Nobody saw Korn coming back in ‘94 when they exploded onto the scene with their debut album. Up until then, metal was metal, punk was punk, rap was rap, and the borders were set in stone and oh-so-very clear. There simply wasn’t a predefined genre you could slap on Korn. So we had to make one for them—enter “Nu-Metal”.
“We were ultimately just outcasts. Nobody knew what to f***ing do with us in the early days,” said frontman Jonathan Davis to Kerrang!. “We were doing tours with No Doubt, Pennywise, and KMFDM, but the metal community took us in. We had distorted guitars and were heavy, but no-one knew what to do with us.
“We didn’t fit in anywhere. Who’s this guy with a f***in’ tracksuit playing bagpipes? It’s the weirdest f**ing sh*t,” he added, referring to the song “Shoots and Ladders”.
For many years Davis resented the nu-metal title, not willing to be labeled and be put in a box. But it seems that he has since made his peace with this particular label:
“If we invented nu-metal then f**k yeah, cool. It’s pretty cool to say we helped invent some kind of movement, that’s pretty insane. The last big movement was us. Other bands helped along the way, but we spearheaded that whole thing.”
Korn’s new album, titled The Nothing, is scheduled to come out later this month. In the meanwhile, here’s a Jonathan Davis that has outgrown tracksuits, playing some mean pipes:
