Korn
Interview by Black Dog Bone
From vol7 #1
On this new album you're going away from Hip Hop and more Psychedelic. Were your roots in Hip Hop from the beginning?
The band started back in '93. We're all from Bakersfield (California). The Monkey, Head, Phil, D and David--the other four band members--they already had a band together called Creep. They moved down from Bakersfield years before I got in the band. They saw me singing in a nightclub with another band and they asked me to try out for their band. That's how Korn started. Then we all moved the Huntingon Beach. We were all into Hip Hop back when the first Korn album was made. All we used to do is listen to Chronic and stuff like that. We were really influenced by Rap music. The first album was, then the second Life Is Peachy wasn't so much. The third album Follow The Leader was really heavily Hip Hop influenced. We strayed away from it a little bit. But there's still a little of it in there.
The band called Creep, what kinda music were they playing?
They were doin more like Thrash type music. It was Thrash/Groove kinda stuff.
What was the band you were in before you got with Korn?
I was singing in a band called Sex Art. It was just Rock & Roll kinda stuff.
When you all came together and formed Korn the sound took off in another direction?
The sound took off. When I came in I brought a darker edge to the music. Then we were playing, and we got really influenced by Hip Hop. Our main influence Hip Hop wise was Cypress Hill--their early albums. So we got the idea to do samples of guitars. Rage Against The Machine did that and we were influenced by them. We got into our own style of music. We mixed a little bit of Hip Hop, a little Groove, Funk, everything. We didn't wanna be a Rock/Rap band, we never tried to do that. We just take subtle Hip Hop influences--beats, basslines.
When you were growing up in Bakersfield what was going on there?
In Bakersfield nothing was really goin on. It's a really bad place to grow up. I hate that town, it's horrible. I really got into music and I was a DJ. That's how I got into Hip Hop. I used to DJ with The Baker Boys. That was way back when Hip Hop was so new. Dana Dane and all that Old School Hip Hop. I was really into it, but then I kinda grew outta it when Hip Hop changed to what it is now.
Your new album, NAME, is more Psychedelic. How did that change take place?
When we started writing the album we wanted to do something different. It seemed like a lotta bands now are trying to mix Rap and Rock, but only a couple do it well. It seems totally jaded. We were one of the first to start doin that stuff. I never rapped but, we were Hip Hop influenced, but we didn't wanna do the Rap/Rock thing. It seemed played out. We wanted to go somewhere different and recreate ourselves. So we did this album. The Hip Hop influence is still there, our next album will probably have more. But it was just right for this album.
Your lyrical content is really dark, almost suicidal. Where does that come from?
Just growing up. That whole album was kind of a concept thing. It was stuff that I went through in tours, the last couple years of my life. I have real bad problems with anxiety, tak-attack disorder. I went crazy basically on the road, that's what my lyrics are basically about.
Touring was hard for you?
Yeah, we've been on tour for about six years. We come home, but get a month off here. When we do records, that's the most time we get off. We're constantly on the road. Korn wasn't an overnight success. It took us six years to get where we're at. Just pounding it out, cause nobody really wanted to hear what we were doing. It was a total street vibe. It was all word of mouth. We had no support. People didn't understand our music, they thought it totally sucked. But now we hit the mainstream, it's ridiculous.
I'd never seen you on TV or heard you on the radio and suddenly you're the biggest thing. How did you build your following?
Just playing man. Bein on the road and goin to the streets. Self-promotion. It's kinda like what DMX did. It's some total word of mouth on the street kinda vibe. It was dope. We just went out and played, played, played everywhere. Constantly touring.
At the beginning were you on a different label?
No, we're still on Immortal/Epic. Immortal was run by Happy Walters who manages Cypress Hill. He had Redman on his label, he had Funkdoobiest. It's a Hip Hop label.
When you first came out what kind of reaction did you get?
They hated it. Like radio people, There's no way we're gonna play this stuff, it's too heavy, we don't understand it, bla bla bla. We're like, Fine fuck you. So we went on the road and just started playin.
What type of bands were you playing with?
We were playin with Metal bands.
How did the crowd react to you?
