The Tragic History of Korn

[Music] corne the five piece band from bakersfield california rose to fame during the new metal wave of the late 90s and early 2000s having sold more than 35 million albums worldwide Korn is one of the most commercially successful bands of all time as pioneers of the new metal sound the band went on to lead a heart rock revolution that made them into household names around the world while the band catapulted into the highest levels of music industry success the out-of-control world of rock and roll got the better of them it would ultimately lead the group

through a period of darkness that nearly tore them apart in front of the flashing cameras on every red carpet Korn appeared to be a band that had it all but as we would later learn the group was on the verge of falling apart at any moment this is a story of Fame excess addiction and ultimately Redemption this is the tragic history of corn it was the summer of 1993 James monkey Shaffer Reginald fieldy Arvizu and David Silveira had been performing together in a band called LAPD which actually didn't stand for the Los Angeles Police Department

but rather love and peace dude the group had mediocre regional success in the Bakersfield California area but ultimately the band failed to make a mark which led to their eventual breakup with their music careers on the mend the three musicians set out to rebuild oh and rebuild they most certainly did the group soon found their front man in that of Jonathan Davis a quirky nerdy yet talented young singer with the distinctive voice that was not easily forgotten bases filled he knew right where to find him he had known Jonathan for years as their fathers had

performed together in a band and his mother used to babysit the singer they hung out as teenagers on occasion soon after the band added guitarist Brian Head Welch and changed their name to Korn the reverse are in their signature logo was actually a nod to Toys R Us where several of the music worked for a time joining an undiscovered band was actually a risk for the group's new singer Jonathan Davis one could argue his new job as the singer of a heavy rock band was much less intimidating than that of his former job Davis had

been working at a local coroner's office since he was a teenager moving bodies and later decided to attend the San Francisco school of mortuary science to join Korn Davis had to give up his budding career as a mortician which actually paid quite well and gave the singer the ability to afford his own home he later put that house up for sale and took a job at a local pizza shop to make some cash while he worked on what would later become corns debut the group entered the studio to commence work on their debut effort in

the early 90s they worked with a young and unknown producer Ross Robinson who had an aggressive style in the studio that would elicit raw emotion from Davis while he recorded vocals the success of this album would later launch his producing career and lead him to work with bands like limp Biskit Slipknot in the Cure to name a few this was just the beginning of a dark time for the band one that sometimes led to violent outbursts between members who would spend days abusing methamphetamines and alcohol while in-between recording takes the lack of sleep and angst

felt by the members can be heard distinctly on songs like blind and ball tongue the latter was allegedly recorded while the band was especially under the influence of amphetamines Brian Head Welch pulled no punches when asked in a Metal Hammer interview about how long he stayed awake while under the influence of the substance I think it was four or five days we'll go weeks or more but I never could make it like that because I just get tired and paranoid - I thought there were people in my attic looking down my vents and I thought

they were going to ambush me people would come over and they would give me some crank and I just go back to my safe and give them a few hundred dollars from there so they knew that I had money in my safe I was like what am I doing here during work on corns first album with rampant abuse of alcohol and countless other substances in tow Davis was said to become violent here's head talking to Metal Hammer about his interactions with the corn frontman and guitarist James monkey Shafer during that time Jonathan was drinking at

the time and that's when it would happen when he was drinking when he drink Jager he would come on the prowl for us he would be looking for us and we would be hiding in our bunks he punched monkey in the face one time and he's not even a fighter he's a sweet guy but when he was a drunk so when he was drinking he was just a different person then monkey used to charge certain people he never did it to me when he would get blackout drunk I just stay away from him because he

didn't know who he was or what he was doing and he had zero memory the next day the song daddy on their self-titled album is arguably the band's darkest in their entire catalog and one that the band was unable to perform for decades due to its dark and emotional nature the recording process for the song was one that continues to live with everyone who was present to this day on the recorded version you can hear Jonathan Davis breaking down in tears as he recalls his own abuse dealt from the hands of a babysitter this was

the first time any of his bandmates were made aware of the trauma he endured as a child Davis later said in interviews that the song is as much about being abused as it is about trying to tell his own parents and not being believed he told Kerrang in an early interview when I was kid I was being abused by somebody else and I went to my parents and told them about it and they thought I was lying and joking around they never did about it they didn't believe it was happening to their son I don't

really like to talk about that song this is as much as I've ever talked about it producer Ross Robinson said of the experience I remember just telling John you know what to do that's all I said it was one of the most powerful things I've ever experienced and continuing through the song with the sobbing they were so good at jamming the engineer Chuck Johnson was so great not thinking about pressing stop on the tape machine Davis added when I came out of there I was sobbing my whole band was crying and they just all hugged

