Korn guitarist James Shaffer says making records sober isn’t the kind of stunt he’d necessarily advise other bands to pull.
But that’s what nu-metal scarecrows Korn did this time around. And for good reason, he adds. “That’s what worked on this album,” he says. “For me, I could think a lot clearer and communicate ideas back and forth, which speeds things up. So we weren’t wasting time, which is money – and there’s not much money to make records any more because not a lot of people buy them.”
With the recent release of new album, ‘The Paradigm Shift’, Korn is presently experiencing what might be the closest they’ll ever come to a smell-the-roses phase, essentially engendered by previous health scares.
The high-octane record is a nervy glimpse into the gates-of-hell headspace uber-grim singer Jonathan Davis has been struggling to navigate his way out of in recent times. He managed a Xanax detox that indefinitely reassigned his consciousness to somewhere in the vicinity of the Twilight Zone. Its completion spells a brighter chapter for all of the band members adds Shaffer. “We were all so messed up before. We had to have our drink and our drugs and smoke and whatever it was before we would start even recording. We wasted a lot of time but we had a lot of fun and I wouldn’t trade it for anything.”
During the songwriting phase, the band collaborated in its Bakersfield studio to assemble some of the most brutal riffage this side of a metal festival curated by The Bandidos. Unlike 2011’s dubstep-happy ‘The Path Of Totality’, the band toned down the electronic aspect. “I definitely prefer interacting with the live drum and somebody actually performing to anything else,” he says. “It just feels like there’s two people and not one guy and a machine.”
The live approach was further enhanced by guitarist Brian Welch’s return to studio recording for the first time since 2003’s ‘Look In The Mirror’. With 10 or 11 new songs, the band enlisted the services of producer, Don Gilmore, to help harness their ideas. “This is somebody that Brian really wanted to work with,” Shaffer says. “I know he made a couple of Linkin Park records and Three Days Grace, and some records that aren’t on the top of my list, but I know he makes great records. They’re not my favourite records but they’re great sounding records and I was open to try this guy.”
Historically, Korn haven’t always hit it off with producers. On 2010’s ‘Korn III: Remember Who You Are’, Davis said he was so troubled by his working relationship with producer Ross Robinson (producer of Korn’s first two albums) that he wanted to kill himself. Not this time however. Shaffer says Gilmore worked with a sense of purpose and direction from the outset. “We were just like, ‘This guy is full on into it. He gets it and he understands it. He understands where we are with Brian coming back to the band and where we see ourselves.’
“We wanted to make a record that’s relevant and we wanted to make some songs that are good and that pertain to an album – not just a couple of singles. Because there are so many different personalities in the band, [Don] was really good with delegating and getting people to show up and dealing with our adolescence.”
Due to his own emotional issues, Davis was absent from the recording of the album until it was time to lay down his vocals. “There was actually a lot of pressure on Jonathan because once the bulk of the recording of the music was done, everybody was starting to think, ‘We really need to get some vocals on here’. But nobody really knew what was going on with him at that point. He had his own personal stuff going on, so I think there was some pressure at that point. But for three quarters of the record, it was really relaxed and a lot of fun.”
Written by Joshua Jennings
Korn play Soundwave Festival
Sat Feb 22 - RNA Showgrounds (Brisbane)Sun Feb 23 - Olympic Park (Sydney)
Fri Feb 28 - Flemington Racecourse (Melbourne)
Sat Mar 1 - Bonythin Park (Adelaide)
Mon Mar 3 - Claremont Showgrounds (Perth)
Sideshows with Rob Zombie and Mushroom Head:
Mon 24 Feb - Big Top Luna Park (Sydney)
Wed 26 Feb - The Palace (Melbourne)
