KoRn article

courtesy of chris silwedel of the korn list

KONFESSIONS OF A KORNHOLE

The world is cracking up and Korn's skyrocketing success is perfect testament. Steffan Chirazi asks the band to pull up a chaise lounge while he unravels the mystery of their misery.

Jonathen Davis and I are sitting in Ye Olde Inne, a dark, dingy fake wood-panneled bar in the Los Feliz district of LA. We are slowly getting to the bottom of the screams and voices that are Korn's vital, distubing heartbeat. It isn't just what he's saying that hits so hard, it's the way he sits. Fidgeting, eyes rolling left, right, here, there, playing with bits of dreadlocked hair, churning in his hands... he is extraordinary nervous.

Despite his shy, friendly manner and cooperativeness, Davis seems to harbour a general distrust and anger of the world about him. And as the band's infinitely better second album, Life Is Peachy, sits poised to launch the band to stratospheric heights of success, Davis starts confessing. Jammed up against the back of the booth we're sitting in, he reveals some problems.

"I'm having major anxiety attacks, shit's starting to come out," he quietly says. "I don't know what this album's unlocked, but shit's starting to come out and mentally I can't handle it. I have major anxiety attacks so I have to go to a doctor now for pills, a sedative to keep my heart regular. When I have these attacks, my heart starts to palpitate and feak out, I dunno what it is but I have to go with it."

Do they offer any relief of built up tension?

"Uh uh, no, it feels like I'm going to fucking die," comes the blunt reply. "Only people who have anxiety attacks can know what it feels like. It's like your head's crawling up and your asshole's covered, and you just wanna get into a ball so fucking tight that you die. Think of your whole body being as tense as possible, you can't think, you don't know what's happening. I conquered it once before, but now it's coming back and happening with no reason. There were triggers before but now they're just happening. I decided that I have to get this shit taken care of with just a little sedative. Because once it starts I can't turn back. It's like turning your engine on and busting the key in the ignition and not being able to turn it off until the gas runs out."

To know about Jonathen Davis is to know more deeply just what Korn really is. When Davis screams, pleads and intones in the course of a performance, he is exorcising pain greater than most can guage. To try and understand its thick and twisted roots, you have to go back to his Bakersfield, California childhood and a picture-imperfect white trash upbringing. "Most of the people I hung out with grew up that way, I used to go and visit my grandmom in the trailer park and shit," he chuckles nervously. "My grandmother I loved to death. She was the only one I could confide in, she was like my mom to me. When she died 6 years ago it fucking killed me."

Davis' happiest childhood memory was a musical one involving her. "I heard a knock at the door one Christmas and it made me so happy to answer the door and get my first blue glitter drum kit. My grandmother bought it. I played real drums when I was 4, I played in my dad's band at the bar when I was 5 for a couple of songs, I picked up early and I've been into it ever since."

One of his darker recollections offers a small window into a childhood torn away from him. "I remember when my dad kidnapped me from my grandmother's house. My mom and him were fighting and I remember them screaming at each other, he'd start crying and then they'd [look at me and] go, 'Look at what you did, making me cry'. That was when I was two."

In a conversation that sways back and forth between jarring memories of alienation, abuse and plain weirdness, Davies remembers his father's abrupt conversion to the Pentacostal church vividly, going into hyper-speed conversation on the matter. "When I was 14, my pops got into fucking religion really bad and I would go to church with him and have all these people saying I was possessed by the devil. It scared the shit outta me. "These people are crazy. They'd start singing, jumping up and start screaming in no language, praying in tongues. Then the priests would come and lay their hands on them, to "knock the the devil" out of them and all these fuckers would fall to the floor. Then all the other people would turn to me and start comin' after me because I wasn't down on the floor, and I'm like, 'Get the fuck away from me', and they'd yell, "He's got the devil in him'. But I finally got my dad out of that shit, which is cool." For Davis, screamin in Korn is a form of therapy for memories like this and many, many more.

"Well yeah, I'm not screaming just to fuckin' scream. All that stuff, my whole life. I went through so many different settings, my parents were divorced like any typical American family. I was three year-old and getting pulled back and forth between my Mom and Dad. That's how I started off, I was raised by five or six different families and it really fucked my head up like, 'Who the fuck am I?'. I had my mom and my mom's mom, my dad and dad's mom, I had my step-dad trying to raise me that way and my God parents too. I'd always be jumping from house to house, like a kid being pawned off. I felt like I was a burden."

Davis never saw much of his father, a touring musician, which only served to add to his confusion.

"He was never there, then when he'd come home I'd see him for three days and freak out, then he'd be gone again. He was 21 when I was born and 24 when they divorced, so he was a kid too. Seeing all the shit that he did, and how I totally felt like I was a burden and a mistake to him, I knew that at an early age. I dunno why.

"People think the song Daddy was because my dad fucked me in the arse and that's not what the song's about. This song was not about my dad or my mom. I was being abused by somebody else and I went to 'em and told 'em, and they thought I was lying and 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."