They were goin crazy. They loved it. The crowds just kept growin bigger and bigger and bigger. We got to the point where we could go out and do our own shows. So we did a few shows. We had Pharcyde open up for us. We had Frequent Habits open up for us. We had all these Hip Hop groups open up for us at Rock shows. Something that was never done before. It scared a lot of people at first, but then the kids started gettin into it. I think we opened up a lotta kids' eyes to Hip Hop music.
A lot of White kids listen to Rap right now. And there are a lot of White groups mixing Rap into their music. There's a huge crossover.
There is a big crossover.
We get letters at Murder Dog, people asking us to do something on Korn. But I always think of you as a Rock band....
We were a Rock band, but I think we got a lot of props and respect in the Hip Hop world because what we did, what we started, it just took off. We were originators of a certain genre, and everybody else followed. And I did a song with Ice Cube. I just did a song with Q-Tip. We're not tryin to be Hip Hop, we're just Hip Hop influence. But there's a lot of bands out there tryin to do straight up Hip Hop and be something that they're not. We stay true to ourselves and play funky-ass dope grooves. I guess people can see that we're real.
When the band Creep was happening did they have the seven string guitars?
Yeah, they did. It's just the way they were playin them was more of a happy un-tempo groove. When I came in with the lyrical content that I'm doin, it got darker. That's when we started incorporating some Hip Hop. "It'd be dope if we threw some 808's in there." There were some Hip Hop bass lines along with some crazy street metal stuff. We were just messin around, mixin it up.
When you started doing this kind of music no one else was mixing Rap and Rock elements?
The ones who started with us were Rage Against The Machine. Fro Rap/Rock it was Rage and then us for the more heavy and melodic stuff.
Rage is very political, but your music is more personal. How do people feel about what you're talking about?
A lot of people relate to me a lot. I get letters all the time, people saying that I saved their lives. I'm glad other people can relate to what I'm goin through. It's really true and straight to the heart when people can relate to what I'm talking about.
How do you write songs? Does the rest of the group work out the music first and then you write lyrics?
We all come up with a song. On this album mostly everybody came up with the music. I've always wrote music then lyrics. I get the vibe from the song and then I get something that I wanna write about.
Do you play any instruments?
Yeah, I play everything. On the album I played bagpipes, digeradoo, and I played drums on like 9 of the tracks. I play a lotta instruments. The music is written by everybody in the band. It's not me just writing anything. I might pick up a guitar and write a rift. It's like everything goes. We're one big team. That's also a big thing about our band--it seems like there's no more bands anymore. It's always focused on one person. We're really a band. Our fans are into all of us. It's not just one person. Everybody's got their favorite. With a lot of bands it's not like that.
Yeah, you've got the lead singer and the rest of the band is not well known. Limp Bizkit's like that and Kid Rock's just Kid Rock. We're a band. That's a cool thing I like about our band, we're like a little gang.
What was it like for you growin up in Bakersfield?
I had a good time growing up there, but I had some tough things going on with my family and stuff. I had a lotta bad times and a lotta good times. I was sick most of my childhood. I had asthma really really bad, so I was in the hospital a lot of the time until I was about ten.
You had a big family?
Not a big family. It was me and my sister. My mom and dad divorced when I was three, so I had step parents and everything.
I heard you dad was a musician?
Yeah, he was a bass player. He played in bands. So did our bass player, Tildy, his dad played in bands. Actually, my dad and his dad played in a band together. It was like club cover songs typa stuff.
Did that influence you to want to do music?
It was in my blood. I started playing drums when I was three. I started conducting symphony orchestras when I was four. I'd listen to classical music and I'd like conduct it. My parents and grandmother told me about it. Then I just took off. I started playing musical instruments when I was a little kid. It was imbedded in my DNA I guess. My dad had a music store, so I was constantly surrounded by music my whole entire life.
He still has a music store?
It closed down when I was about fourteen. Then he has a recording studio. So I used to fart around the recording studio, writin songs, doin stuff.
The music store was selling records or instruments?
Selling guitars and stuff.
A lot of Rap lyrics are really hard, but you're lyrics are very different.
I think it's heavier because it's personal. I think when you listen to your music you get this heavy feeling. I'm doin it from a hard standpoint. I can be hard, but it's more personal. It's not like hardcore Rap lyrics talkin about cappin people. I can respect that, that's goin on. But that's a totally different vibe from me. I'm talkin about hurting. I'm pissed off why this happened to me. Where they're tryin to attack and lash out at society. I respect it all though.
