Korn have stockpiled an arsenal of new material for their eventual fifteenth studio album it would seem. In a recently published video interview with Rolling Stone Brasil that was conducted last month, the band’s guitarist James “Munky” Shaffer confirmed that nearly 40 songs have been written over the past few years, though not all of them have made the cut.
One such new track, “Reward The Scars“, recently saw a release in conjunction with the arrival of a new DLC for the ‘Diablo IV‘ video game, which frontman Jonathan Davis himself is a fan of.
In this aforementioned new video interview, it was pointed out that Korn frontman Jonathan Davis had recently informed the interviewer that the nü-metal pioneers have been working on even more new songs, to which Munky responded [transcribed by theprp.com]:
“It’s taking a f*cking long time. We’ve gone through… I swear to God, we’ve written probably almost 40 songs, and gone through ’em, and rewrote ’em, and got rid of ’em, and tore ’em apart, and rebuilt ’em. And it’s been quite a long process, because we’re very critical about what we do now. We’re very particular, in… because we wanna keep our original sound. You can’t really get away from that — when we start playing, it sounds like Korn, especially with all five of us.
And Ra [Diaz, Korn bassist] has actually been such a, such a great addition to bringing a lot of energy in the rhythm section. And Ray [Luzier, Korn drummer] and him play really well together. And it’s fun to watch those guys work out parts, because they do some stuff that I wouldn’t think of.
That’s been a big part of this writing process, is those two working together. Because they’ve never worked together on a record. Obviously, they’ve, you know, worked together on the older songs and stuff. But I think that working on the older songs, those two, learning the rhythm parts, has really given some insight to what is on the back catalog. And they’ve brought a similar vibe into the newer stuff that we’ve written, and that is exciting.
But, yeah, we’re trying to… As an artist — and any artist — you don’t wanna paint the same picture over and over again. You wanna add some flavor, add some color, add something new so it feels fresh, so the listeners still get a classic sound, but with fresh takes on things. So, it still sounds like Korn, for sure. There’s not… there’s no heavy electronics, you’re not gonna get anything too far out of left field. It’s still in the… very guitar driven and bass heavy.”
Addressing the lengthy gap for this follow-up to the band’s 2022 album “Requiem“, Munky explained:
“I think it’s just been a lot of touring, and us taking our time, to release something that…We didn’t want to release something mediocre. That’s why I think we keep on writing and rewriting, because honestly, it’s like we want to release new music. We could just keep touring, you know, on our old records, but we we like to keep something fresh, you know?
I think we took a page out of out of the book of Metallica on that. You can always play some new music and write something and record and it’s fun. We love the process of writing and recording as just as much as we do touring.”
As for this being the first Korn album to not feature contributions from estranged bassist Reginald “Fieldy” Arvizu, Munky stated:
“There’s been moments where it’s difficult in imagining what it could be right here, you know, if he was in the band. [A] what would he do kind of thing. But on the last couple of records, he kind of checked out. And trying to get him engaged was a little bit difficult, just to stay in the room while we’re writing. He would always just kind of leave… and he’d be in there for a few minutes and then kind of just not focused, and he just kind of lost his ambition, I guess.
But it’s okay. It happens. People, everything, goes in cycles. We’re definitely not mad at him or anything, we want him to be happy. And it didn’t really feel like he was happy being a working musician at the time. So it was kind of like it was a mutual sort of — I wouldn’t say split — because I still use the word hiatus.
You know, I think he just he needed a break from… we work our asses off, you know, even like when we’re not touring, we’re writing music, or we’re working on on things, and when we go home, we take a couple of weeks off from tour and then we’re back at it.
And I think that sort of schedule just became too daunting for him after 30 years to continue. It takes a lot of stamina. I just don’t feel like he had it at the time, or [he] just had a lot of other personal stuff happening too. He wasn’t happy. It was obvious that he wasn’t happy. And at the end of the day he’s our brother and we want him to be happy. So it’s like do what you want to do. Just stay healthy, keep your mental health on the track to pursue whatever it is that makes you happy.”
When asked if Munky had any updates on how Fieldy is doing now, the guitarist responded:
“I’ve heard he’s doing well. I haven’t spoke to him personally in probably a few months, but yeah. I see his kids. His son [Israel Arvizu], is like playing bass and he’s doing a band, and I think Fieldy‘s been helping with that and with his son. And it looks like they’re having a good time and, yeah, he looks like he’s doing better, honestly, which makes makes us all feel great. You know, we definitely want to see him at his best and enjoying being home with his family and staying healthy.”
Fieldy himself stepped down from Korn back in 2021 and in an interview conducted late last year, stated that the COVID-19 pandemic and his own reluctance to get vaccinated were pivotal in him deciding to step down from the band. At the time of the interview he referred to himself as ‘retired’ from Korn.
As mentioned by Shaffer above, Fieldy‘s son Israel Arvizu has indeed followed in his father’s footsteps, taking on the bass duties in a nü-metal band dubbed PlaYuH.
Meanwhile, As part of a new cover story over at Rolling Stone Brasil, other members of Korn also spoke at length about their return to South America this spring, the longevity of their career and what they have next in store. Speaking on their new material in that feature, Davis offered:
“These new songs are the next step in our career. I won’t say ‘oh, it’s heavier,’ ‘oh, it’s better,’ because we always say that. I can only say that this is the best music in our lives right now.”
Guitarist Brian “Head” Welch also spoke on the new material to come and the benefits that breaking from the traditional album tour cycle has had presented for the group:
“I’m glad we’re taking this long. Look at these great bands. Tool is a very dramatic example, but bands like Metallica and Avenged Sevenfold take longer and create anticipation. It’s my opinion, not the others in Korn, but all along I thought we were releasing albums too early. I like taking more time. And without releasing anything, the band has only grown—not just Korn, but all of rock.”
