Today I’m giving you some interesting facts about American Nu-Metal / Hard Rock / Alternative band Korn. I remember being introduced to Korn by my brother and friends of mine that I used to stay with in a youth hostel in the dodgy Pretoria suburb of Sunnyside (in Pretoria) back in the late 1990s.
Korn‘s music started growing on me when I started listening to their 1997 album Follow the Leader and their 1999 album Issues. Songs like “Freak On A Leash”, “Falling Away From Me”, “Got The Life” and “Make Me Bad” crawled into my head without any resistance at all. At one time they were probably one of the loudest bands that I’ve listened to, but have gone a bit “soft” in lately.
Here are 23 Facts You Might Not Know About Korn
1. Korn were formed in 1993 in Bakersfield, California in the United States.
2. The current band members are Jonathan Davis, James “Munky” Shaffer, Reginald “Fieldy” Arvizu, Ray Luzier and Brian Welch.
3. David Silveria is the only person that used to be a member of the band.
4. To date Korn have sold more than 40 million records worldwide.
5. The band have released a total of 14 studio albums to date. Their most recent album release was 2022’s Requiem.
6. When thinking of a band name, someone suggested “corn”, but the band rejected that name, so Shaffer had the idea to spell the name with both a “K” instead of a “C”, and a backwards “R”, so the band’s name would appear as “KoЯn”. The idea of using a backwards “R” came from the logo of toy retailer Toys R Us, for which many of the band members had previously worked. The logo was designed by vocalist Jonathan Davis.
7. Korn have been nominated for 8 Grammy Awards and have won 2 awards (for their songs “Freak on a Leash” and “Here To Stay”. They also won 2 MTV Video Music Awards and 2 Kerrang! Awards over the years.
8. According to Fieldy, the band’s 2002 Album Untouchables cost $40 million to produce. Most of the money was supposedly spent on accommodation, not on recording the album.
9. The Ferrari in Korn‘s music video for “Got The Life” was fake. The car had no engine in it.
10. According to Munky Korn spent over $27,000 on alcohol whilst recording the Follow The Leader album.
11. The Band Sued A School After A Student Wearing A Korn Shirt Was Suspended. In 1998, 18-year-old Zeeland High School student Eric VanHoven was suspended for wearing a Korn shirt to the Michigan school.
The school’s assistant principal, Gretchen Plewes, declared the shirt was “indecent, vulgar, obscene, and intends to be insulting” to a local newspaper, and said wearing a Korn shirt “is no different than a person wearing a middle finger on their shirt.”
In response, Korn sued, filing a cease-and-desist order against Plewes and her school district, claiming she made defamatory comments about the band and infringed on their civil liberties. They also spoke publicly, defending the student and his attire. Van Hoven’s fellow students planned a walkout in support. Apparently, there wasn’t much going on in Michigan in 1998.
12. Jonathan Davis Went To Mortician School. This was obviously before he starting making a living with Korn. When he was 16, he began working at a local coroner’s office, helping out with cadavers. After graduating high school, he attended the San Francisco School of Mortuary Science, and continued working with human remains until joining the band.
13. Jonathan Davis Explained To Alex Jones How Barack Obama And The Illuminati Used Miley Cyrus To Distract America. While speaking with blowhard conspiracy theorist Alex Jones of InfoWars infamy, Davis waxed philosophical on what he sees as an obvious Illuminati conspiracy, spearheaded by Barack Obama, to distract the American public from an emergent police state within the US by flaunting Miley Cyrus before their eyes.
14. The band tricked producer Ross Robinson into driving them to buy meth so they could record “Ball Tongue” high. They tricked him into a doing a drug run, and when he found out that they had done so, he was pissed off.
15. Jonathan Davis invested In a serial killer museum to house his memorabilia, which Included Ted Bundy’s car. When he became a dad, he didn’t want his children to be exposed to the collection, so he decided to get rid of the memorabilia.
16. The band was originally formed by three of the members of the band L.A.P.D.
17. While Korn were recording at Underground Chicken Sound studios, a crowd had been loitering outside the studio. The band began playing a prelude to a later song, “Clown”, resulting in a larger crowd gathering.
18. Two of the band’s members have become born again Christians. Both Fieldy and Head cite their faith for helping them to get sober.
19. Jonathan Davis has a EDM alter-ego called JDevil. Davis definitely brings the same feral energy to his dubstep dabbling as he does to his day job.
20. Korn was the first band to have an interactive Internet radio broadcast. This happened in the early days of the internet, in 1996.
21. The lyrics of Korn‘s “Falling Away from Me” reflect themes of inner turmoil, anger, and personal struggles. It seems to explore feelings of frustration and helplessness, possibly stemming from a troubled relationship or personal issues. The chorus features the memorable lines: “Something takes a part of me / You and I were meant to be / A cheap fuck for me to lay / Something takes a part of me.”
22. The lyrics of “Make Me Bad” explore themes of inner conflict, self-doubt, and the struggle to maintain one’s identity. The song’s title and chorus suggest a sense of being corrupted or influenced by external forces, as Davis sings, “You make me bad / You make me bad / You make me bad / You make me bad.”
23. The lyrics of “Freak on a Leash” deal with themes of frustration, alienation, and inner turmoil. The song’s chorus includes the lines, “It’s no fun when the rabbit has a gun,” which reflects a sense of unpredictability and danger. Jonathan Davis’s emotional vocals and cathartic screams add to the intensity of the song.
There you have it, 23 facts about Korn. If you have something that you could add to this post, please comment. Feedback is appreciated and welcome.
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