me and [ __ ] it was a crazy experience we were all a band of brothers corn finished the record in June of 1994 and released their debut self-titled album on October 11th 1994 the album was a significant success and is credited with establishing the new metal wave that would later sweep the music industry for the next several years while the album was generally well received and went gold two years later it was their third album follow the leader that would launch the band to become a household name the recording process for follow-the-leader was similar

in ways to that of their previous two releases mainly there was no shortage of illicit substances lying around and the band now had much more money to fuel the abuse singer Jonathan Davis later told the wringer it was just partying and doing [ __ ] to inspire us he said we weren't thinking oh this needs to be a single there's one thing I love about our band we just wrote the songs and handed it to the label like here you go take it or leave it the process to produce follow-the-leader was one that was a

constant out-of-control freight train of substance abuse that eventually led Jonathan Davis to get sober Korn spent an unbelievable amount of money to keep them stocked with copious amounts of alcohol Davis estimated that the band spent an astronomical sixty thousand dollars on alcohol alone during the recording of follow-the-leader to put it plainly that amounts to more than two thousand bottles of Jack Daniels this does not include the cost for the other substances that the band were using during that time which is also in abundance he said that the band was also frequently joined by members of

Deftones and Limp Bizkit to also partake in the binge drinking that was going on Davis later said it was the pinnacle of rock and roll excess I'm singing on a record in the studio I'm hi uncle and there's some blowing an amazing musician that's in an amazing band I'm not naming names I don't tell corn was successful in a way that's now beyond any frame of reference in the modern music industry the group in competition with pop acts like Backstreet Boys and NSYNC dominated the charts on Total Request Live the ban was voted number one

for so long that MTV had to invent a retirement system to remove the video from airplay it was Britney Spears Backstreet Boys and NSYNC at the time Davis said we were the only rock band on TRL that was doing that [ __ ] I had people showing up to my house trying to jump the fences to get in all kinds of crazy [ __ ] producer Ross Robinson speaks on the band's out of control ways at the time and their relationship which he become frayed by the time they were recording follow-the-leader quote there were girls

in the studio all the time when they were supposedly working and they had people involved with them who were giving them below I wasn't involved with the drug scene or the party scene with those guys I was the straightedge dude the one that they trusted the most but basically their vision got clouded they hired people to party with as soon as that whole scene turned completely into Motley Crue I was out of the picture guitarist James monkey Shafer said it was crazy you're giving a bunch of kids money that are already drunks and drug addicts

probably not the best thing Jonathan Davis was in a whirlwind of addiction that ultimately led to conflicts during the recording process he said I refused to start singing unless Toby gave me an Eightball right away Toby started freaking the [ __ ] out because he knows if I do I only get a couple takes and that shit's gonna kick in and then my vocals are going to suck there was a lot of that I come in and do my vocals and once they were done I'd start drinking I wasn't drunk when I did my vocals

I was under the influence at times but for the majority of it I'd stay sober then I was done and I just get hammered we'd start around 3 or 4 o'clock then at 9:00 or 10:00 at night we'd stop and that's when the parties would start we partied at energy until 4:00 in the morning those poor guys would have to leave the place open and we were just raging Davis reflected saying in the end it was necessary it had to happen for me to realize what a out-of-control Mother I was because it made me become

sober which in turn saved my life and my band because my bandmates were ready to kill me while the band was in the midst of their meteoric rise to success Davis was quietly fighting to become sober on the inaugural run of the Family Values tour he said we were put right into arenas for the Family Values tour I quit drinking so I was detoxing the whole tour I was going insane and had horrible anxiety attacks I can't even put it into words watching everybody slowly go crazy because we lost our freedom we couldn't go anywhere

without bodyguards back in the day we were the type of band where we'd play a club gig and have tapes and demos we brought to hand out to people we'd meet people go to their house and have keg parties and [ __ ] like that we couldn't do that no more we couldn't hang out with our fans we couldn't do [ __ ] I call it being stuck in a box and to this day they keep me in a box a bus a dressing room a hotel room or a I can't be out in public