Most people want to do what's cool and what's happening. But both lyrically and musically, Korn decided to do something different. Why is that?
We never really thought it man. Honest to god, it just happened. We put our instruments on and jammed together and that's what happened. It's just one of those bands, we just started playing and that's how it was.
And you have a huge cult following.
Yeah. We have a full cult following.
Your fans are involved in doing the artwork for you CD's. How did that come about?
We're trying to keep ourselves grounded. We're tryin to keep ourselves down with our fans. That's why we are where we're at. So we decided to have our fans design our cover artwork. Let's have our fans do our bio. Let's have our fans take out our set list. When we do our CD that's for us too, it's cool for us, but it's cool to have the fans involved too. It makes it so special. So we got over 25,000 entries. Went through all of them and picked 4. Then went from there. It was fucking cool.
You said that the lyrics on this album have a lot to do with your experiences on the road. What was going on on the road?
It was hard for us. We totally went crazy for a while. We were a club band and we got thrown into doin arenas and stuff. It was a tough transition. We were trippin out. We were used to being able to walk out in a crowd, hang out with people and talk and shit. Now we need security. I can't go out there, I get mobbed. It's a whole different lifestyle. It can freak you out.
It didn't just happen overnight though?
No, it didn't happen overnight. It gradually happened. Once you're in an arena the pressure on you is immense. It's like, Oh my god, can we sell this out? Can we fill these seats up? It's all on our ass. So it started freakin us out.
I wonder how the guitar players got into using 7 strings on their guitars?
Munky, my guitar player, was totally into the 7-string guitar thing, because he was a big fan on Steve Vye, who invented the 7 strings. Then Munky and Head both bought them and started playing them. He uses them for Blues things, just to do solos like lower. Munky and Head tuned it right and started using them just to make a heavy heavy groove that was lower. They just feel upon it.
The music goes well with your lyrics.
It's perfect. It's so rockin. It's like these really depressing lyrics with these really pumpin grooves. It balances out and makes it nice.
How did the Psychedelic sound come in?
Partly because of my lyrical content. I wanted to do like a concept album. And we wanted to make it trippy. We just wanted to do something different.
What direction do you see the group going next?
I wanna go heavy into Hip Hop and probably incorporate everything. I don't wanna lean toward something that we're not. We're a Rock & Roll band. We got Hip Hop influences, but I don't wanna fuckin front and try to be something we're not. We'll take from that and from other influences and mix it all up and make it nice.
What type of music were you and the rest of the band listening to when you were growing up?
It's all different for us, but for the band I know it was Faith No More and the Red Hot Chili Peppers. For me it was more dark bands like Ministry, Skinny Puppy. I was really into Duran Duran and Depeche Mode in the '80's. But I also listened to a lotta Hip Hop. All the old school shit.
I know Faith No More real well. they used to have that Black dude singing?
Yeah, Chuck Mosley. When they came out with that album We Care A Lot. it just showed us that we could do something that was different. I like Faith No More with both singers they've had--Chuck Mosley and with Mike Patton.
You know they used to have Courtney Love singing for them in the early days.
Courtney Love?! Really? Wow...
That was when they first came to San Francisco. Courtney was singing with them, but they just couldn't get along.
Yeah, she's a crazy girl. But I didn't know that. Wow. We were really influenced by them. And we were big Bumble fans too. Mr. Bumble, that's Mike from Faith No More's band.
What are you listening to right now?
Let's see...in my CD player in my car right now I got Morbid Angle, Best of 2 Live Crew, Dru Down, Ol' Dirty Bastard, Chronic 2001, and Pentara.
You listen to a mix.
Yeah, I like heavy and Rap.
Did Punk Rock have any influence on you?
No, I never was into Punk Rock, man. The only Punk album I own is Sex Pistols Never Mind The Bullocks. That's the only Punk I ever listen to.
What about early Psychedelic music?
Shit like Iron Butterfly's dope. Early Led Zeppelin, stuff like that's cool. I listen to that stuff.
When you were touring and going crazy, did you ever want to break up?
No, not at all.
Before you were making money off of music were you working jobs?
