While the original nü-metal movement that transpired from the mid to late 90s through to the early 00s represented perhaps the last mainstream reign of metal at large, many of the key artists who helped to establish the scene rebelled against being painted with the genre descriptor.
Korn, who arguably pioneered the genre, were among those to stand against their unwitting creation, especially once the scene became saturated with clones and obvious cash in attempts from artists who fell out of favor thanks to nü-metal’s meteoric rise.
Their vocalist Jonathan Davis has previously stated that by 2002 the genre “had become a parody of itself“. He wasn’t alone, as other key artists that helped build up the musical movement also made concerted efforts to breakaway from being painted with the nü-metal brush.
Incubus were among those who reinvented themselves and sought to step outside the genre. In 2019, their vocalist Brandon Boyd looked back at being at lumped in early in their career, telling Kerrang!:
“It felt a little strange to be associated with some of the bands around that time who were very deeply misogynistic in their content and vibrationally kind of violent. It never felt like we were of the same ilk.
So for years it hurt our feelings that we were associated with so many of these bands who we felt we had no relationship with or similarity to.”
However, perhaps no band strayed further from the genre than Deftones. After two successful albums that served as blueprints for countless nü-metal artists that follow, the Sacramento, CA natives changed up their sound with “White Pony” in an intentional bid to escape a scene they felt was nearing its expiry date.
Their vocalist/guitarist Chino Moreno previously spoke of the foresight he and his bandmates had in the early 00s when it came to that genre, stating back in 2017:
“A lot of the press wanted us to—you know obviously they put us in the category [of nü metal.] Our first instinct was just to kind of it push it away ’cause you know to me when they called it nü metal for one, I was like well if it’s nü, you’re putting the word new in it, it’s gonna be old in a couple years.”
Deftones‘ commitment to distancing themselves from the confines of the genre was so absolute that they also ruled out touring with their many peers in the scene. Moreno explained that in the same 2017 conversation mentioned above. He stated of his reaction to being called nü-metal in the early 2000s:
“I used to hate it, you know? I think people were gonna do it anyways. But yeah, I used to… We did a lot you know? And I think we hurt a lot of feelings in the meantime, because we turned down so much stuff with Korn and Limp Bizkit at the time—I don’t think a lot of people knew that.
They’re our friends obviously, we’ve known them for a lot of years. And they’d ask us like ‘Hey, you wanna go on tour?’ and we’d be like ‘Nah…”. And it wasn’t because we thought we were better, but we wanted to… Especially, for instance when our record first came out, “Adrenaline” came out, Korn‘s first record was already out for like a year I think
So, people were calling us like ‘baby Korn‘ when we first came out and I was boggled by that, you know what I mean? And right away that just made me want to separate myself even from them more. It was kind of tough back then. Now I don’t really care, whatever.”
That decision led to a strained relationship with Korn, despite Moreno having previously been close enough with the group to guest on their 1996 album “Life Is Peachy“. It wasn’t all sour grapes though.
In 2020, Limp Bizkit guitarist Wes Borland admitted that Deftones “made the right move” in turning their back on nü-metal, allowing them to maintain their “longevity” once nü-metal entirely fell off.
While Linkin Park, Evanescence and Kid Rock perhaps became the most commercially successful artists to spawn from that scene, each notching up diamond-certifications in the United States for their respective albums at the time, System Of A Down were among the artists also experiencing breakout success.
Serj Tankian, vocalist for the aforementioned multi-platinum Armenian-American oddballs, recently stated that he felt that his band existed somewhat outside of that genre, telling Revolver as much several weeks ago.
Now his bandmate in that outfit, bassist Shavo Odadjian, has weighed in on his thoughts of the genre, which has experienced a resurgence in recent years. Speaking with Metal Hammer, Odadjian revealed that he too was initially resistant to being labeled nü-metal. He stated of that:
“I never liked being compared to anyone. When they put us in a group, I would always be like, ‘We’re not nu metal, we’re our own thing!’ Now I’m older and wiser.”
As for how he views his peers in that genre now:
“Those are my bros, man. I made great friends in that community. Touring with these guys and hanging out with them every night, it created some special bonds and I’m proud of that. We’re still in that group and that era.”
He continued:
“You can’t compare System or Korn to Static-X. It was an era of doing metal a different way. It was bringing in other elements to metal as a whole and not giving a fuck. That’s what the kids of today are attracted to and bonding with in that genre.”
Odadjian went on to posit that the nü-metal was more of an “attitude”, offering:
“Our era was like that in a different way: we didn’t care we were mixing Arabic and Armenian elements with death metal, Korn didn’t care that they were mixing in hip-hop, Deftones didn’t care they sang like Sade! Static-X added disco… There was such a cool melting pot. You can’t deny that it was cool and special, right?”
