Korn (stylized as KoĐ¯n) is an American nu metal band from Bakersfield, California, formed in 1993. The band's current lineup includes five members: Jonathan Davis, James "Munky" Shaffer, Brian "Head" Welch, Reginald "Fieldy" Arvizu, and Ray Luzier. Korn was originally formed by three of the members of the band L.A.P.D.
Korn released their first demo album, Neidermayer's Mind, in 1993. The band later went on to release their self-titled debut album in 1994, followed by Life Is Peachy in 1996. The band experienced mainstream success with Follow the Leader (1998) and Issues (1999), both of which debuted at number one on the Billboard 200. The band's mainstream success continued with Untouchables (2002) and Take a Look in the Mirror (2003).
A compilation album, Greatest Hits Vol. 1, was released in 2004, spanning a decade of singles and concluding the band's recording contract with Immortal Records and Epic Records. They signed to Virgin Records, releasing See You on the Other Side in 2005, and an untitled album in 2007. Korn's other recent albums, Korn III: Remember Who You Are (2010) and The Path of Totality (2011), were released via Roadrunner Records, with the latest album The Paradigm Shift (2013) being released via Prospect Park and Caroline Records.
As of 2012, Korn had sold around 35 million copies worldwide.Eleven of the band's official releases have peaked in the top ten of the Billboard 200, eight of which have peaked in the top five. Eight official releases are certified Platinum or Multi-Platinum by the Recording Industry Association of America (RIAA), and one is certified Gold. Korn has released seven video albums and thirty-nine music videos. The band has released forty-one singles, twenty-eight of which have charted. Korn has earned two Grammy Awards out of seven nominations. The band has received two MTV Video Music Awards from eleven nominations.
Before Korn was formed, three of the original members of the band were associated with the band L.A.P.D. – James Shaffer, Reginald Arvizu, and David Silveria.
Originally consisting of Richard Morrill, James Shaffer, and Reginald Arvizu, David Silveria joined when he was 16. When the band moved from Bakersfield, California to Los Angeles, Silveria dropped out of high school and Shaffer stayed in Bakersfield.When Shaffer reunited with the band, they found a manager and released an EP entitled Love and Peace Dude in 1989 through Triple X Records. L.A.P.D. released their first full-length studio album on May 3, 1991 which consisted of eleven tracks. The album was entitled Who's Laughing Now. After releasing two albums, L.A.P.D. broke up. They were also briefly known as Creep, recording a demo with a singer named Corey until Shaffer, Arvizu, and Silveria enlisted Brian Welch and Jonathan Davis to form the band that went on to become Korn.
When thinking of a band name, someone suggested "corn", but the band rejected that name, so Shaffer had the idea to spell the name with both a "K" instead of a "C", and a backwards "R", so the band's name would appear as "KoĐ¯n". The logo was designed by vocalist Jonathan Davis. Silveria explained, "the music makes the name, because Korn's a dumb name. But once we get established, it makes the name cool."
Korn rented a studio from Jeff Creath, called Underground Chicken Sound, in Huntington Beach, California. While they were recording at Underground Chicken Sound, a crowd had been loitering outside the studio. The band began playing a prelude to a later song, "Clown", resulting in a larger crowd gathering. Arvizu said the crowd gathered because it sounded so "different." Korn started performing at gigs in the summer of 1993, with members saying that touring was a "pain-in-the-ass." While in Huntington Beach, the band was spotted by Epic Records A&R employee Paul Pontius. Pontius would describe Korn's sound as "the new genre of rock." In 1993, Korn released their first demo album, Neidermayer's Mind. The album had very limited printing, and was not well received by critics or the public. It was released to record companies and to people who filled out a flyer given out at gigs they played for free with Biohazard and House of Pain.With this demo, Korn pioneered the nu metal sound.
