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| He steps up to the microphone, dark eyes glowing with rage, sadness and many other emotions bottled inside. Once you're a fan you know, and brace yourself as the immortal words are spoken: "ARE YOU READY?" Everyone knows the voice of Jonathan Davis, or you should if you're reading this, but some people don't know alot of the past that writes the songs and sings the words. So this is where I try to fill in the blanks. So lets start at the beginning of it all. Jonathan Davis was born on January 18th, 1971 in Bakersfield, California. Even in the beginning of his life Jon was surronded by music. His mother, Holly, was a dancer, and his father, Rick, was a musician that also owned Buck Ownes recording studio. Being constantly on the road meant that Rick couldn't develope much of a relationship with his son Jonathan so it was srrained to say the least for many years. But there was an advantage to Jon's father being in a band, it exposed Jonathan to a lot of different instruments and therefore his beginnings in music. Jon started to play various instruments when he was very young, starting at age three with the drums. Jon now nows how to play the upright bass, guitar, piano and even the bagpipes. So now I have painted you all a rosey picture of Jonathan's childhood haven't I? Well let me just burst that bubble. As you can tell through the lyrics of KoRn's music, Jon's life wasn't all fun and games, and what began as a seemingly okay childhood was really shortlived. To start rathar than playing with all the other kids jon had to be careful. He had severe asthma and therefore spent a lot of time in the hospital. When jon was three years old his parents got divorced. this found Jon not completely knowing where his home was. He spent periods of time living with both his parents and different sets of grandparents and was also raised by all these differet people, instilling different values. One value that stuck in Jon's head not only from his parents and other relatives but also television was to always be polite. And Jon was a polite child, which of course made fate cruel. As a child Jonathan's neighbor/faily friend sexually abused him. when jon attempted to tell his parents about the abuse niether believed him. The emotional pain from this is probably best expressed in the song "Daddy". Even when interviewers today ask Jon about the song or what it stemmed from he usually avoids the subject and says he isn't comfortable talking about it. So why do interviewers still ask? They're all idiots is the simplist answer and scapegoat i would like the offer at the moment. For abvious reasons "Daddy" isn't preformed live. It was once and Jon was far too emotional to ever do it again. even today nobody knows who Jon's abuser was. God help if a fan ever finds out. Does that sound like a threat? Well it should. So now we've reached another cause of Jon's suffering at such a young age. Lillie Davis. when Jon's parents divorced both remarried and Rick chose to remarry Lillie. Ever heard the song "Kill you" off of Life is Peachy? I'd say it sums things up pretty well. Not only would this woman terrorize Jon by verbaling abusing him, but when he was younger she did things like put tabasco sauce in his tea when he was sick, enough to make him sicker. "Evil bitch from hell" doesn't even begin to describe her. Thankfully Rick had the sense to break up with this woman while Jon was still in highschool. Ah Highschool. Things have to get better now right? It's only do time before Jon's life gets a little better right? Wrong. We haven't hit the bottom yet. I guess I can start with the one good thing that did come of Jon's highschool years which was his being in a pipeband and learning the bagpipes at age sixteen. Then there was the rest of Highschool. Teenage-hood (is that a word?) didn't go much better for Jon. In fact alot would say that it got worse. At the Highschool Jon attended, Highland High, he was constantly harassed by jocks and others around him for what he chose to wear. Picture eyeliner, make up and "weird" clothing. Not to mention the fact that he sometimes went to gay bars to see the local bands. At any rate this earned jon the false reputation of being a fag and was influence for Jon to get his "HIV" tattoo as a big "fuck you" to all who made fun of him. But being made fun of in school was not Jon's only worry. Besides the existing problems from above Jon decided to take on a job as a coroners assistant at the Kern County Morgue. Seeing dead bodies at the morgue every week certianly did nothing to improve Jon's mental state and caused Jon to start what would become one of his bad habits. An addiction to speed. Jonathans addiction followed him to his early twenty's when he was discoverd by none other than *drum roll*, Head and Munky! Anyway everyone knows this story...if you don't, tough. Well they all turned into Korn along with David, and Feildy. come 1994 the first album by KoRn was released, and you know about all that so i don't need to go into it here. It was around this time where Nathan Houseman Davis was born on October 18, 1995 to Jon and his long time girlfriend Renee Perez. There two good things that happened in Jons life. Things moved slowly for the band at first, which is why Jonathan will never let the band quit. Even on the Family Values tour, just after the release of Follow the Leader, when Jonathan was having problems the band didn't stop. This tour was referred to as the "Hell Tour" by Jonathan. He was depressed and would spend entire days sleeping, only getting up for shows. It got to the point where Jon wouldn't eat or drink anything because he was paranoid that he would poison himself. The entire album "Issues" is like a concept album of that time in Jonathans life. Each track represents different aspects; him cheating on his wife, the paranoia, tension between band members and old issues (no pun intended). At the end of this time Jonathan and his wife Renee split up because Jon thought that he just wasn't being honest and could not live that way. |
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