As much as Davies seems like he would love to open up and let people into his world, trust is something he finds impossible to deal with right now. "I built up trust when I got my first two girlfriends after my grandmother died, because I needed a woman figure. I fell in love, got dicked, did it again and got really dicked. After that something clicked, I couldn't trust no-one ever again. I don't trust nobody. I don't even trust myself. That emotion has no meaning to me anymore." School was no easier for young Davis, no-one coming forward to befriend him.

"Walking around with these jocks everywhere, they'd take one look at you in make-up and you were instantly a fag. I was into the 'new romantic' scene, Duran Duran at the time, and that's what you did. You wore make-up and frilly shirts and so they just thought 'that guy's gay'. If I'd been going to school in LA it might have been different, but in Bakersfield I was a faggot. I got by, but I was always the queer."

Now however, the ironies of success are becoming very apparent to the once victimised Davies.

"My drummer David is a total work-out freak. And we had this party last night and all his gym buddies, these huge buff guys, were going 'you rock'. And I was looking, thinking, those are the type of motherfuckers who used to call me a queer and now they wanna be my friend, alllriiiight."

Jonathen Davis knows it's better this way, that life in its own weird way hasn't ended up being quite as ugly as it could easily have been. "I mean, what else would I be doing if I weren't doing this? I was chopping up dead bodies at the Coroner's office, would I have taken it further? What drives anyone to do stupid shit? You need an outlet, art or something to let the shit flow and I was into hiding it. I got to go and cut up dead bodies for a living, that was a high. I'll never forget the sound of cutting flesh, it's the awesomest sound, it's like a drug. I got into the power of it, I din't go to jail and I got to cut up dead bodies. I didn't direspect the body in anyway, it was just shit going on in my head.

"It helped me for a while, then I got into the band I think that saved my from going further and further. Music is where I let it go, and I don't even let it all go, I still hold back shit and I don't know why. I'm scared, I don't want to let it all out and I don't know why."

After we'd concluded our conversation, Davis, photographer Leialoha and I had all driven to the Roxy for a soundcheck, and already Jonathen Davis' mood was changing. Like he was developing his 'game-face'. Not to deal with the gig but more his own band mates.

For such a dynamic live band, Korn are something of an anomaly. Guitarist James 'Munkey' Schaffer is reserved and polite. Drummer Dave is cocksure and irritating, who despite being a great time-keeper, always appears to need to be heard, whether it be giving Leiaoha a hard time or just generally whingeing. Brian 'Head' Welch is a seemingly confused but not-too-bothered-by-it kind of guitarist, and bassist 'Fieldy' is a sheep in wolf's clothing, a big-mouthed gloater, a man who needs to always front. Trainers and sports gear are two topics Fieldy can talk about for an extraordianary amount of time, and he spends the majority of the photo-shoot trying to force his suede Pumas into the frame in some warped, and frankly, sad gesture of style. He also has a broad line in juvenile intimidation which doesn't work very well. Because Fieldy ain't as bad as he wants to be, but he's bad enough to intimidate Head into not opening up nearly as much as you feel he'd like to. I grab the two of them for another view of Korn-land in the Roxy parking lot post-soundcheck.

Musically, Jonathen's got his own personal source for his lyrics. Where do you draw from for the musical aggression?

Fieldy: "Musically we set it up for him, we work together to try and make something really fat and eerie and sick to fit his lyrics. We don't try to write anything happy because we know what he likes to write about..."

Head: "Our music gets things in the mood."

Fieldy: "Just like a movie. You hear the music in the background of a scary movie, like when they're getting ready to stab someone to death, well that's what we do. Writing music's a lot easier than writing the lyrics when you're thinking the same shit."

Head: "But I don't know where it comes from personally, I push all my feelings way down so as one day I might blow up and start stabbing people."

You guys grew up in LA, or Bakersfield too?

Fieldy: "Yeah, Bakersfield as well. That's probably why we're so fucked up in our heads because we grew up in Bakersfield - there's nothing to do there. The only good thing about Bakersfield is that the weather's great... (you are now entering the sarcasm zone.) Summer's are about 60 degrees, nice breeze, walk around..."

Head: "...Walk the dog, touch the steering wheel of your car without getting burnt, go for a little run in the afternoon."

We are, of course talking about a place where the temperature routinely hits 100 degrees Fahrenheit.

Head: "Yup. But the night's are great, there's this drastic change from 100 to about 97 Fahrenheit."

So Bakersfield didn't leave you with too many fond memories?

Head: "I dunno, I was always inside with a fan on, and then Winter was too cold so I stayed in and kept warm. We all hung out when we were younger, and all we did was play music, drink beer and plan getting out."

Fieldy and Head both knew Jonathen Davis at school. Fieldy is less than diplomatic when asked to recall the impression Davis left back then.

"He was one of those quiet little faggots you see. He was always by himself and kinda nerdy."

