There hasn’t been too much word out there yet on the upcoming fifteenth studio album from nü-metal pioneers Korn. Ahead of their headlining appearance at this past weekend’s ‘Download Festival‘, the band’s guitarists James “Munky” Shaffer and Brian “Head” Welch checked in with BBC Radio 1‘s ‘Rock Show With Daniel P Carter‘ to shed some light on what they’ve been cooking up, among other things. That interview can be found at BBC.co.uk at around 1:36:00 in.
Speaking first on revamping the band’s business to persevere, Welch shared [transcribed by theprp.com]:
“We didn’t give a rip about business before. We didn’t know what we were getting paid. We would collect checks, and we would get paid, so we were buying houses and that’s good. But we found out there’s a lot being taken from us because we just weren’t looking. We didn’t know, we didn’t care. Give me my alcohol, give me the girls, give me the drugs — all that stuff. And so, this second chance, me and him [Munky] are like obsessed with the business and the stage and the everything.”
Shaffer went on to share:
“Him and I kind of use it as a creative outlet too, because we still gotta be creative; let’s get creative on how we can save money. Let’s get creative with how we can design the stage, or with the merch, or whatever it is. Like, which designs are doing well? Ya know?”
As for Korn‘s follow-up to 2022’s “Requiem“, when asked if they were writing at the moment, Welch responded that they were “taking their sweet ass time with it.” Shaffer added, “Yeah, we’re doing it all on tape. Like, we’re all in the room, sweating it out, [the] tape is rolling. The guy gives us the thumbs up in the window and we start playing and all of us are locked in. And if we don’t get it right, we rewind the tape and we do it again. It takes more commitment. It’s like this is how we used to make records. So there’s an energy to it that we, I think, we like.”
At the moment, the band have a few windows of downtime from the road available this year to potentially continue working on that new opus. Their live schedule runs as follows:
06/19 Clisson, FRA – Hellfest Open Air
06/21 Dessel, BEL – Graspop Metal Meeting
06/24 Nimes, FRA – Arena Of Nimes
06/26 Viveiro, SPA – Resurrection Fest
06/28 Lisboa, POR – Evil Live Festival
08/01 Chicago, IL – Lollapalooza
08/27 New Jersey, NJ – Metlife Stadium (feat. System Of A Down, Polyphia & Wisp)
08/28 New Jersey, NJ – Metlife Stadium (feat. System Of A Down, Polyphia & Wisp)
With Gojira & Loathe:
09/17 Ottawa, ON – Canadian Tire Centre
09/19 Quebec City, QC – Videotron Centre
09/20 Montreal, QC – Bell Centre
09/22 London, ON – Canada Life Place
09/25 Winnipeg, MB – Canada Life Centre
09/28 Calgary, AB – Scotiabank Saddledome
09/29 Edmonton, AB – Rogers Place
10/01 Vancouver, BC – Rogers Arena
Korn:
10/04 Sacramento, CA – Aftershock Festival
