Interview with Korn from Guitar One Magazine

How did it feel to get back out on the road after taking more than a year off from playing live?

Munky: It was a lot of fun.  It felt good to get back up there in front of great, big audiences, right out of the gate.   It was pretty amazing.  It was a great feeling.

Head: It was what we were waiting for for a year.  It was good.  It took about three shows or so just to get back the tightness and the feel with everyone its different than being in a rehearsal space but we fell right back into the groove.

What was it like doing a festival style tour with a bunch of friends, as opposed to playing alongside a bunch of artists that might not get or respect you?

Head: It's the way to do it.  It was the funnest tour ever, as far as the show and everybody hanging out.

Munky:  Thats one of the reasons why we created the tour for ourselves: so that it was like a family.  It made it much easier and less stressful.  The only band we didn't know was Rammstein.  But by the end of the tour, we were all friends with those guys and hangin out and partying with them every night too.  They're pretty wild.  They're good guys though.

What was an average day like with all those guys Ice Cube, Limp Bizkit, Rammstein, Orgy together on the road?

Munky: Complete chaos, man [laughs], see everybody, clean up, eat dinner together in catering like a family.  Then the show would start, and we'd start drinking'.

Any horror stories?

Munky: Nothing too out of the ordinary.   I cant think of anything.  Head might remember something.  There, and our security was hanging out the door we opened the door on the freeway.  It was pretty crazy.  And then the car just disappeared, and then all of a sudden BOOM they were back in front of us and slammed on their brakes again.  The bus is all swerving around, then they just jetted off the off ramp and they were gone.  It was pretty trippy.  That was in Washington, D.C.

Values tour again next summer?

Munky: I don't know, but we wanna keep the festival going.  We wanna keep it an indoor arena style tour that's just continuous slams from beginning to end.  And we wanna make it an annual thing, but I don't know if we will be on it year.  Possibly, but maybe not.

Head:  Only time will tell.

What can fans expect from the Family Values live album?

Munky:  Well, just have them remember that it is live and we're human, so we do make mistakes [laughs] ! It's a live record!   Nah, its gonna be good.  It'll kinda give people that went and saw it something to remember the concert by.

Head: It's still in the works right now, actually.  We're listening to some different stuff and picking out the best shows and the best songs.

The Family Values tour was opened by Orgy the first band to be signed by your own label, Elementree Records.  How did the opportunity to have your own label come about?

Head: Actually it was our manager Jeff Kwatinetz's idea.  He just had an idea and went after it.

Munky: The next thing we know, six months later, he comes back and says, I got you guys your own record label.  We're all, Cool.

Head: Jeff Kwatinetz is a madman.  He wants something, he gets it [laughs].

Munky: Now, really all we do is kind of look for bands.

I remember hearing that you guys were sort of credited with discovering Limp Bizkit and Deftones before record companies even knew about them.

Munky: Right.  That's what led to the idea.  We said, Well, why don't we start our own record label so that we can do that with other bands as well?

Since the release of your first album in 1994, several bands have blatantly borrowed elements of your sound down to recording at the same studio, using much of the same gear Indigo Ranch Studios owner Richard Kaplan  created specificaly for Korn, and using the same producer, Ross Robinson. Was that frustrating at all?

Munky:  Yeah. I'm not gonna lie; it was. But at the same time, it was flattering.

Head:  I didn't really get threatened by it or anything because I'm totally happy with what we do and I have confidence in it you can't really take another band's sound and make it better, steal it, and say it's yours, y'know?  I think we got our own thing going, even if certain sounds on guitars are used.  We just try to step up and do our thing.

Munky: As we make each new record, we're trying to outdo ourselves.  There was the first record, and then we tried to outdo it; the second record, and then we tried to outdo it.  Next we'll try and outdo Follow the Leader with our new record, or whatever it may be.  As long as we can stay ahead of the game, I think we'll be fine.

Was it a surprise that Follow the Leader went platinum so quickly?

Head: Yeah Big time.  I still trip out when I think about it.  That's our fans, man.  It's all about our fans.   They're calling up MTV and stuff, getting our video played for over 40 days or something it's been #3.  And on Dial MTV, every day during the week it goes Korn, Backstreet Boys, and then 'N Sync or something [laughs].  Every single day, that's the number and that's just 'cause our fans call up and wanna see that video.  They're probably sick of it now, but they're trying to get us to #1 or something.

Munky: We knew it was gonna be a great selling record because we knew before it was released that we had a good record on our hands.

Can you talk a bit about some of the unique approaches you guys took in promoting Follow the Leader, like the Korn Kampaign or Korn TV?

