Natural Born Killers

  Jonathan Davis is frantically scratching his right arm. His tattoos are six months old, so it's something of a mystery why they've started itching now.

"This is God's revenge," says the singer of KoRn, only half-kidding. And just what would God have to be vengeful about? Try this: tattoos depicting a broken sacred heart, a bible on fire, Jesus beating a priest with a cross, and a priest giving a nun a forced abortion with a coat hanger. Current plans call for one more piece of art, on Davis' back, this one illustrating a bullet-ridden Jesus.

"It's all pretty self-explanatory," says Davis. "I'm just not into organized religion. Catholics, Christians, Muslims, Jews—they can all go to fucking hell. They're ridiculous. Everybody needs something they can put their faith in, but I can't believe people are so naive not to see that every war and every conflict we've ever had on this planet is because of religion. People are stupid."

At first, Davis' rant comes across like those of so many dark-hearted metalheads—obligatory God-bashing peppered with teenage angst. But even taking into account society's rather lenient standards for rock star behavior, adorning one's body with violently sacrilegious art is a surefire way to enter the Pariah of the Month Club. In Davis' case they'll probably make him the president. (And if the tats don't do it, Davis' collection of serial killer memorabilia—a museum's worth of original letters, art work, and artifacts—or Luther, the six-month-old aborted fetus that the singer keeps in a jar, will definitely do the trick.)

But Davis has been blessed with the rare talent of turning such anger into popular art. He really is pissed off, and he's just deranged enough to sing about it without thinking to censor himself. On KoRn's earlier albums, his unbottled rage would sometimes transcend language altogether, emerging instead in a series of visceral grunts and squawks that one might expect to hear in a burning monkey house, not at a rock show. That rage helped 1998's Follow The Leader sell more than three and a half million copies. Even 2002's less-than-chart-igniting Untouchables sold almost a million and a half copies. Take a Look in the Mirror (Epic), the latest release from KoRn—Davis, drummer David Silveria, bassist Reginald "Fieldy" Arvizu, and guitarists Brian "Head" Welch and James "Munky" Shaffer—and perhaps the fiercest and most malevolent set of the band's career, stands as testimony to the power of this unflinchingly honest anger.

At the heart of the album is a series of songs Davis wrote on a recent cross-country bus trip. The singer penned the venomous lyrics and vicious melodies while immersing himself into what he describes as "some Ted Nugent shit," wherein he took part in his first animal hunt. During a stopover in South Florida, Davis—who owns a large personal arsenal and has engaged in precision shooting and sniper training—bagged a 250-pound boar hog. "Blasting shit is an excellent way of letting off steam," says Davis, who gutted the hog himself and kept its head as a souvenir for his Los Angeles office. "What I'd really like to kill next is a Russian boar. They look like hounds of hell, with red eyes and big ol' tusks that will split you the fuck open."

And the rest of his hit list?

"Hmmm... hunting humans would be fun. Wouldn't it?"

Didn't expect a new KoRn album so soon? Neither did the band. Untouchables was easily 2002's most anticipated rock release. Despite production costs reportedly in the $4 million range and the band's year-long break from the road, the record's radio-friendly melodies had critics and pundits predicting huge sales. In a career studded with multi-Platinum albums, Untouchables was supposed to be the blockbuster, replicating the kind of huge commercial leap Metallica took with their self-titled "Black Album."

Instead, the album was KoRn's least successful.

Davis and the rest of KoRn will acknowledge the album's lackluster sales. But to call it a flop is, in the eyes of most of the band members, going a step too far.

"I don't think it's a fucking flop at all," Davis says of the album, pointing out that it sold more than two million copies worldwide. "Why would it be a flop? People may have set too high of expectations for it, but I love that album."

Only Head doesn't seem surprised that KoRn fans didn't take to the record, which contained uncharacteristically anthemic choruses, big backing vocals, and keyboard flourishes. "A lot of it was too slick for me," he says. "As a KoRn fan, I know what I wanted to hear, and this wasn't it."

"Around here," he continues, "nobody says, 'Untouchables bombed.' It was just an unspoken thing. We'd get in conversations like, 'Dude! It just debuted at No. 1 in Austria.' Yeah, but it sold, like, two copies the next week, and we live in America anyway."

