Music

[Chris]

Korn Frontman Talks Oil, 'Korn III' and Close 'Encounters' With The Suicide Girls
         

Since 1993, Korn have made themselves known for their deafening brand of hard and heavy music, and their penchant for taking their Issues to lyrical depths. But, as SuicideGirls.com say, they're "making noise about an external issue that will likely affect us all in some way – the  April 20th drilling explosion at the Deepwater Horizon oil rig." With the Rockstar Energy Mayhem Festival boycotting BP, and their new album, Korn III: Remember Who You Are debuting at #2 on the Billboard 200, frontman Jonathan Davis talks about all of the above and then some with SuicideGirls.Writes the site, "Talking the day after the new album’s release, we spoke about life, music, organized religion, close encounters of the crop circle making kind, and his hope that his wrath for big petroleum will prove to be contagious."Read an excerpt of the Q&A below, go right here for the full interview, and pick up you copy of Korn III at this location.The band will be doing daily meet & greets at the third annual Mayhem Fest. Go right here to find out how to claim your spot in line.
Andrea Larrabee: How did the BP boycott come about?
Jonathan Davis: That  thing started out, for me, just seeing what was going on. I was just  disgusted with that company. Myself, personally, I wasn't going to buy  any of their products. I told my management about it and they're like,  well, let's boycott it if you feel that strongly about it. So we started  the whole boycott just to send a message to those companies. If enough  people don't buy their products then they'll feel it. We're not going to  put them out of business or anything, it's just [about] trying to say  that you need to be held accountable for destroying these people's  lives. Why didn't [they] spend that extra money to make sure that this  didn't happen? Hopefully by us doing that - and we're getting more and  more bands that are joining everyday - it'll send a message to those oil  companies to spend the money to make sure it doesn't happen again.  Because it's only one well - there's hundreds of them in that gulf, and  thousands in the whole word. They need to be held accountable to make  sure the safety measures are there....Obviously the government's  not going to do anything about it because [the politicians] make back  door deals with them. The bottom line is oil is our life. Our wars are  fought over it. Everything is surrounded by this stupid fucking brown  shit that comes out of the earth...[It's something that] everybody has a  vested interest in so it's up to the people - us - not just sit by and  let shit happen and depend on our government to work it out. It's on us  to do something.

AL: You talk about oil being our lives, but really  the wealth generated by it only benefits a tiny percentage of already  obscenely wealthy Americans. I had a very profound experience a few  years ago when I went to Norway for the Øya Festival. While I was there I  learned that a massive percentage of the country's oil wealth goes back  to the people. The money pays for health care, social services,  education, and the arts. Meanwhile, the oil companies drilling in  California don't have to pay any royalties to the local or federal  governments - even though the oil is being sucked from beneath land that  belongs to all of us. And we have a bankrupt state.


JD: I know, it's ridiculous. It's so ridiculous.  There's countries in Europe and all around the world, people got it  together. It just seems like here, in the States, it's so fucked up. I  see it first hand because in the town I live in, where we did the "Oildale" video, there's hundreds of pumps around in Oildale but it's the most impoverished, fucked-up place I think I've ever been  to. All these people who live near the oil fields, they don't receive  anything. They're poor, it's overrun with drugs, it's disgusting, and if  we [got] something out of it it'd be amazing. Just the fact that in  Norway, they've got social services, art, everything - fuck! I want to  move to Norway.

AL: These oil companies do seem to operate above the  law, and above governments. Do you have any hope that this boycott will  actually have any real effect?


JD: I hope it does. I mean I saw a report that BP's  sales were down in places anywhere from ten to forty percent. I hope  they go down more. I hope people get pissed off. I mean they've got lots  of money and it's going to affect them in some way. They should be held  accountable. I'd love to see them be put the fuck out of business. It's  just unfair. It's just really unfair that a company can do that and get  away with it. And the [Exxon] settlements that have taken fucking two  decades, it's just a horrible situation all the way around.



AL:So would you also ask that your fans boycott BP?


JD: I would totally urge them to do that. It's a  decision that they have to make. I'm not into really political shit, to  me it's about seeing the environment and people being hurt. It's more  coming from a human standpoint. I think if you're human and you actually  see what's going on down there, you'll feel compelled to not buy their  shit.



AL: In the lyrics and in your vocals you can definitely hear very raw emotion.


JD: Yeah, you can feel it. Now if I'd have done that  same shit and done three or four vocals on it, it would have took away  from that. That's what I love about listening to the record, you can  feel the emotion on every chorus and every little thing that's different  each time around. It makes for an enjoyable listen.


AL: Lyrically, which tracks are closest to home emotionally?


JD: All ten of them are. [laughs] I swear. If you  knew the fucking shit I went through making this. It was basically me  and [producer] Ross [Robinson]. It was one big purging of me trying to  figure out what makes me so unhappy all the time. And I came up with big  topics like people pleasing, or guilt, and just living in the past. All  these things I figured out working with him that were sparking me to  start writing.



AL: You also debuted Korn Live: The Encounter recently which features concert footage shot amidst a crop circle.

JD: Yeah. It was a TV show on HDNet that we did and  it was one of the most amazing things that we've ever participated in.  We're huge fans of Pink Floyd's Live at Pompei and we kind of  used that as a template for it. We had circle makers come out from the  UK. They stomped out a crop circle and we did a show in the middle of  it. And something happened, we started jamming between songs and it just  turned into one big jam concert with our new songs and some old songs.  Looking at it, it's just amazing.


         

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