As a pioneering act who took the nü-metal genre mainstream, Korn have grappled with their place in the genre in the past. The band’s frontman Jonathan Davis has previously lamented that at its peak, the genre attracted: “misogynistic, opportunistic dickhead jocks. The sort of people who’d be bullying me at school if they weren’t supporting my band at shows.”
His views on being lumped in with the genre have softened over the years however and he’s learned to embrace it. So has the group’s guitarist Brian “Head” Welch, who was recently asked by Metal Hammer how he feels about being seen as a leader of that genre. He replied:
“We’re proud to be seen as scene elders. It’s funny, every band that would be associated with nu metal never liked that title, because we never gave that tag to ourselves, it was whoever made it up, you know? When you’re in a band, you want to call the shots, you want to be In charge of your branding, and it was someone else who branded us that. And so we were like, No, that’s not cool. So we didn’t like it.
But nu metal, love it or hate it, and Korn, has stood the test of time. And we’re very grateful that we can be looked at as the originators, and that we started something that still reverberates all these decades later, and people are still liking it.
And, you know, the nu metal era was a fun time. “I’ll tell you what, you know, these type of shows, there were no boring shows. People can say all they want about nu metal, or whatever, but you come to a Korn show, you’re going to see energy, you’re going to see a party, and it’s going to be a fun time. Even as we’re getting older, it’s still just a rush, every show. We love our fans, we love the energy, and we’re grateful for what we created.”
Korn are preparing to release their fourteenth studio album “Requiem” on February 04th and recently premiered a new single from it, “Forgotten“.
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