Actually before I started the band I worked at that coroner's office. I used to cut up dead bodies. I was an autopsy assistant.
What made you want to do that?
I was just curious. I started it when I was in high school. I was curious, I wanted to see a dead body and I fell in love with it and started doing it. I went to Mortuary college up there. The San Francisco College of Mortuary Science. I wanted to be a mortician. That's what I did before I got with the band.
I wonder why you would enjoy work like that?
I don't know. I liked death. I was just a depressing kid I guess. I liked horror movies. I wanted to check it out.
You were depressed as a kid?
Yeah, I was a depressed little fart.
How was it for you at school?
I was picked on at school. Called faggot and all kinds of things. I used to wear makeup at school, I was all into that thing. Then I got called names.
The rest of the group were into different stuff?
They were into all different stuff. Tildy was all into Metal, so was Head. David, I didn't know him all that well. And Munky I didn't know back then. Tildy, our dads played together in bands, so I grew up with him. Head, I grew up with him too.
Do all of you live in LA now?
No, I'm the only one that lives in LA. The rest of them live down in Huntington Beach.
When you tour where are you really big?
Everywhere.
What about overseas?
Europe, Australia, Japan, we've been everywhere. We've been over the entire world.
The main success for Korn didn't come from the radio or TV or anything, just touring?
Just touring and building up a fanbase.
You never had a radio hit?
No. The one that did it for us was "Got The Life".
I'm sure now the radio and TV want to play you and work with you. How do you feel about that?
It's cheesy and it sucks, but we want to get our music out to as many people as possible. And we changed music. Now they're playing Rock again. Rock came back. I feel good about that. I just laugh. I laugh to myself, cause I remember how they used to tell us, No way in hell, and now they suck our asses. So. That's just how it goes. I laugh to myself. It's funny, but it's cool that it's on them.
When you were a kid you were picked on and now your group is one of the biggest in the country. How does that make you feel?
I laugh just to myself. I don't like to lower myself and go get revenge on muthafuckas. What they did to me....I'm just kickin it. Cause I'm livin really comfortably right now, and they're not.
Maybe some of the people who bullied you are buying your records right now.
Yeah. It's crazy.
Interview by Black Dog Bone
From vol7 #1
On this new album you're going away from Hip Hop and more Psychedelic. Were your roots in Hip Hop from the beginning?
The band started back in '93. We're all from Bakersfield (California). The Monkey, Head, Phil, D and David--the other four band members--they already had a band together called Creep. They moved down from Bakersfield years before I got in the band. They saw me singing in a nightclub with another band and they asked me to try out for their band. That's how Korn started. Then we all moved the Huntingon Beach. We were all into Hip Hop back when the first Korn album was made. All we used to do is listen to Chronic and stuff like that. We were really influenced by Rap music. The first album was, then the second Life Is Peachy wasn't so much. The third album Follow The Leader was really heavily Hip Hop influenced. We strayed away from it a little bit. But there's still a little of it in there.
The band called Creep, what kinda music were they playing?
They were doin more like Thrash type music. It was Thrash/Groove kinda stuff.
What was the band you were in before you got with Korn?
I was singing in a band called Sex Art. It was just Rock & Roll kinda stuff.
When you all came together and formed Korn the sound took off in another direction?
The sound took off. When I came in I brought a darker edge to the music. Then we were playing, and we got really influenced by Hip Hop. Our main influence Hip Hop wise was Cypress Hill--their early albums. So we got the idea to do samples of guitars. Rage Against The Machine did that and we were influenced by them. We got into our own style of music. We mixed a little bit of Hip Hop, a little Groove, Funk, everything. We didn't wanna be a Rock/Rap band, we never tried to do that. We just take subtle Hip Hop influences--beats, basslines.
When you were growing up in Bakersfield what was going on there?
In Bakersfield nothing was really goin on. It's a really bad place to grow up. I hate that town, it's horrible. I really got into music and I was a DJ. That's how I got into Hip Hop. I used to DJ with The Baker Boys. That was way back when Hip Hop was so new. Dana Dane and all that Old School Hip Hop. I was really into it, but then I kinda grew outta it when Hip Hop changed to what it is now.
Your new album, NAME, is more Psychedelic. How did that change take place?
