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list, discography, and equipment
list
KoRn is:
johnathon davis - vocals - bagpipes
fieldy - bass
j. munky shaffer - guitar
brian - guitar - vocals
david - drums
KoRn was formed in 1993 with the combination of two bands: Sex Art and LAPD. Sex Art was the band who Jonathan Davis (lead singer of KoRn) lead during his years as a coroner (he also graduated mortuary school in San Francisco.) LAPD was the band which included Munkey Schaffer (guitar), David (drums), Fieldy (bass) (later) and on tour only (not on the album) Brian (also guitar). LAPD was apparently bigger then Sex art and is not impossible to find (like Sex Art is). Munkey states that, "me, Fieldy, and David recorded it when we were about 18 or 19. You might even hear some KoRn parts. That's when I played rippin' solos." Jonathan was only in Sex Art for about four months and did only one song with the lead singer which is on a Bakersfield compilation.
Jonathan Davis' nickname is HIV as a sort of agreement with the faget term he was dubbed in high school. He does not, in fact, have AIDS or the HIV virus. Jonathan was expecting (astrologically) a baby girl, but at delivery Jonathan was only slightly surprised to see, as he put it, "pink balls," and he had come away from the girls name Salaam Dementia and named him Nathan Housemen Davis (Housemen being Jonathan's middle name, as well). He and his son live in Huntington Beach California, in what he calls a relatively gay community, "where instead of people acting cool and carrying guns, they come up to you and sssay hi." Jonathan was born January 18th, 25 years ago, and recently had a birthday. His ex-girlfriend is a very attractive woman, but is perceived as seeing herself as gods gift to the world. He did the album in his fathers studio as he says, under his breath, "as a sort of revenge."
We asked Jonathan a few questions on Marilyn Manson and he said, "he and I are like best friends. I've been to his house a couple of times. We hit it off right away when I met him the first time. In fact, I think we're going to do a side project. Yeah, we're going to call ourselves 'fags' and write songs about how much we like big dick." Well, the latest news on "Fags" doesn't seem to promising. Jon said, "he and I are really busy and haven't had the time to get together. Maybe after our tours are done."
Then, I asked him about his tattoo. He thought I meant HIV, and said, "its just a nickname." I then asked him about the crazed bishop and he said "the bishop is a symbol of the atrocities that religion is are making. He's ripping up my skin to reveal Christ. It's more of a symbol of how corrupt religion is. I don't believe in any of it because of shit like televangilism. Do you really think that all that money really goes to charity?"
Jon did a few of his own songs. One called, "My Neighbor." It had clips from the Mr. Roger's Neighborhood show. He wanted to let the band listen to it, but he lost the tape. They were going to make a KoRn song out of it. When asked about it, he said, "I can't release it with KoRn, I'd have to do it alone," almost admitting he has found it.
We asked him about signatures from the drummer, David, and he said, "he doesn't do that shit. He's shy. He like hides." (Brian said, "Jon's weird I don't know were he is.")
We then asked Brian about another album and he said, "we are writing now and we have some shit done,but we can't record until we stop touring." We asked him about what else is out there from KoRn. "We have the 'Shoots Remix.' That's cool. Did you hear it after the show? That should be out soon. We are going to be releasing the promo and demo shit to soon."
We then asked him about their experience with Megadeth. "Mustane was a dick. They were always blaming us for shit. We weren't aloud to carry beer around stage because he was a recovering alcoholic. So we filled water bottles with it and taped around them so you couldn't see what was in them. Once he came on our tour bus, after he fell off the wagon, piss drunk, and said, 'you know what you need to do to get big?... (at this point we were dodging his swaying finger that was pointed at us) ...Only tour with big bands.'
"We were supposed to be touring (on the Monster Magnet and Grotus tour) with deftones and Sugar Ray, but it got fucked up... Sugar Ray is in Europe or some shit and deftones is with Anthrax. Chino (lead singer of deftones) is God. Marilyn Manson was supposed to be on tour with us with Ozzy but they didn't want to open for a band that opened for them." He then told us he particularly doesn't enjoy touring with Monster Magnet, because their performance is so "old rock". "We're touring with Ozzy, but we don't like playing big places. It's so impersonal. We like to be close to the people. It's a better performance, although I keep getting hit in the head by my mic when people fall on stage." (Jon also said he loves it when people come on stage.) Brian signs his name "head."
Fieldy: Q: what do you like about touring clubs? A: the free beer.
