Hardcore kornography

“The hurt inside is fading

This shit’s gone way too far

All this time that I’ve been waiting

Oh I cannot breathe anymore

For what’s inside’s awaking

I’m not, I’m not a whore

You’ve taken everything and

Oh I cannot give anymore”

‘Here To Stay’

With his soft West Coast drawl, sincere articulated speech and unexpectedly friendly tone of voice, Jonathon Davis seems an unlikely candidate for rock’s reigning Kingship.

Korn are the band that launched a thousand more, pioneering a genre that has since become the most far-reaching renaissance of rock for decades. Nu-metal did the unthinkable. It opened the popular charts to guitar music and created a platform that was as alternative as it was accessible. Almost overnight, a legion of hardcore followers emerged, embracing Korn and citing Davis as the spokesperson for a jilted generation of misguided and troubled youths. The music became a culture. It was sold en masse to the children of the Korn, creating a universal common ground that centered around an appreciation and love for distortion and melody (albeit amidst jibes of corporatism from more straight edge metallers).

For Davis, a former mortician, funeral director and (strangely) bagpiping champion, it’s always been about the music.

“I was born a musician,” laughs Davis. “My Grandmother told me that when I was two years old, I used to put little crates on the floor and get sticks and direct symphonies. Music has always been a part of my life. It was everything around me.”

Formed in the early ’90s from the smelting of Sexart and LAPD in Bakersfield, California, Korn’s ’94 self-titled debut put them on the road with heavyweights such as of Ozzy, and their subsequent sophomore release Life is Peachy clocked up a number three in the Billboard chart. However, the real reckoning did not arrive until Follow the Leader, an album that spawned such hits as ‘Freak On a Leash’ and ‘All In the Family’ – track featuring the vocal stylings of Limp Bizkit’s Fred Durst – as well as collaborations with the likes of Ice Cube and the Dust Brothers.

“When we did Leader, we decided to collaborate with a lot of different artists, but then it seemed that everybody started having guests on their albums. We haven’t done any collaborations since. We’re Korn, and we wanted to make a Korn album – not Korn featuring this or Korn featuring that.”

Despite their Lords of Darkness stature, Davis seems eager to dispel misconceptions about his music, stressing the “pretty” in “pretty heavy”.

“I call it “pretty heavy because there are beautiful melodies going on in there rather than being just heavy or thrashy. It’s like melting two worlds together – and more so on Untouchables than any other album. It’s got even more melody going on. There’s beauty along with all the crazy stuff, y’know? We’re not Slipknot.”

Untouchables, Korn’s fifth studio release, was released on June 7 and stormed into the Irish album charts at number 2.

“It’s been very well thought out,” he explains. “Everything had to be done meticulously to make it the best sounding album we could possibly make it. Michael (Beinhorn, producer) wanted to make it the best thing he’d ever done, and the same went for us. I think we accomplished it.”

Taking a lengthy two years to complete and $800,000 to record (the rest of the sizeable $3 million budget went on “keeping the crew on retainer”), Untouchables is set to become Korn’s biggest record yet, cementing their über-star status with angst ridden vocals, thick distortions and searing, anthemic melody; holding true to the roots of metal, but with enough progression to prove just how much they’ve evolved.

“The album is very polished and that’s something new for us. Making a record is always therapy for me. It helps me get out what I want to get out.”

The album was recorded in LA, with Davis laying the vocals in Vancouver, Canada.

“I got up there (Vancouver) and started to work on some songs, but I wasn’t feeling the vibe. It was too pretty – right on the ocean. I just couldn’t get into it, so I decided that we should go back down to LA. I rented this spot up in the Village and recorded my vocals there for about five months. It was awesome. We had a great time and we put 110% into this album.”

Korn are renowned for their compassion for their fans. They’re heavily involved with the Make A Wish foundation and have lent their support to several anti child abuse organizations.

“It sounds like a stereotypical answer, but without the fans we’d be nothing” he says, without a hint of insincerity. “There are tons of kids out there who have no hope in their lives and listening to Korn gives them hope. It trips me out! We give to anti child abuse charities and we do the Make A Wish a lot because, for a lot of kids, their dying wish is to meet us, which is a heavy fucking thing. It’s scary. I’m doing something that on one hand makes me feel good, but on the other, I feel so horrible for the terminally ill, that I just have to go see them. It’s very, very fucking strange. And it’s a big head fuck. But fuck my head because this was a kid’s wish, and I’m going to go out there and make someone really happy while they’re still alive.”

However, along with the trappings of fame, notoriety and success come the critics, and Korn certainly have their fair share.

“They’re looking for a way to say that we’re the devil, that we’re hurting kids or whatever. But then again if that wasn’t going on, we wouldn’t be making good rock’n’roll. And we are.”