When we started writing the album we wanted to do something different. It seemed like a lotta bands now are trying to mix Rap and Rock, but only a couple do it well. It seems totally jaded. We were one of the first to start doin that stuff. I never rapped but, we were Hip Hop influenced, but we didn't wanna do the Rap/Rock thing. It seemed played out. We wanted to go somewhere different and recreate ourselves. So we did this album. The Hip Hop influence is still there, our next album will probably have more. But it was just right for this album.
Your lyrical content is really dark, almost suicidal. Where does that come from?
Just growing up. That whole album was kind of a concept thing. It was stuff that I went through in tours, the last couple years of my life. I have real bad problems with anxiety, tak-attack disorder. I went crazy basically on the road, that's what my lyrics are basically about.
Touring was hard for you?
Yeah, we've been on tour for about six years. We come home, but get a month off here. When we do records, that's the most time we get off. We're constantly on the road. Korn wasn't an overnight success. It took us six years to get where we're at. Just pounding it out, cause nobody really wanted to hear what we were doing. It was a total street vibe. It was all word of mouth. We had no support. People didn't understand our music, they thought it totally sucked. But now we hit the mainstream, it's ridiculous.
I'd never seen you on TV or heard you on the radio and suddenly you're the biggest thing. How did you build your following?
Just playing man. Bein on the road and goin to the streets. Self-promotion. It's kinda like what DMX did. It's some total word of mouth on the street kinda vibe. It was dope. We just went out and played, played, played everywhere. Constantly touring.
At the beginning were you on a different label?
No, we're still on Immortal/Epic. Immortal was run by Happy Walters who manages Cypress Hill. He had Redman on his label, he had Funkdoobiest. It's a Hip Hop label.
When you first came out what kind of reaction did you get?
They hated it. Like radio people, There's no way we're gonna play this stuff, it's too heavy, we don't understand it, bla bla bla. We're like, Fine fuck you. So we went on the road and just started playin.
What type of bands were you playing with?
We were playin with Metal bands.
How did the crowd react to you?
They were goin crazy. They loved it. The crowds just kept growin bigger and bigger and bigger. We got to the point where we could go out and do our own shows. So we did a few shows. We had Pharcyde open up for us. We had Frequent Habits open up for us. We had all these Hip Hop groups open up for us at Rock shows. Something that was never done before. It scared a lot of people at first, but then the kids started gettin into it. I think we opened up a lotta kids' eyes to Hip Hop music.
A lot of White kids listen to Rap right now. And there are a lot of White groups mixing Rap into their music. There's a huge crossover.
There is a big crossover.
We get letters at Murder Dog, people asking us to do something on Korn. But I always think of you as a Rock band....
We were a Rock band, but I think we got a lot of props and respect in the Hip Hop world because what we did, what we started, it just took off. We were originators of a certain genre, and everybody else followed. And I did a song with Ice Cube. I just did a song with Q-Tip. We're not tryin to be Hip Hop, we're just Hip Hop influence. But there's a lot of bands out there tryin to do straight up Hip Hop and be something that they're not. We stay true to ourselves and play funky-ass dope grooves. I guess people can see that we're real.
When the band Creep was happening did they have the seven string guitars?
Yeah, they did. It's just the way they were playin them was more of a happy un-tempo groove. When I came in with the lyrical content that I'm doin, it got darker. That's when we started incorporating some Hip Hop. "It'd be dope if we threw some 808's in there." There were some Hip Hop bass lines along with some crazy street metal stuff. We were just messin around, mixin it up.
When you started doing this kind of music no one else was mixing Rap and Rock elements?
The ones who started with us were Rage Against The Machine. Fro Rap/Rock it was Rage and then us for the more heavy and melodic stuff.
Rage is very political, but your music is more personal. How do people feel about what you're talking about?
A lot of people relate to me a lot. I get letters all the time, people saying that I saved their lives. I'm glad other people can relate to what I'm goin through. It's really true and straight to the heart when people can relate to what I'm talking about.
How do you write songs? Does the rest of the group work out the music first and then you write lyrics?
We all come up with a song. On this album mostly everybody came up with the music. I've always wrote music then lyrics. I get the vibe from the song and then I get something that I wanna write about.
Do you play any instruments?