I can do it now a little more but back when I had two bodyguards one with me 24 hours a day we went kind of crazy during that time period after I got sober and went through a detox after all the [ __ ] were off everything was good but I remember all these emotions from that time period while singer Jonathan Davis was able to put his self-destructive ways behind him other members of the band would subsequently struggle with abuse for a number of years putting themselves in situations that led them down a dark path

that took at least one of them from the top of the world to a point where he had little to no money in his bank account the volatility from within the Korn camp continued during their fourth album cycle for their record issues their fame also continued to skyrocket as members of the band continued to pocket millions of dollars while some members of the band also continued a dangerous dance with addiction issues was released on November 16 1999 the band received their own live special on MTV with TRL host Carson Daly thousands of fans showed up

and camped out in Times Square for hours just to get a glimpse of the band standing up inside of the MTV studios through the pinnacle of their success Korn members were privately struggling with violent outbursts and conflict bassist field E revealed in his autobiography that he would often become violent and admitted during those dark days he should have ended up in jail on numerous occasions but ultimately the multi-million dollar rock star lifestyle he was leading likely kept that away from him but also enabled him to continue his self-destructive ways each member of Korn who struggled

with substance abuse issues went on their own journey to achieve sobriety for Fieldy his sobriety would come after several of his own bandmates had gotten sober including guitarist Brian Head Welch who departed the band to achieve his own sobriety more on that in a moment Fieldy was faced with an immeasurable heartbreaking tragedy that was unfolding before his eyes he was losing his father-in despite being a multi-millionaire and having access to some of the best doctors in the world Fieldy was unable to save him it was through this heartbreaking season in his life filled he began

to reevaluate what was happening around him he spoke about the tragedy that ultimately led to his sobriety in an interview with new release today he said my father's illness was a big mystery the whole time my dad was in the hospital the doctors kept trying to tell us that my father had cancer they sent all kinds of tests away but every single one of them came back negative no cancer I took him to the top specialist in the world they suggested removing a lymph node from his neck to do another test but even those tests

came back without a trace of cancer I just remember my dad saying they keep trying to tell me that I have cancer but I don't have it so we moved him to Cedars Sinai Hospital in Los Angeles which is one of the top hospitals in the world even though I hired the best doctors I could find his health continued to deteriorate until he died following the passing of his father it was an emotional moment shared between Fieldy and his stepmother that prayed with him and encouraged him to receive Christ he said it was pretty chaotic

in the hospital when Mindy first asked me to pray a prayer to accept Christ everybody was screaming and crying I just did it because she asked me to do it even though I prayed a prayer of salvation with her in the hospital I really didn't mean it in my heart but when things chilled out and I actually did the prayer it was the most amazing thing to do with my heart I experienced chills throughout my whole body and I felt something come into me which now I know was the Holy Spirit I think people can

get a little freaked out when they hear somebody has received the Holy Spirit it seems too weird for people to comprehend the only way for them to really understand what I'm talking about is to pray the same prayer I prayed with all their heart and watched their lives miraculously change when I got home from the funeral I drinking alcohol he said when I'm out on the road I have to rethink and reschedule everything I do I started planning my schedule during the day because I've realized there's nothing out there at night there's nothing that comes

out of it except a bunch of people partying the conversations are such a waste of time that I've decided to do positive things during the day now I'll go out and see the city while I'm on tour or I'll get up and work out or make music during the day I've just replaced my old lifestyle by doing all kinds of things that are rewarding going back in February of 2005 another member of corn was ready to put the past behind them but this time it would also reportedly come with objections to the band's musical content

and lead guitarist Brian Head Welch to depart the band Korn shocked bands in February of 2005 announcing their guitarist Brian Head Welch had left the band the statement read Korn has parted ways with guitarist Brian Head Welch who was chosen Jesus Christ as his Savior and will be dedicating his musical pursuits to that end Korn respects Brian's wishes and hopes he finds the happiness he's searching for On February 8th of that year well should apparently written a letter of resignation to the band's management according to the mtv report welch detailed a long list of reasons

for leaving the band including increased moral objections to corns music and videos soon after welch gave a radio interview where he said I can go up there and play those songs and these solos but I distanced myself from corn for probably a year and a half two years I just wanted to fade away it was crazy I was so gone but I found my way out and I want to help anyone that wants to see the light at the end of the tunnel I had to go through the lows to appreciate the highs and it's

not perfect but it's damn near while Welch characterized things as nearly perfect at the time he would soon go on to deal with a painful betrayal that would leave him nearly out of money to the point where he said he had to actually search through his couch to get orders to be able to have money after struggling for years with addiction well she found a new path that left him outside of the band he formed a close bond with a new friend who would later steal an untold sum of money and when investigators later attempted

to charge him with a crime he disappeared off the face of the earth to this day Welch's never been able to locate the man at the suggestion of a friend Welch was told to reach out to a man who owned a few recording studios in Phoenix in Burbank California the man later went on to take hundreds of thousands of dollars from Welch through shady business deals the man allegedly planned exotic business trips around the world that he claimed were to do business deals on behalf of Welch Welch eventually realized these expensive trips were coming out