Fieldy (Reggie Arvizu) is known for his alcohol related antics. For instance, on a photo shoot, a bucket had to be found in case he threw up. Fieldy is the joker. On the album, you can notice his name is Fieldy Snuts. (get it, feel deez nuts)
David (Silveria): While David was handing out the shoots promo to some people after the show, I asked him who Sean Olson was and he said, "he was a friend of the bands." He is also thanked by the deftones in their album. (he's currently one of their roadies) David has a penis fetish and usually when he signs shit he makes a dick somewhere on it. He has two tattoos one of them a cheshire cat and the other has a guy stickin out his tongue that has a bolt through it.
J. Munkey Shaffer: On the Sony page you read about how Munkey started playing the guitar. He cut his finger off and used the instrument to rejuvenate it. Well, he told me how he cut his finger off. When he was younger, he had a three wheeler. One night, when he was sneaking out to go to a party, the chain slipped off. Not thinking (he wanted to quiet it, so he wouldn't get busted), he slapped his hand down on a chain and it got caught between the chain and the sprocket. When he pulled his hand up, he was missing a finger. He is enjoying the Ozzy tour but still likes small clubs better.
Jonathon is into Duran Duran, claiming them to be glam, but they don't sell out, but on the tour bus the band is known to listen to LL Cool J and Black Sheep. In fact, in concert, during a version of Predictable, called 'predick,' they do a part of a Black Sheep song called, "U mean I'm Not." They also do a reversion of Balltongue with a rap in it by another rap group.
When asked about the deftones, KoRn says, "deftones are like our brother band. When we were in California, they were from North, we from the South, we used to switch up and down the coast and when we play together we usually do a song together."
La Caco is a friend of the band and is heard in the beginning of helmet in the bush. His real name is Michael and likes taco bell. He's a really nice guy. He's been friends with the band for years.
Ball Tongue: The meaning of balltongue is simple some thought it had to do with oral sex, but in fact its about a guy they had to work with on T-shirt. He either had a pierced tongue or a wart or something on his tongue and he was a dick to them.
David said that the baby inside the album behind where the CD goes (and on the cover of the Blind promo) is the charmin' baby. They put a wig on it and fucked with its eye.
The name KoRn comes from a party that Jonathan was at where he overheard two homosexuals talking about felching each other (eating each others asses.) One had diarreah and shat on the others face and when he opened his mouth a corn kernel was on his tongue. From then on, whenever he said corn to anyone, they would get close to puking. Hence the altered KoRn. (the way a child would spell it) I also read that (not true) it was rumored it came from Kiddy pORN.
On the cover of the album, the man in the shadow is holding something. When I asked Jonathan about it he said, "I'd like to leave it up to your imagination, but I like to say its a horseshoe."
Another Biography:
Jonathan Davis - vocals
Brian Welch - guitar
James Shaffer - guitar
Fieldy - bass
David - drums
This much is clear from their new Immortal/Epic album, Life is Peachy: Success has neither softened nor satisfied the ferocious Southern California fivesome known as KoRn .
If anything, KoRn vents even more furious aggression and emotional conviction in such uncompromising new songs as "No Place To Hide," "Lost," "Good God," and the nearly nine-minute "Kill You" than they unleashed on the self-titled debut KoRn. That gold-certified album was released in October, 1994: Two years, 300-plus live gigs, and more than 700,000 US sales later, it's still hanging on the Billboard/SoundScan Top 200 chart.
KoRn have earned their success the old-fashioned way through tireless touring, street-level self-promotion, and constant, direct contact with their growing legion of fans. There's no video posturing or fake hype here. And KoRn are cyberspace pioneers: In July '96 they became the first band on the Internet and to conduct an interactive radio broadcast during which fans got a sneak preview of Life Is Peachy; saw and heard the band play several of their new songs live, and phoned in questions via an 800 number. KoRn is now planning a monthly series of such broadcasts as they continue construction of their unique and comprehensive website (www.KoRn.com).
"The coolest thing about this band is we've stayed underground and our fans are still so true," notes singer Jonathan Davis. "They're so militant and crazy about us."
As the often-disturbing lyrics and growly, primal playing on Life is Peachy's 14 songs prove, the demons were not fully exorcised on KoRn nor even on the band's 18 months of hard-core touring. "The last albu m was going into high school," Jonathan explains. "This one is high school and after, I guess." The album title was taken from a kids' popu-lar notebook doodling on the omnipresent yellow Pee-Chee folders: "Life is Peachy but sex is an all-season sport." Also drawn from school days is the song "A.D.I.D.A.S."--an acronym for "All Day I Dream About Sex."