Although disappointing sales would seem like a good reason to start recording a new album right away, Davis says the real catalyst was that the bulk of Untouchables didn't translate live. "There's nothing wrong with the songs themselves, but since they were more melodic and less intense, we wound up feeling like asses up there playing them," he says.

"For us, they were outright boring to stand up there and play," Munky clarifies. "And it showed."

In fact, by the time KoRn hit Ozzfest last summer, there was just one Untouchables song a night in their set list. By then, they had already completed 10 tracks for Take a Look in the Mirror—songs the band says were constructed with the live show in mind.

"It's very intense and heavy," says Fieldy of the new record. "It's back to the banging riffs instead of big open choruses. It's like what KoRn and Life Is Peachy might sound like if we recorded them today."

Take a Look in the Mirror's unabashed heaviness suggests KoRn have lost none of their edge, as evidenced by the meatiness and big bounce of the set's first single, "Right Now." Davis says he's most proud of the fact that the album sounds as big as Untouchables, despite the fact that KoRn worked without a huge budget and produced the record themselves. "We knew it was time for us to make the album we always wanted to make, which meant we wanted to produce it," says Davis. "We've worked with five different producers on five albums, so we know by now what we like and how to get it."

Even so, the band members admit they took a risk by recording it in Davis' California home studio without the benefit of a producer to keep them on schedule. "We're fuck-ups," says Silveria. "We're the kind of guys who could very easily say, 'Fuck this. Let's go to the strip club.' The label was worried. Management was worried. But I think the fear of knowing how easily we could have fucked up kept us there and kept us on schedule."

Not only did KoRn stay on schedule, they turned around Take a Look in the Mirror faster than any record to date. Munky believes the pacing was a direct result of Davis taking charge. "The goal is always to find something all five of us can agree on," he says. "And we want to find things musically that Jonathan can feed off of lyrically and really feel. And I think that happened more often this time because he had first say—he was there to pick and choose the best music to take with him on his bus trip."

But while Davis doesn't deny he took lead as the band's de facto producer, he says he was careful not to overstep his bounds. "Head and Munky are geniuses," Davis says. "But they need direction. They really doubt themselves, which is funny. They need someone steering them in the right direction. And we all know our roles."

"My role is not so much bandleader," he continues. "It's more about cheerleading—getting everyone in one place and into it. And we've been around so long that if I was gonna pull the lead singer power trip shit, it would have been a long time ago. Guns N' Roses are a perfect example of that shit. Fuck that. In the time we've done three records, Axl's not even finished one."

Jonathan Davis is prowling the aisles of Time Square's mammoth Virgin Megastore like a man on a mission. We're here to pick up a copy of Audition, a Japanese cult thriller infamous for a graphic torture scene featuring needles and a bone saw. But since that title's out of stock, we leave instead with a copy of Zero Tolerance: Ass Cleavage—a DVD promising "over two hours packed with six scenes for the ass connoisseur."

"I'm a connoisseur," Davis concedes. "I'm into porn because it's such a dark and seedy industry. It's the darkest darkness I've ever delved into. The crazy shit those girls do at the conventions—bitches selling pussy—is the kind of shit that fuels me. I'm like a fucking vampire. I've been on sets watching girls do movies for the first time. A guy will be fucking the shit out of some girl and she's yelling, "Stop! Take it out!" and crying because she can't believe she's doing it. That's the kind of darkness I love. I know its bad, and I don't understand why, but it makes me write great shit. I feel bad for those girls, but it's the path they chose. All the fucking porn stars have a story. And it's always not good."

Davis' own back story is equally not good, beginning with an upbringing the singer claims was marked by loneliness, torment, and abuse. Through KoRn, Davis has turned his pain into art—and lyrical gold. And yet in Revolver's August issue, Deftones frontman Chino Moreno called Davis out for relying too heavily on what he characterized as "bad childhoods and mean moms."

"In my mind, people that say I write the same shit over and over aren't really listening," responds Davis. "KoRn fans know that. I dealt with that shit on the first three records. But while it was time to move on to what's happening in my life right now, I don't see the shame in the childhood stuff. I started that shit. And how many bands use that now? Not many that have gotten to the point we're at. I'm proud of it."