of the recording budget for his solo album he said in an interview with the phoenix new times at the time he had two Studios one in Burbank and it looked like he had [ __ ] going on it started to dwindle down and each year it dwindled down until it crashed there were plenty of signs for me to see and there's no excuse but my eyes were just shut I'd partied for so long in the past my mind just wasn't back to normal yet the man was served with several lawsuits but after his business was

rated for allegedly hiring illegal immigrants the man completely vanished Walsh said I was an idiot I mean it's pretty clear I was like screw the money I don't care it's not going to rule my life anymore I walked by faith now when I look back it's like whoa why did I do that I can't believe I did that well she was still tied to the business and ultimately had to deal with many of the financial penalties which left him broke reportedly it got so bad that Welch and his daughter had to go through their couches

just to gather spare change he said that was the low point and my biggest fear was possible having to move back home with my parents until I got my royalty situated I just didn't know how far I was going to fall he'd become distant from the band that made him wealthy and while he struggled for years during his time in corn was substance abuse it was after his departure from the band when he really hit financial rock-bottom meanwhile in late 2006 it was reported that drummer David Silvera would be taking an indefinite hiatus from the

band a media frenzy ensued and Jonathan Davis was asked whether or not David would be performing on the band's next album to which he replied probably not Korn singer Jonathan Davis has sensed ruled out the possibility of a reunion with Silverio and in recent years the former korn drummer has made disparaging remarks about members of the band in a post on his Facebook he once said sorry guys Fieldy is acted like a tough guide for so long it's nice to tell the truth not only is he not a tough guy but he's actually a cowardly

little in response Fieldy stated he had no animosity towards his former bandmate and wasn't sure why he had such a beef with him he said I don't have a problem with him even if he has a problem with me I don't really have a problem with him the band later announced the addition of former Steel Panther drummer Rael Uzair who remain with the band to this day for years moving forward corn continued with a frayed lineup and a missing integral piece to their songwriting process guitarist Brian had Welch who as mentioned before had been dealing

with some very serious financial issues related to business partnerships but it was a chance request by his daughter in 2012 to take her to a festival and Rockingham North Carolina to watch her favorite bands where he ran into his former bandmates who hadn't seen him in years the musicians immediately reconnected and invited him up on stage to perform blind with him during their headlines said one thing led to another and Brian Head Welch rejoined the band and although he was back with a group that had previously led to his hard-partying ways Welsh was in a

good place at the time things stayed that way until 2015 when welch began drinking wine with friends which eventually turned into fireball whiskey shots welch said for some reason my addictive personality made me think i'm gonna keep getting wasted and I'll quit next week I'm only going to do it a couple more times even if I didn't like it that much that was pretty dark he went to counseling and made an attempt to quit he said a month later the next thing I know I was at a hotel bar doing shots and drinking beer I

was like and my back is an addict I was scared because I had just gotten counseling but I'm back at the bar every night I'm around people that drink because I'm at a rock concert we have wine and beer backstage with no hard liquor and everyone drinks every night while I'm on the road no one gets sloshed around me except maybe the fans I reach in the years that followed the members of corn would become a prime example of a band who faced addiction and conquered it through strength faith and perseverance the group began firing

on all cylinders once again and their music had noticeably improved after a couple lackluster albums their latest effort the serenity of suffering received mostly positive reviews from critics and the group embarked on a worldwide tour in support of the album that was highly attended in August of 2018 a shock wave went through the hard rock and heavy metal community after news broke that Devon Davis the wife of Korn frontman Jonathan Davis had unexpectedly passed away shortly thereafter in a statement davis revealed that his wife had a very serious mental illness and her addiction was a

side-effect he said I tried to hide what was going on for so long in order to protect her but because of this tragedy that has happened to my family I feel that now is the time to share the truth with all of you she is the reason I have advocated so hard for those struggling with their mental health I want her story to inspire people to reach out for help and not be afraid or hide from their illness Jonathan's bandmates rallied around him as they perform their 20th anniversary Korn shows and during these performances the

strength of the bed with the years of darkness now behind them was self evident each member of the band stood publicly alongside their brother Jonathan Davis as he dealt with his grief publicly in front of the fans Korn is in the process of preparing a new album that's expected to release in 2019 despite this recent tragedy you can bet that this band is stronger than ever sober clear hearted and focused on the one thing that has always brought them together music Jonathan Davis has become a brave advocate for those dealing with mental health problems James

monkey Schaefer is a proud and dedicated family man who regularly posts photos with his children and talks about how much he loves them head and field he still walk a life of faith and they bravely speak out in support of those who are dealing with addiction and while the band is dealt with so much tragedy in their past it's their future that looks more hopeful now than ever before thank you for joining us if you're new here we post breaking hard rock and heavy metal news and videos just like this one do us a favor

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