Head: We wanted to do the Korn TV thing because our kind of music isn't very mainstream.  We wanted to tell our fans to go to the Internet where whoever wanted to could come and watch how we make a record and stuff like that, uncensored.  That's Jeff Kwatinetz again.  He has tricks up his sleeve all the time.  It's us too; we think of stuff.  It's a good combination.

Most artists feel a lot of pressure to repeat the success of their previous album, yet very few actually do.  Each of your albums demonstrate giant leaps forward they're improved sonically, more intense, more diverse, and sell better than the previous one.  How do you do it?

Munky: Man, I don't know.  I'm amazed at how we've done it [laughs].  I think we just get really inspired by each other, and we help each other push ourselves, musically.  If I'm having a problem coming up with something a sound or a riff or whatever Head's right there to help me right along with it.  And we're all there for each other.  I think it has a lot to do with our friendship as well.  I think that's how we've done it.

Head: We just experiment every time.   Every new record, we experiment with sounds.  This one took a long time we took like ten months to write and record Follow the Leader.  And we wanted to step up.  After jamming in the studio all day, Munky and I would go to Guitar Center for a couple of hours and try all these different new pedals, trying to search for new sounds.   Even Fieldy would go with us.  He's using pedals now like bass synth pedals to make fuzzy, keyboardy sounds.  And Jonathon experimented with new melodies, some more melodic stuff.  We're just taking more time and feeling out every angle.

On the subject of sounds, can you guys talk a bit about how you created some of the whacked out and lo-fi guitar tones on the CD Follow the Leader?

Munky: We wanted our tones to be really crappy and unique at the same time.  For the heavy rhythm tones, we wanted them to be just nasty, in your face and raw sounding.  We were kinda influenced by the whole hip-hop thing, so we wanted all of the tones on the verses and stuff to sound very hip-hopish.

Head: For some songs, we wanted crusty, AM radio-sounding, out of key, dizzy sounding guitars, and that's what we got.  We tried different amps in the studio for the beef tone, like the Mesa/Boogie Triple Rectifier.   We also had a Marshall, a Rivera in there, and a Bogner.  We had 'em all hooked up.  We would just keep going for the tones that sounded right in the track, until we found 'em.  We had our producer/engineer Toby Wright in there, and he's really good at that.  And Caco, our  guitar tech, helped us get a lot of sounds on this record.  Everybody did whoever else ws there at the time, like Fieldy and Jonathon.  And same with the effects some of the stuff we'd have to mess around with for hours to get the right sound, as far as pedals and amps.  Sometimes we'd use a little tiny Gorilla amp with just a volume and a tone knob with those tiny, tiny speakers.   We  used this amp that's made out of a Marlboro cigarette pack with at tiny speaker on it:  We would just experiment.  Sometimes it took a long time, though.  Filling specific roles: like one guy plays melody, while the other plays chords?

Munky: We pretty much share that.   Actually, on the new record, Head did a lot more of the melodies, and I did kinda hang back and do a lot of the rhythm stuff and kept grooves with our drummer, David.  

Head: We're always doing different stuff especially in our verses.  We do guitar melodies underneath the music that you can feel but don't really hear that make you get in a particular mood.  We work it in with Jonathon's melody to where it goes with it and brings out the emotion of what he's singing.  It's not the same as his melody, but it goes with it.  We feed off of his melody, basically.

Munky: If the vocals are airy and laidback, then it's okay to go off and do our own trip.  Other times, especially in some of the middle parts, Head and I will go off and do our own thing.  Then, when it's time to be aggressive, we'll pull together and both play the same riff.  It just builds.

Can you describe the creative process that goes on when you're composing riffs?

Munky: It's hard to explain because we just kinda stumble upon things. Some of them start out by building upon one note or maybe an octave shape.  But most of the cool riffs that we come up with come by accident, or we work 'em out together.  We're so non-technical we just go up there and really don't think about it.  We just kinda come up with our ideas.

Head: We go out with our ears.

Munky: Our whole thing has always been: just play from your heart, and then let your brain tell your hands what to do.  We've always just played by whatever feels good, not by technique.

Is there an easy way to tell which guitar is played by Munky and which is played by Head when listening to Follow the Leader?

Head: Yeah. I'm panned to the left, and Munky's on the right, I think.  Or it's the other way around.  I don't remember I haven't listened to the CD in so long [laughs]

Munky: We recorded Follow the Leader with the speakers facing us, so you could hear each band member panned to the same spots as if you were looking at the band onstage.  Live, I'm on the right side.  So I think when you put a pair of headphones on, I'd be on the right, and Head would be on the left.   And then most of the overdubs are kinda floating around.

By the way, before we go, is there anything specific that led to your nicknames?

Munky: Fieldy gave me that name Munky a long time ago because I used to walk aroud our apartment barefoot and he always said I had monkey feet [laughs].  And Head, well he just has a large cranium [laughs].