In fact, the most obvious weakness in Davis' game is not that he dwells on the past but that he is decidedly even more twisted than his songs reveal. On Take a Look in the Mirror, there's little to suggest Davis' deep fascination with death and torture. "I'm the real deal," says Davis, who, before turning to music, was a mortician. "I grew up cutting bodies. I've gutted over 3,000 people. I've gutted everything from infants to the elderly. It doesn't get any harder than that."

Davis says he's begun to look farther and farther beyond music for inspiration. On our Virgin Megastore outing, he bypassed the music section altogether, and he says he hasn't listened to anything other than Cannibal Corpse and old Metallica in months. Instead, he's thrown himself into collecting weaponry. Which raises the question: Just how healthy is it for someone so blatantly fixated with death to be stockpiling an arsenal and studying sniper skills?

"I've always loved guns, but I also know the full potential and power of a gun," says Davis. "I'd never hurt anyone except if somebody tried to hurt me or my family. Then I wouldn't hesitate to fuck somebody up. I carry a gun everywhere I go. And I've been in fucked-up situations where I've gotten my ass beaten and I haven't pulled my gun. It's only if I got a fucking gun pointed at me or I'm gonna die. It's all about discipline—and that's what I respect.

"Rock and roll is all about rebellion, but I'm not stupid about it," he continues. "I'm not getting arrested, yet I have my own way of rebelling against society. I've already lived the whole traditional rock and roll lifestyle—drinking and fucking ungodly amounts of women. I'm six years sober. They said it couldn't be done; they thought it wouldn't last a week. I've been there, done it, and I'm over it."

What's most respectable about KoRn these days is how quickly they seem to have regrouped and rebounded from Untouchables. All five men say they went into Take a Look in the Mirror on the same page musically. And therein lies the genius of KoRn; As different as they are individually, they continue to return to the studio with a similar musical vision.

"We've always wanted to be in our favorite band, and that's the bond." Munky says. "Last time we all decided to try for a more melodic record. And because we accomplished it, this time we said, ‘Let's pull away and do something more rock.' We see and we hear together—we can just feel it. And it's not about whether Untouchables sold or didn't. There's never been a manager stepping in and telling us what direction we need to take. We just knew in our hearts that we needed to pull back and remember what this band started out with."

But will KoRn's re-embracing their roots help their new record sell? Fans of the original KoRn albums are a full decade older, and it remains to be seen how many have been waiting for a return to form. Younger fans, meanwhile, have been busy buying records by the nu-metal acts that KoRn helped spawn, and they may not be excited by an album that sounds like everything they already own.

For KoRn, however, this doesn't matter. The band has always been known more as a musical pioneer than a big seller; its most successful album, Follow The Leader, sold five million copies—much less than similarly influential albums such as Metallica's "Black Album" or Limp Bizkit's Significant Other. And besides, says Davis, KoRn live blissfully in a bubble, uninterested in the bands that might be their competition.

"I've been in the business long enough to see how shit comes in waves, how something sells and then is copied and diluted," Davis says. "We've been around so long and have so many loyal fans, we don't have to worry about that. It's not about changing with the times. And it's not about worrying about the label or the business that's been built around your band. That's how people crumble and fail."

To that end, Davis says not to expect to see KoRn all over late-night TV shows and video countdowns, promoting their new record like a band desperate for a comeback.

"KoRn are for KoRn fans," Davis says. "We're not trying to be U2. We're in a fucking band. And being on a red carpet isn't about being a rock band—it's about starfucking. People who run to Hollywood parties aren't rock stars—they're pop stars."

"The way to stay successful is to stay focused on what you do well, instead of trying to make things happen and trying to play the game," he continues. "I know this one is gonna come out and kill. KoRn fans will love it. And I don't care what it fucking sells—period. I know it's good. We love it. And we're gonna do another one after that, and another one. If the one that sells 10 million comes, fine. And if it doesn't, fine. I'm happy doing what I'm doing. Fuck—we've sold 25 million records. I don't have anything to bitch about."

Close Window