Words by Rod Whitfield
Is the term ‘nu-metal’ the most maligned and abused one in music history? It’d definitely be up there. By the early to mid 2000s the term had become a convenient catch-all classification for lazy and narrow fans minded to dump the bands they happened to dislike into. How often did you hear words to the effect of ‘oh, (x band) suck, they’re a bit too ‘nu-metal’ for me’?
No matter what you think, however, bands who’ve had an entire sub-genre of music named in their honour are exceptionally rare. Korn are one such band, and what’s more they’ve become true survivors in this, one of the harshest industries on the planet, and one of the most difficult to have a long career in. Almost two decades from their inception in Bakersfield California, and many years after ‘true’ metalheads proclaimed the death of nu-metal, Korn are still going strong, and continue to prolifically release quality albums and do sellout tours.
These days, the band are pretty indifferent to the term, but are precisely the opposite when it comes to the longevity of their career, as guitarist and co-founding member James ‘Munky’ Shaffer explains from the band’s tour bus in Portland, Oregon. “I don’t give a shit,” he puts it bluntly, “as long as it has the word ‘metal’ in it, fuck it! It’s cool, because they didn’t know how to categorize us, so they had to come up with something new. And so there you have it, I can live with that!
“It goes by so fast,” he states, on the length of time the band has been around for, “we’re very grateful to even to what we love to do, and to have a career that’s this long in this industry, it’s really rare. At this point we all know that, and so we try to savour every day.”
Without mentioning any names, Korn certainly spawned their imitators following the release of their seminal self titled debut album in 1993, in sound, style, production and image. When something is massively successful (the first album alone went double platinum and received a Grammy award), people see that success and want a piece of it, and so they jump on the bandwagon. The imitators are rarely as good at it as the originators, but over the years the band’s attitude towards the copycats has changed markedly. “When we wrote our first two album,” he remembers, “we didn’t know what we had, we didn’t know it was going to have such impact on musicians and listeners. At first, it really pissed us off. (it was like) ‘this is our baby. You can’t take the characteristics of our baby and make your own baby!’ People started playing seven string guitars, and all that, and we said ‘this is bullshit!’ But after Life is Peachy came out, it was like, more flattering. It was like the biggest compliment you can get, when someone tries to copy your style, your music, your look, whatever it might be. It’s a compliment in it’s highest form. So it took us a little while before we could swallow that pill.”
The band are set to release their ninth studio album, entitled Korn III: Remember Who You Are. After a solid degree of experimentation on the last few Korn albums, the band members decided it was time for a return to the dark, gnarly, nasty gloom and doom inherent on the first three records, as Munky explains: “We had that urge to return to that raw, aggressive sound,” he says, “I think we were missing it for a while. The last few records still had that edge, but it wasn’t as real as this one. We wanted to write a record like the ones that ‘lit the flame’, the first two albums. That’s what people connected with. And not just for the fans, it was for our own creative satisfaction, we needed that to be back in our lives, that raw, real vibe.”
Korn are no strangers to our shores, and Munky is confident that the tour promoting the new album will reach as far as the land down under again this time around, which is obviously good news for Korn fans here. “We’re trying to map out something in November-December,” he confirms, “so yeah, we’re working on it, the booking agent, management, the pencil pushers! Those people are workin’ on it. We haven’t been there for a while, so we’re due for a trip with the new record. Just keep checking the dates on the website, and we’ll work it out.
“Thank you thank you thank you,” he concludes, “it’s been 18 years and counting, thank you for being by our side through the ups and the downs.”
Korn's latest album, Korn III - Remember Who You Are, is out now on RoadRunner Records through Warner Music Australia. For more information on Korn check out modlife.com/korn
