Korn Frontman Jonathan Davis Says New Album is 'Full-On Queen and ELO'

Korn Frontman Jonathan Davis Says New Album is ‘Full-On Queen and ELO’

2019-08-01

Korn – Story by Cat Badra

Korn’s upcoming album is unlike anything the band has done before, says frontman Jonathan Davis

Korn will release their new album, “The Nothing” on Sept. 13, and frontman Jonathan Davis says this album is unlike anything the band has done before.

“It’s just a completely different beast,” Davis told Kerrang! magazine, when asked how the new album differs from 1026’s “The Serenity of Suffering.” “Musically, I think it’s leaps and bounds from that. The guys had fun working with [producer] Nick Raskulinecz again, but you could tell my level of involvement from that to that.”

He added that “on this record, there’s some songs that’ve got 20-something vocal tracks on it — I went full-on Queen and ELO [Electric Light Orchestra]! They were some of my influences and I wanted to do some of those big vocal beds. I took my time; I was really into making the vocals sound amazing. I did all kinds of recording shit that I learned over the years, so this wasn’t a week like the last record.”

Davis also said the album took him to a dark place. His estranged wife Deven passed away last year, and that dark period came out in the new songs.

“I was dealing with all the darkness that was around me,” he said. “Life has been very dark, so it was just me going through the grieving process with losing my wife. It was hard. I haven’t had a chance to reach my full potential on Korn records for years, because I’ve always been so busy with stuff at home — taking care of my son Zeppelin, who’s got type 1 diabetes, and Deven had really bad mental illness that I was hiding and dealing with. I did the best I could, but I never could put myself 100 percent into [recording].”

He added, “Sitting down and working out what I was going to do with this record was a process, and this is the longest I’ve ever taken making a record. I went through working with a producer, different engineers and shit, and I finally got fed up. I’m like, ‘Fuck you all, just leave me alone; when it’s done it’s done and I’ll give you it.’ So it was just me and an engineer. I did it myself and it was a very cathartic, dark experience.”

Korn and Alice in Chains will hit the road on a co-headlining tour across North America this summer, beginning with a July 18 date in Del Valle, Texas, and running through a Sept. 4 show in Mountain View, California.

In other news, Korn recently released the music video for their single, “You’ll Never Find Me.” Watch the video below.

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Cat Badra

Meet the expert - Cat Badra is a music writer for Audio Ink Radio and a range of other music, sports and lifestyle publications. She's a graduate of Michigan State University with a master's degree in theater and speech. Contact her at cat@audioinkradio.com.