Yeah, I play everything. On the album I played bagpipes, digeradoo, and I played drums on like 9 of the tracks. I play a lotta instruments. The music is written by everybody in the band. It's not me just writing anything. I might pick up a guitar and write a rift. It's like everything goes. We're one big team. That's also a big thing about our band--it seems like there's no more bands anymore. It's always focused on one person. We're really a band. Our fans are into all of us. It's not just one person. Everybody's got their favorite. With a lot of bands it's not like that.
Yeah, you've got the lead singer and the rest of the band is not well known. Limp Bizkit's like that and Kid Rock's just Kid Rock. We're a band. That's a cool thing I like about our band, we're like a little gang.
What was it like for you growin up in Bakersfield?
I had a good time growing up there, but I had some tough things going on with my family and stuff. I had a lotta bad times and a lotta good times. I was sick most of my childhood. I had asthma really really bad, so I was in the hospital a lot of the time until I was about ten.
You had a big family?
Not a big family. It was me and my sister. My mom and dad divorced when I was three, so I had step parents and everything.
I heard you dad was a musician?
Yeah, he was a bass player. He played in bands. So did our bass player, Tildy, his dad played in bands. Actually, my dad and his dad played in a band together. It was like club cover songs typa stuff.
Did that influence you to want to do music?
It was in my blood. I started playing drums when I was three. I started conducting symphony orchestras when I was four. I'd listen to classical music and I'd like conduct it. My parents and grandmother told me about it. Then I just took off. I started playing musical instruments when I was a little kid. It was imbedded in my DNA I guess. My dad had a music store, so I was constantly surrounded by music my whole entire life.
He still has a music store?
It closed down when I was about fourteen. Then he has a recording studio. So I used to fart around the recording studio, writin songs, doin stuff.
The music store was selling records or instruments?
Selling guitars and stuff.
A lot of Rap lyrics are really hard, but you're lyrics are very different.
I think it's heavier because it's personal. I think when you listen to your music you get this heavy feeling. I'm doin it from a hard standpoint. I can be hard, but it's more personal. It's not like hardcore Rap lyrics talkin about cappin people. I can respect that, that's goin on. But that's a totally different vibe from me. I'm talkin about hurting. I'm pissed off why this happened to me. Where they're tryin to attack and lash out at society. I respect it all though.
Most people want to do what's cool and what's happening. But both lyrically and musically, Korn decided to do something different. Why is that?
We never really thought it man. Honest to god, it just happened. We put our instruments on and jammed together and that's what happened. It's just one of those bands, we just started playing and that's how it was.
And you have a huge cult following.
Yeah. We have a full cult following.
Your fans are involved in doing the artwork for you CD's. How did that come about?
We're trying to keep ourselves grounded. We're tryin to keep ourselves down with our fans. That's why we are where we're at. So we decided to have our fans design our cover artwork. Let's have our fans do our bio. Let's have our fans take out our set list. When we do our CD that's for us too, it's cool for us, but it's cool to have the fans involved too. It makes it so special. So we got over 25,000 entries. Went through all of them and picked 4. Then went from there. It was fucking cool.
You said that the lyrics on this album have a lot to do with your experiences on the road. What was going on on the road?
It was hard for us. We totally went crazy for a while. We were a club band and we got thrown into doin arenas and stuff. It was a tough transition. We were trippin out. We were used to being able to walk out in a crowd, hang out with people and talk and shit. Now we need security. I can't go out there, I get mobbed. It's a whole different lifestyle. It can freak you out.
It didn't just happen overnight though?
No, it didn't happen overnight. It gradually happened. Once you're in an arena the pressure on you is immense. It's like, Oh my god, can we sell this out? Can we fill these seats up? It's all on our ass. So it started freakin us out.
I wonder how the guitar players got into using 7 strings on their guitars?
Munky, my guitar player, was totally into the 7-string guitar thing, because he was a big fan on Steve Vye, who invented the 7 strings. Then Munky and Head both bought them and started playing them. He uses them for Blues things, just to do solos like lower. Munky and Head tuned it right and started using them just to make a heavy heavy groove that was lower. They just feel upon it.
The music goes well with your lyrics.
It's perfect. It's so rockin. It's like these really depressing lyrics with these really pumpin grooves. It balances out and makes it nice.
How did the Psychedelic sound come in?