Which, I'm sure you've noticed, the mighty Fieldy was not. Absolutley no 'fagginess' for our main 'homey'.

"I was runnin' the whole school," he chortles, "they called it Highland Fieldy High."

And one would most certainly not say that Fieldy was into Duran Duran as a teen.

"Errumm... I was. Hahahaha, yeah in 7th grade."

"Not me," says Head saving the day, "I was into Maiden, Judas Priest, Ozzy."

"I cut over to metal though," continues Fieldy, "I mean when you're a kid you don't everybody so it was probably Motley Crue or Maiden."

Head: "They used to cap on me, give me shit before that."

All in all, judging from the Korn-fed stories, Bakersfield sounds like a very sad place indeed.

"I try not to ever go back there. I pay my mom to visit me here," says Fieldy, not totally joking about trips back to Bakersfield. But he did go back one time, with Munkey, and ran into Davis again.

"I had no idea that Jonathen was the guy they'd seen on that trip," says Head. "I mean, I knew they'd seen someone and after we kicked out the singer in our other band Creep, they both mentioned him. We called him up and here we are."

When I talked to Jonathen about school, he remembered a lot of bullies, and given Fieldy's general diposition, well...

"I knew him and I use to walk by him," he starts, "and his Dad owned a music store. So he'd have these T-shirts with Marshall on them and I'd want one of them because I was a stupid little metal head. So I'd walk by him and say, 'Give me a fucking Marshall shirt'. I always had concert t-shirts on so he was afraid of me."

"I was cool with him," says Head quietly, "I never knew him that well but I was cool."

Fieldy, "but my dad and his dad were in a band together so he'd come over and I'd kick him around. I ran him over with a three wheeler once. I was like a bully. That might explain why I've been jumped about 15 times in my life."

At this point Fieldy establishes himself as a truly sad man. I snort in disgust at his confession.

"Ok, I'm sorry."

You wonder where Head and Fieldy would be were it not for Korn.

"I'd be depressed," says Head almost mumbling, quietly, almost sadly.

"I wouldn't," chirps the cheeky 'OG' chappie, "I'd be robbing banks. And if I got caught I'd be running the whole prison!"

His bullshit is outdone only by his sarcasm. I ask Davis later on if he thinks his band mates understand where he's coming from lyrically and emotionally?

"I think they get it, but I don't know to what depth they get it."

Don't they ever sit down and talk to you about this stuff?

"No. Munkey does. They read the lyrics, I think they understand that, they say 'that's bad'. Munkey really gets into it, Head does and so does Fieldy. Dave's the only one who doesn't really get into the lyrics, he doesn't understand. But basically we're really selfish and concentrate on our respective instruments, and it isn't until we record that everything comes out. I have a fear of what's coming just like I did for the first album. This one seems to be working out, but I don't know yet. To be honest I was scared of the second record, but when I got over it after listening to it a few times."

Even the fact that Jonathen Davis no longer gets his kicks off meth ampetamines hasn't alleviated any of the quirks in his delicately balanced personallity.

"There's still that freaky person in there, which only comes out when I'm doing music. The rest of the time I'm still the scared little boy... " He trails off and today's interview is over.

A week later I'm in the lobby of the Hotel Triton in San Fransisco and Jonathen Davis, being the affable chap he is, has happily agreed to chat more about both his, and Korn's life. I call his room, and the voice I hear disturbs me. Davis sounds like he's in hell, as though the walls are coming in around him and hands are lurching out to do him great harm.

"I...I...I'm sorry, b'b'but I'm havin' one of those days... anxiety attack shit... I know we had arranged something... I'm really sorry buddy but I can't... we'll reschedule for real soon... I'm sorry..."

I've talked to many musicians over the years, and have a pretty sensitive bullshit detector. Jonathen Davis isn't bullshiting me, I wish he was. But he isn't. I can only say to him that yes, of course it's OK and a reschedule would be great, that I hope he's OK. I want to ask him about so many things, so many rumours. But there will hopefully be another day.

At 'Frisco's Fillmore that night, Davis is as fine as life currently allows him to be, twisting and writhing his way through 75 minutes of therapy, the afternoon nightmare condemned to being no more than that. The crowd gleefully yell 'faggot' back at Davis, who stands nodding his head and waving his arms for more volume. They see him as laughing along with them, yet for him this and other songs are all he has in the way of retaliation.

But once Korn have gone multi-platinum with Life Is Peachy, once they've seen their already bursting profile shoot further skywards with a Stateside Metallica support slot, what then? Who's going to be there to help Jonathen Davis? Because it seems like he will need a few good friends to be there for him as the world becomes more confusing. And panic attacks like the one earlier get more frequent.

"I never worry about it," he had said back at the bar in Los Angeles, "because if the music goes over well, and things keep on moving, then it is what it is. There's a path for everyone and you have to walk it. Whatever has to happen will happen. I'll take it a day at a time."