On October 11, 1994, Korn released a self–titled album through Immortal Records, an Epic imprint label, which peaked at number one on the Heatseekers Albums chart, and would eventually reach number seventy-two on the Billboard 200 in February 1996. The album received positive reviews by critics, and it is said to have established the new wave of metal. As well as sparking the nu metal genre, the album also started record producer Ross Robinson's music career.It also influenced other bands, such as Slipknot, Coal Chamber, and Limp Bizkit.
In early 2005, Brian Welch announced that he would be quitting the band. In front of a crowd of 10,000, in three services at Valley Bible Fellowship in Bakersfield, California, said "I was addicted to methamphetamines and tried everything ... rehab, stuff on the Internet, but nothing helped me kick it. I was trying on my own to quit and couldn't do it. I wanted to die. No one knew what I was going through. I could not quit. Church was my last shot. I would sit in church high [on drugs]. I would wonder why people would go up to the front after the service. But one day it was for me. I said [to God], 'Show me how to quit.'" In a 2013 interview with Rolling Stone, Head described his final moments in the band as very tense; "the last year I was in the band, we were gonna kick out the bass player, Fieldy, and this guy's girlfriend couldn't be on this side of the stage because there were fights with another wife in the band. And obviously the drugs – it's no secret I was into the drugs, so crazy stuff, like having to finish our blow right before we got to the border because they were gonna come check to see if we had anything." Following his departure from Korn, Welch released two autobiographies, a solo album, and formed a band, Love and Death, who released a debut album in 2013.
While promoting See You on the Other Side in Europe, Jonathan Davis was diagnosed with idiopathic thrombocytopenic purpura, a blood platelet disorder that hospitalized him for the weekend and prevented him from performing at the renowned Download Festival.Despite the illness, the band still performed, with guest singers including Corey Taylor of Slipknot and Stone Sour fame, Trivium's Matt Heafy, Skindred's Benji Webbe and Avenged Sevenfold's M. Shadows. This led to Korn canceling the rest of their European bill for 2006, including the Hellfest Summer Open Air. It was originally unknown to the public what his ailment was, but the singer revealed in a letter to fans that he was "dangerously low on blood platelets and at a high risk of death from a hemorrhage if the problem was not treated".
In early December 2006 it was announced that founding drummer David Silveria would be taking an indefinite "temporary hiatus" from the band.
In January 2013, guitarist Brian "Head" Welch was confirmed to return to the band to play a number of festival shows, including Rock on the Range, Rock am Ring, Rock im Park and the Download Festival.His status in the band was initially thought to be temporary and for touring purposes only. Ray Luzier later announced at the Sabian show during NAMM that Welch would be joining Korn for the whole tour.
The band has stated that their primary influences include Metallica, Nirvana, Led Zeppelin, Alice in Chains, Sepultura, Faith No More, Red Hot Chili Peppers, Soundgarden, Duran Duran, Fear Factory, Cathedral, Living Color, Helmet, Rage Against the Machine, Slayer, Pink Floyd, Primus, Tool, Ministry, Mr. Bungle, Biohazard, Nine Inch Nails, Pantera, Beastie Boys, Black Sabbath, N.W.A., Anthrax, and Jane's Addiction. Much of their work has been inspired by hip hop music, as suggested in the cover song of Ice Cube's "Wicked", and "All in the Family".
They are the first band to be labeled as nu metal. Alongside this genre, the band has also been labeled as heavy metal, alternative metal, alternative rock, grunge, post-grunge, hard rock, rap metal, funk metal, groove metal and industrial metal. Their debut album mixed metal, rock, hip-hop, groove, and dissonance. Their lyrics focus on pain and personal alienation rather than traditional heavy metal themes. In Nu-metal: The Next Generation of Rock & Punk, Korn was marked as the third biggest nu metal band in the world.
Due to controversies and arguments over the band being heavy metal or not than just with nu metal being heavy metal or not, lead singer Jonathan Davis commented, "I remember when were coming out we were fighting being called a metal band because we weren't a metal band, we were something that wasn't classifiable," Davis says. "Then they came up with 'nu-metal' but that's still cheesy. It's frustrating."