To capture KoRn's primal power, the band again worked with producer Ross Robinson, and lived and recorded at the rural, inspiring Indigo Ranch Studios in Malibu. "Ross is like the big cheerleader of the band," says Jonathan. "It's all inside of us, but Rosspumps shit up. We both came up together in the music biz, so it's been a cool growing experience. Now he's The Shit as a producer...and we're doing good."
The seeds of KoRn were planted in the agricultural community of Bakersfield, California. Fieldy and David, KoRn's impressive rhythm section, were high school friends who'd jammed together since their teens. Guitarists Brian Welch and James Shaffer share six (and seven) string duties, note-bending and playing off each other to define the classic KoRn guitar sound.
Prior to to the founding of KoRn, Shaffer, Fieldy and David (with another singer) released an album together, then disbanded and reformed as Creep, with Welch joining in on some Creep shows. Welch and Shaffer were living in L.A. when, on a visit to Bakersfield, they caught Jonathan singing for a local band called Sexart. Fate took over, and within days Jonathan had joined the new band.
An artistic outcast in Bakersfield, where his parents owned a music store, Jonathan grew up playing classical music, listening the '80s rock of Duran Duran and Missing Persons, and playing the bagpipes--a decidedly non-rock instrument he deploys to devastating effect in KoRn . Jonathan also had a successful pre-KoRn career as an autopsy assistant at the Kern County coroner's office. His stint there helped shape the singer's unique views on life, reincarnation and the dark side of human nature--subjects later addressed in KoRn's lyrics after the band solidified in its adopted hometown of Huntington Beach, California in 1993.
As the title Life is Peachy indicates, KoRn are able to see the humor and irony inherent in everyday existence. In fact, drummer David laments, "just because of our music and lyrics, people used to think everyone in the band was depressed or down as people. But no one really is--it's our art. People get the idea that we're on the verge of suicide at 25. So when they meet us, it's like, 'wow, you seem happy.'"
Which brings us to the Peachy life KoRn leads today. After nearly two years of touring with everyone from 311 to Marilyn Manson to KMFDM to Ozzy Osbourne, KoRn were so amped to begin work on their sophomore album that they were in rehearsals within a week after getting off the road. The goal? "We let the music flow," says David. "We only had small bits and pieces written from the road, so when we went in the studio we didn't have a plan. We set up our gear, looked at each other and went: 'Okay.'" And it was.
Though the band is "down with the classic KoRn sound," Davis notes that Life is Peachy is a maturation on nearly every front. "I'm singing more on this album and the songs are put together better, less basic than the last one. I'm singing my ass off on this album--singing more, instead of screaming so much." The first new song written was "No Place To Hide," followed by "A.D.I.D.A.S.," and from those not very humble beginnings, the songs gushed out.
As KoRn 's singer and lyricist, Jonathan draws on a deep well of angst. On KoRn, the closing track "Daddy" was so personal--and so painful--that KoRn performed it live only once. The equally wrenching "Kill You," directed at the singer's former step-mom, now closes Life is Peachy. While today Jonathan is a dad himself and understands far more about what parents go through with their kids, his own childhood was deeply troubled nonetheless.
Another track, the raging "K@#(%!", should prove no less controversial. Yet Jonathan insists the song is in no way anti-female: If anything, this invective-filled tune is a dis to commercial radio. "That's just my cuss-word song, me talking some shit," says the singer. "I wanted to release that as our first single, just to fuck with radio stations, because they've re-edited our songs for airplay before. It's a killer song--I love it."
There's some slightly lighter fare on Life is Peachy. If you ever wanted to hear the opening of War's "Low Rider" played on bagpipes, Life is Peachy is the place to find it, with Welch on vocals. The album's first single, "No Place To Hide," addresses Jonathan's momentary anxiety about KoRn's success. Low-key and surprisingly soft-spoken off stage, the singer felt hounded by responsibility (hence the tune's title) until he realized KoRn was the culmination of his dreams--and the band's success a raised middle finger to the youthful detractors who inspired such songs as the first album's "Faget."
Now tighter than ever as friends and musicians, KoRn once again is ready to conquer the world: gig by gig, city by city. "It's been so fucking fun hanging out, and all of us writing this album," Davis says. "Now it's back on the road. I love that, but this chapter, this record, was a blast."
So far, Life is Peachy.
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