Partly because of my lyrical content. I wanted to do like a concept album. And we wanted to make it trippy. We just wanted to do something different.
What direction do you see the group going next?
I wanna go heavy into Hip Hop and probably incorporate everything. I don't wanna lean toward something that we're not. We're a Rock & Roll band. We got Hip Hop influences, but I don't wanna fuckin front and try to be something we're not. We'll take from that and from other influences and mix it all up and make it nice.
What type of music were you and the rest of the band listening to when you were growing up?
It's all different for us, but for the band I know it was Faith No More and the Red Hot Chili Peppers. For me it was more dark bands like Ministry, Skinny Puppy. I was really into Duran Duran and Depeche Mode in the '80's. But I also listened to a lotta Hip Hop. All the old school shit.
I know Faith No More real well. they used to have that Black dude singing?
Yeah, Chuck Mosley. When they came out with that album We Care A Lot. it just showed us that we could do something that was different. I like Faith No More with both singers they've had--Chuck Mosley and with Mike Patton.
You know they used to have Courtney Love singing for them in the early days.
Courtney Love?! Really? Wow...
That was when they first came to San Francisco. Courtney was singing with them, but they just couldn't get along.
Yeah, she's a crazy girl. But I didn't know that. Wow. We were really influenced by them. And we were big Bumble fans too. Mr. Bumble, that's Mike from Faith No More's band.
What are you listening to right now?
Let's see...in my CD player in my car right now I got Morbid Angle, Best of 2 Live Crew, Dru Down, Ol' Dirty Bastard, Chronic 2001, and Pentara.
You listen to a mix.
Yeah, I like heavy and Rap.
Did Punk Rock have any influence on you?
No, I never was into Punk Rock, man. The only Punk album I own is Sex Pistols Never Mind The Bullocks. That's the only Punk I ever listen to.
What about early Psychedelic music?
Shit like Iron Butterfly's dope. Early Led Zeppelin, stuff like that's cool. I listen to that stuff.
When you were touring and going crazy, did you ever want to break up?
No, not at all.
Before you were making money off of music were you working jobs?
Actually before I started the band I worked at that coroner's office. I used to cut up dead bodies. I was an autopsy assistant.
What made you want to do that?
I was just curious. I started it when I was in high school. I was curious, I wanted to see a dead body and I fell in love with it and started doing it. I went to Mortuary college up there. The San Francisco College of Mortuary Science. I wanted to be a mortician. That's what I did before I got with the band.
I wonder why you would enjoy work like that?
I don't know. I liked death. I was just a depressing kid I guess. I liked horror movies. I wanted to check it out.
You were depressed as a kid?
Yeah, I was a depressed little fart.
How was it for you at school?
I was picked on at school. Called faggot and all kinds of things. I used to wear makeup at school, I was all into that thing. Then I got called names.
The rest of the group were into different stuff?
They were into all different stuff. Tildy was all into Metal, so was Head. David, I didn't know him all that well. And Munky I didn't know back then. Tildy, our dads played together in bands, so I grew up with him. Head, I grew up with him too.
Do all of you live in LA now?
No, I'm the only one that lives in LA. The rest of them live down in Huntington Beach.
When you tour where are you really big?
Everywhere.
What about overseas?
Europe, Australia, Japan, we've been everywhere. We've been over the entire world.
The main success for Korn didn't come from the radio or TV or anything, just touring?
Just touring and building up a fanbase.
You never had a radio hit?
No. The one that did it for us was "Got The Life".
I'm sure now the radio and TV want to play you and work with you. How do you feel about that?
It's cheesy and it sucks, but we want to get our music out to as many people as possible. And we changed music. Now they're playing Rock again. Rock came back. I feel good about that. I just laugh. I laugh to myself, cause I remember how they used to tell us, No way in hell, and now they suck our asses. So. That's just how it goes. I laugh to myself. It's funny, but it's cool that it's on them.
When you were a kid you were picked on and now your group is one of the biggest in the country. How does that make you feel?
I laugh just to myself. I don't like to lower myself and go get revenge on muthafuckas. What they did to me....I'm just kickin it. Cause I'm livin really comfortably right now, and they're not.
Maybe some of the people who bullied you are buying your records right now.
Yeah. It's crazy.