The band's debut album warranted a Parental Advisory label solely because of the album's lyrics. Many of Korn's first works are based on early experiences. The song "Daddy" was described by lead singer Jonathan Davis: "When I was a kid, I was being abused by somebody else and I went to my parents and told them about it, and they thought I was lying and joking around. They never did shit about it. They didn't believe it was happening to their son.... I don't really like to talk about that song. This is as much as I've ever talked about it...""Kill You" was written about Davis's experiences as a child with his step mother. Follow the Leader marked the first album where the majority of the lyrics did not have origins relating to early occurrences, with songs like "Justin" and "Pretty" written about incidents occurring during adulthood.
Bassist Reginald Arvizu plays his instrument using both the techniques of fingerstyle and slapping. Jonathan Davis was said by Doug Small to be "the eye of the storm around which the music of Korn rages." Small described the band as "a basket-case full of contradictions." Although the band virtually had no support by television or by radio broadcasting in its first four years, Korn would go on to influence Pleymo, Adema, Limp Bizkit, Linkin Park, Evanescence, P.O.D., Cold, Machine Head, Staind, System of a Down, Seether, One Minute Silence, Flyleaf, Kittie, Endo, Taproot, Crazy Town, Otep, Hoobastank, Five Pointe O, Lacuna Coil, Chris Volz, Videodrone, Theory of a Deadman, Thousand Foot Krutch, Breaking Benjamin, Papa Roach, Sevendust, Nonpoint, Saliva, Drowning Pool, Spineshank, Trust Company, Ill Nino, Mudvayne, Shinedown, Coal Chamber, Three Days Grace, Flymore, Trapt, Molotov, Hollywood Undead and other bands. Korn also created a fan-base described by both Doug Small and Eaton Entertainment as extremely loyal.
Prior to the release of 1998's Follow the Leader, Gretchen Plewes, a Zeeland high school assistant principal, said in an interview for a Michigan newspaper that Korn's music is "indecent, vulgar, obscene and intends to be insulting" after giving a student, Eric VanHoven, a one-day suspension for wearing a shirt with the Korn logo on it. WKLQ was filmed giving away hundreds of free Korn T-shirts, which were donated by the band, outside the school. Ottawa County policemen helped hand out shirts as well. Korn filed a cease and desist order against Plewes and the school district for their comments. They also threatened with a multi-million dollar lawsuit, but both suits were dropped due to the band members' personal lives.
In September 2009, Korn guitarist Munky, in an interview with Altitude TV, alleged that the band had denied a request by Welch to rejoin the group. Welch denied the claims via his Myspace, stating that Korn had been asking him to rejoin but he had turned down the offers after Jonathan Davis and Munky had refused to meet him when Welch visited Fieldy socially. He also claimed that for four years he had not been paid royalties due to him. Weeks later, in reference to Korn's early albums, Davis stated in an interview with The Pulse of Radio that Welch had not contributed to writing material because of his drug usage. Welch joined the band onstage for the first time in seven years at the Carolina Rebellion festival on May 5, 2012, signaling peace between both sides.The band announced via Facebook on November 8, 2012, that Brian "Head" Welch will return as a special guest to play a string of festivals with Korn throughout 2013. Welch officially rejoined the band on May 2, 2013.
Current members
Jonathan Davis – lead vocals, bagpipes (1993–present)
James "Munky" Shaffer – guitars, backing vocals (1993–present)
Brian "Head" Welch – guitars, backing vocals (1993–2005, 2013–present)
Reginald "Fieldy" Arvizu – bass (1993–present)
Ray Luzier – drums, percussion (2007–present)
Former members
David Silveria – drums, percussion (1993–2006)
Discography
Korn (1994)
Life Is Peachy(1996)
Follow the Leader (1998)
Issues (1999)
Untouchables (2002)
Take a Look in the Mirror (2003)
See You on the Other Side (2005)
Untitled album (2007)
Korn III: Remember Who You Are (2010)
The Path of Totality (2011)
The Paradigm Shift (2013)
The Serenity of Suffering (2016)
