Korn

• 1. Introduction

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  Korn walked into a recording studio in Huntington Beach in 1993 and started playing a riff that would stop strangers in their tracks. People loitering outside the building heard something so different, according to bassist Reginald Arvizu, that the crowd simply grew. Nobody had a name for what they were hearing yet. That name would come later: nu metal. And the band that gave birth to it would go on to sell more than 40 million records worldwide.

  The band's official name was stylized as KoЯn, that backwards R borrowed from the logo of Toys R Us, a store where several of the members had once worked. It was a dumb joke that became a brand. The sound beneath it was anything but a joke. Within five years of that Huntington Beach session, Korn would land two consecutive number-one debuts on the Billboard 200, earn Grammy nominations, and retire two videos from MTV's Total Request Live, a feat reserved for the biggest acts in the country.

  How did a band from Bakersfield, California, built on personal pain, downtuned guitars, and a heavy debt to Faith No More, reshape an entire genre? And what happened when the personal chaos that fueled the music started consuming the people making it?

• 2. Bakersfield Roots

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  Three of Korn's founding members first played together in a band called L.A.P.D., which released an EP through Triple X Records in 1989 and a full-length studio album, Who's Laughing Now, on the 3rd of May 1991. James Shaffer, Reginald Arvizu, and David Silveria were in that group, with Silveria joining when he was just 16 years old.

  After L.A.P.D.'s lead singer departed, the remaining trio briefly went by the name Creep and recorded a demo with a singer named Corey before realizing the sound they wanted required different voices. They eventually enlisted guitarist Brian Welch and vocalist Jonathan Davis, and the lineup that would become Korn was complete.

  The name itself came out of a deliberate act of mischief. Someone suggested "corn" as a band name; the group shot it down. Then Shaffer proposed spelling it with a K and flipping the R backward, producing KoЯn. Davis designed the resulting logo. Silveria later explained the reasoning plainly: the music makes the name, because Korn is a dumb name, but once the band gets established, it makes the name cool.

  They rented studio space from Jeff Creath at a facility called Underground Chicken Sound in Huntington Beach, California, where their rehearsals attracted passersby. An A&R employee from Immortal Records named Paul Pontius spotted them performing at gigs that summer of 1993. Pontius described their sound as the new genre of rock. In late 1993, the band pressed their first demo, Neidermayer's Mind, and gave it away free to record companies and to anyone who filled out a flyer at their gigs with Biohazard and House of Pain.

• 3. The Debut and Its Ripples

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  By May 1994, Korn entered the studio with producer Ross Robinson to record their self-titled debut album. Recording wrapped by the end of the following month, and the album arrived on the 11th of October 1994 through Immortal Records.

  The first chart signal came not from radio but from a specialty metric: the album hit number one on the Billboard Heatseekers Albums chart, eventually climbing to number 72 on the Billboard 200 in February 1996. The band had played between 200 and 250 shows before their second album even existed, building a fan base through relentless touring rather than radio exposure. Their first road trip was with hardcore punk band Sick of It All in January 1995, followed by a European tour that included stops at LA2 in London and L'Arapaho in Paris.

  The self-titled album was eventually certified two-times platinum by the RIAA. Beyond the band's own sales, it launched the career of producer Ross Robinson, who would go on to produce Three Dollar Bill, Yall by Limp Bizkit and Slipknot's first two albums. Bands including Coal Chamber, Limp Bizkit, and Slipknot would later acknowledge that Korn's debut had directly shaped their sound.

  Of the debut's four singles, only "Blind" charted, peaking at number 15 on the Canadian RPM Alternative 30. "Shoots and Ladders", released on the 31st of October 1995, earned a Grammy nomination in 1997 for Best Metal Performance. The fourth single, "Clown", arrived on the 2nd of February 1996, and derived from the very riff the band had played at Underground Chicken Sound that first drew a crowd outside the studio.

