When Korn began experimenting with its sound, adding electronic flourishes and even Beatles-esque Mellotron to some of its music, many fans of the nu metal pioneers felt let down.
It seems Korn was left with an unsatisfying taste in its mouth, too.
“You kind of lose focus over the years after having a career as long as we’ve had,” Korn guitarist James “Munky” Shaffer said in a recent phone interview. “You kind of start to experiment with new gear, songwriting techniques, and you start to lose sight of why you do it, which is the love of the music.”
That back-to-basics love of the music seems to be the motivating factor within the Korn camp these days, from the title of its recently recorded and soon-to-be released album “Korn III: Remember Who You Are” to its Ballroom Blitz tour. The tour was set to stop at the Scranton Cultural Center on Wednesday, May 12, but the show's promoter canceled the concert.
“Part of it again is just going back to the roots and play those old venues in the smaller places, to remind ourselves we do this because we love it,” Munky said. “And ya know, we don’t want to forget that, because we were very grateful that a career in the music industry has lasted so long.”
Indeed, in the course of a run that began in 1994, Korn has created, then withstood, various trends and changes in pop culture. When it released a debut album in 1994, aggressive hard rock married with rap and down-tuned guitars seemed novel. Near the end of the ’90s, it sounded passé — thanks in part to a market oversaturated by Korn copycats.
“I remember first hearing other bands that were getting signed, and I remember the sound that we had kind of created with (producer) Ross Robinson — it was so special to us, and it was so close to us. It used to make us really angry,” Munky said, laughing. “It would kind of push us when we played with those bands to kind of step it up. But then after a while it started to become sort of flattering. And then it became old.”
When it came time to record “Korn III,” which is tentatively slated for a summer street date, the band — Munky, vocalist Jonathan Davis, bassist Fieldy and drummer Ray Luzier — decided to work with Robinson, who had not helmed a Korn project since the 1996 sophomore effort “Life Is Peachy.”
Munky and company knew this project wouldn’t be easy due to Robinson’s taskmaster approach. Luzier, who has been Korn’s road drummer for a few years but made his studio debut for the new record, enrolled in Robinson 101 and got a crash course, Munky said.
“Ross, he’s not easy when people are in the room and writing,” said the guitarist. “He’ll make you stop in the middle of a song and say, ‘Stop, you’re wasting my time.’ He’ll pull the drumsticks out of (Luzier’s) hands. He’ll grab my guitar and scream. It’s intense.”
Luzier emerged intact. Now the band has kicked off the Ballroom Blitz, also billed as the Jagermeister Music Tour, which it launched Sunday in South Carolina and hits smaller, general-admission spaces like the Roseland Ballroom in New York City. Munky, calling from the previous tour’s stop in Utica, N.Y., was already anticipating the intimate, old-school vibe the band would bring to smaller venues this spring.
“Last night, we played in Toronto, and it was a club show,” he said of a gig at Sound Academy with opener Five Finger Death Punch. “It was so much fun. You’re soaking wet, it’s this sweaty, hot club, and it’s like, ‘Man, this is great!’”
Munky said Korn’s core lineup will be assisted in Scranton by a second guitarist and keyboardist, both of whom he hired for the tour.
A band at Korn’s level can only keep it low-key for so long. Then it’ll be back to larger venues, like the ones it will perform at during this summer’s Rockstar Energy Drink Mayhem Festival, which it will co-headline with Rob Zombie alongside an eye-popping roster of metal bands like Lamb of God, Hatebreed and Atreyu. w
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