Korn's Jonathan Davis Deals With His Issues

  Rewind to January 1999. The dressing areas for the Marilyn Manson and Hole camps on the Sydney leg of the Big Day Out festival were like military compounds. Both were surrounded by fencing, which was in turn covered by material to make sure that not only could no one get in, but no one could see in either.

The Korn plot on the other hand was nothing more than a dressing unit with no extended privacy or perimeter fencing. All that changed at about 2 p.m. A load of scaffolding was deposited outside, and within a matter of an hour or so, a fence was up firmly securing the area.

Korn's fourth album, Issues, isn't that protected a territory. In fact, it's not secure or secured in any way at all. What it is, is a front-row, neck-ligament-tearing wide-screen view into the demonic personal hell that singer Jonathan Davis has been screaming about and agonizing over for the past few years. Over the course of 16 tracks, which range from the crushingly heavy to the just plain crushing, Issues finally shows what's under the stage kilt of the man who again wields his bagpipes on the album's opener, "Dead," with its desperate and telling whispered mantra, "All I want in life is to be happy."

CDNOW (CD): Tell me about the writing of Issues.

Jonathan Davis (JD): I knew it was going to be a concept thing, about how I went through all the hells when Follow the Leader came out and we did [the] Family Values [tour]. About me having bad anxiety problems and being an alcoholic, and all that shit I went through and got through it all. The whole thing's based on that one long story.

CD: Hence the title, right? It must feel good to get that stuff down on tape and get it out of your system.

JD: Yeah, awesome. And it's all we've ever done on all the albums. It feels awesome. This one was more ... hurt. The other albums are more pissed off, mad, angry shit. This shit was more hurt than emotional, because I wanted to kill myself, man, because I didn't know what the fuck was wrong with my head. I thought I was totally going insane. I thought I was going crazy. I thought I was losing my mind, and it just fucking freaked me out. I wanted to kill myself for the longest time.

CD: Surely your marriage offers some comfort in among all that pain?

JD: I'm not married no more, but it's OK. I've got my son.

CD: So the hurt from that has been channeled through this record?

JD: Yeah. Everything. I lost a lot of shit. I just realized I've made a lot of bad mistakes. I got on this medicine to help me out with all my anxiety and all that stuff, and just a door opened up to me. I realized I wasn't happy in my relationships.
I just had to move on again and do shit for me now. I channeled a lot of that into this album. This album is a big transformation in my life, and it's me just writing it all out, getting it all out.

CD: It's almost a solo album it's so personal.

JD: A solo record? Yeah, it's really personal. All my albums have been really personal. This one's different. It's got depth to it. I'm singing more, and it grabs you and rubs you a different way to the other ones.

CD: Was there a particular trigger for all this, or was it an accumulation of events?

JD: It was just an accumulation of things. I was lying in my bunk going, "Oh God, [thinking about] the next album!" I had this idea of like writing shit down wrong with me, and I'm like, I'm going to make a whole big story about what I went through, because I think kids would really be interested in hearing what I go through for them. I think they'd be interested in that shit.

CD: The band seems to have a new album every year. You must be amazed yourself at how fast you pump them out.

JD: Yeah, I am. It's really, really fucking amazing. But we pulled it off and did it in such a short time. But that's us getting in there and working.
A lot of it has to do with our producer, Brendon O'Brien. He kicked us in the butt. The band just needs someone there to make us work. If it was up to us, we'd just sit around the studio and drink beer, and shoot the shit all day. So he got us in there, and we started working, and we got it done really quick.

CD: Did you approach the recording of this album differently?

JD: No, we just went into it and just wrote. Honestly. There wasn't that much thought like, "Oh, we're going to try and do this, and we're going to try and do that." We just went with it, and it just took on its own life."

CD: There's no guests this time.

JD: No, this was all about me -- my shit and my issues.

CD: And you didn't need any help with that?

JD: No, because I think it would have taken away from what I was trying to do.

CD: Walk me through how the album's first single, "Falling Away From Me" came to be launched on South Park.

JD: They approached us. It was a combination between our record company and our management, and they all brainstormed and said that'd be a great idea to have the single premiere on South Park, and we'd be in the opening episode.
I'm a big fan of South Park. I watch it all the time. I love it.

CD: What was the most difficult part of that process?

JD: Not laughing. Oh man, it's so funny. You know what Scooby Doo is? We're Scooby Doo characters, and it's a takeoff of like when the Harlem Globetrotters broke down, and they had to solve this mystery with these Scooby people.
It's crazy. It's so fucking funny. You're going to laugh when you hear our voices. We're all happy and gay like, "Oh golly." All that shit. It's so funny. That was the hardest part man, trying to not laugh.

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