that was puzzlingly aggressive
and chill. Next, nursery-rhyme-like
melodies were woven into
the dark mix, helping make
KORN the creepiest, heaviest
debut since Black Sabbath.
But Davis had no desire
to sing about devils and
witches; he was busy exorcising
real-life demons. Songs
such as "Faget"
and "Shoots and Ladders"
were discomfortingly personal
confessionals of shattered
childhood, and by album's
end Davis was literally
in tears in the harrowing
"Daddy."
"Are you ready?!"
Well, commercial radio sure
wasn't. And neither was
MTV. Not yet, anyway.
So KORN took their grisly
show on the road someplace
they knew it'd get noticed:
back to the tour circuit,
and a stint on Ozzfest.
The band's unique sound
may have been unfamiliar,
but the kids knew it rocked
mightily-and many of them
could directly relate to
Davis' grim lyrical obsessions.
At that point in time, there
was quite simply no band
on earth like KORN.
And so they began to amass
a following that would send
their next album, 1996's
brutal yet cheekily titled
Life is Peachy, into platinum
sales. And this time at
least the press was ready.
"...Perverts, psychopaths
and paranoiacs" gushed
the Chicago Tribune. "An
ingeniously twisted piece
of personal hell" raved
Cleveland's Plain Dealer.
And while Peachy served
more to reinforce the band's
core sound rather than innovate
in the manner of the debut,
it did introduce to the
world to a side of the band
no one ever suspected existed:
humor. The bagpipe-driven
cover version of War's "Lowrider"
was just one example. An
A-Z dictionary of vulgarity
called "K@#%!"
was another-though some
critics and self-appointed
moral guardians were put
off by the language. One
Zeeland, Michigan high school
administrator told the press
that KORN was "indecent,
vulgar, and obscene"
shortly after suspending
a student for wearing a
T-shirt that merely said
"KORN." After
the band filed a cease-and-desist
order against the school
on behalf of the student,
he was reinstated. But the
episode marks yet another
milestone for the band:
it was the first of many
times the band would go
to bat for its fans.
Years of touring followed
again as the band fortified
its fan-base to the degree
that their next album, 1998's
Follow the Leader, would
debut at No. 1 on Billboard's
Top 200. The band charted
two bona fide singles with
"Got the Life"
and "Freak on a Leash,"
while the album's actual
"rap-metal" tracks
("Children of the KORN"
with guest rapper Ice Cube,
and "All in the Family"
with guest abuser Fred Durst)
were some of the band's
hardest-hitting to date,
and reaffirmed their status
as the band by which others
would be judged in this
genre.
Others seemed to agree.
Rolling Stone christened
Follow the Leader one of
the best alternative albums
of the '90s, praising KORN's
ability to channel "their
disgust with the state of
the nation--and the generation
doomed to inherit it--into
booming, articulate violence."
Booming, articulate violence
aside, Follow the Leader
exposed yet another side
of KORN.
When a 14-year-old boy
suffering from terminal
intestinal cancer requested
to meet the band for a few
minutes through the Make-A-Wish
foundation, the band was
stunned. And nervous. But
they hit it off, and the
few minutes turned into
a day, and that turned into
a few more days, and then
a song-"Justin."
Reaffirming KORN's populist
roots were their weekly
live Internet video broadcasts
from the studio during the
album's making. These "after
school specials" kept
fans up on the progress
of the record, offered them
live, call-in Q&A sessions
with the band themselves,
and introduced them to guests
running the gamut from members
of 311, the Deftones, and
Limp Bizkit to porn stars
like Ron Jeremy and Randi
Rage.
In yet another populist
move, the band launched
"KORN Kampaign '98,"
a political campaign-style
American tour to promote
their album that featured
"fan conferences"
in major cities throughout
the country. KORN also put
together a heavy-rock-and-rap
arena circus, mockingly
called the Family Values
Tour, which featured everyone
from Ice Cube to Limp Bizkit
to Rammstein, and proved
to be one of 1998's most
successful tours. A live
compilation CD, The Family
Values Tour '98, was certified
gold the following summer,
when KORN performed an explosive
set at Woodstock '99.
Meanwhile, KORN's record
label Elementree was up
and running just fine as
its first signed act, Orgy,
scored a platinum record
for them with Candyass.
By now, almost every heavy
band on the planet was playing
down-tuned 7-string guitars
(which were virtually extinct
before KORN). The proliferation
of sound-alike bands ironically
placed the band in a tenuous
position: Not only was KORN
in danger of seeming "played
out" in the very genre
they spearheaded, the beginnings
of a backlash to "rap-metal"
chart domination were cropping
up in the media. KORN knew
that another Peachy or Leader,
however great, however welcome
by fans, and however commercially
successful, would not do.
It was time to reinvent
themselves and break from
the pack-a risky move given
the band's traditionally
loyal following. KORN took
some time off to work on
what would be one of the
most important records of
their career.
"We knew when we wrote
this album that we were
going to have to do something
really great," Shaffer
said at the time. "...We
had to move forward, push
the boundaries, and create
something very personal."
In yet another nod to their
audience, KORN allowed the
fans to design the cover.
Fans submitted their work,
and one fan painting was
chosen for the record's
striking cover art. Several
runners-up got limited-edition
album covers of their own
work.
Musically, Issues turned
out to be the best album
since the group's debut
release, and eclipsed even
that record in strength
of songwriting. When Issues
was finally released, all
the band's efforts paid
off wildly. For the second
time in their career, they
debuted at No. 1. They had
yet another high-charting
single with the eerie, crushing
"Falling Away From
Me." And the record
went quadruple platinum.
This was followed by yet
another massively successful
tour, which kicked off on
Halloween 1999 at Harlem's
historic Apollo Theater.
If Issues represented an
artistic, critical, and
commercial triumph at a
crucial moment for the band,
how would KORN respond to
the inevitable pressure
of its follow-up?
By making a better one:
Untouchables. Using a 24-BIT
sampling rate--twice the
highest rate normally used
for recording--KORN and
producer Michael Beinhorn
have created a rich sonic
panorama. Unfathomably heavy,
uncompromisingly introspective,
and startlingly unique,
Untouchables catapults KORN
to yet another level.
But what should we expect?
After all, this is a band
marked by an insatiable
desire to push the rock
envelope. It's what makes
them KORN.