• 4. Life Is Peachy and the Lollapalooza Summer

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  Life Is Peachy was recorded in early April 1996 at Indigo Ranch Studios in Malibu, California, and released on the 15th of October 1996. Despite minimal radio airplay and almost no television presence, it debuted at number three on the Billboard 200, selling 106,000 copies in its first week. In New Zealand, it reached number one.

  Jon Pareles in The New York Times captured the band's energy by writing that they were "mad at everybody, including themselves." The album was certified double platinum in the United States, platinum in Australia, and gold in Canada.

  The second single, "A.D.I.D.A.S.", was released on the 4th of March 1997 and became the band's first entry on the Billboard charts in the United States, peaking at number 13 on the Bubbling Under Hot 100. The first single, "No Place to Hide", earned a Grammy nomination for Best Metal Performance.

  The band co-headlined the Lollapalooza summer festival in 1997 alongside Tool, widening their audience considerably. But the run was cut short when Shaffer was diagnosed with viral meningitis, forcing the band off the road. During the downtime, Jonathan Davis launched the band's own imprint, Elementree Records, to spotlight other acts. Davis first signed Orgy to the label, a decision influenced by Silveria.

  A conflict with a Michigan high school assistant principal named Gretchen Plewes, who called Korn's music indecent and suspended a student for wearing a Korn shirt, drew national attention just before their third album arrived. FM station WKLQ filmed itself distributing hundreds of free Korn T-shirts outside the school, donated by the band. Ottawa County Police were called but ended up helping hand out shirts. The band filed a cease-and-desist order and threatened a multimillion-dollar lawsuit before dropping both actions.

• 5. Follow the Leader and the MTV Era

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  Follow the Leader arrived on the 18th of August 1998, but the promotional campaign had begun months earlier with KornTV, a weekly online show that documented the recording process and gave fans, nicknamed "nibletz," the chance to phone in questions. It was among the first times a band used the internet this directly to build anticipation.

  The album debuted at number one on the Billboard 200 with at least 268,000 copies sold in its first week. Its guest list included Ice Cube; Tre Hardson of the Pharcyde; Fred Durst of Limp Bizkit; and actor Cheech Marin, who wrote and appeared on the hidden track "Earache My Eye". A political campaign-styled tour accompanied the release, with Jim Rose of the Jim Rose Circus hosting the entire run and the band holding fan conferences at every stop.

  Two singles defined this period on MTV. "Got the Life" became the very first video ever retired from Total Request Live. "Freak on a Leash" followed it into retirement several months later. "Freak on a Leash" won a Grammy for Best Music Video, Short Form, and received nine MTV Video Music Award nominations, ultimately winning Best Rock Video and Best Editing. The video failed to crack the Billboard Hot 100 but peaked at number six on the Bubbling Under Hot 100.

  In September 1998, Korn signed with a second music publisher, Zomba Music Group, through negotiations involving manager Jeff Kwatinetz, the former CEO of The Firm, and co-founders Peter Katsis and Michael Green. Korn's members considered Follow the Leader to be the band's most commercially successful album. It was certified five-times platinum by the RIAA and had sold close to 10 million copies worldwide.

  Also in 1998, Puma approached the band after Adidas had declined, offering a $500,000 deal that included their music in advertisements directed by Kevin Kerslake. Davis responded to the Adidas rejection with characteristic directness: "That's more than Adidas ever did for us. It wasn't a sell-out thing. It was about respect."

• 6. Issues and the Apollo Theater

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  Issues, produced by Brendan O'Brien and featuring cover art designed by Alfredo Carlos, who won an MTV fan contest, was released on the 16th of November 1999. It debuted at number one on the Billboard 200 with at least 573,000 copies sold, edging out Dr. Dre's 2001 and Celine Dion's All the Way... A Decade of Song from the top spot in that same competitive week.

  To mark the release, Korn performed the album in its entirety at the Apollo Theater in New York, broadcasting the concert simultaneously across radio stations nationwide. Korn's appearance marked the first performance by a rock band at the Apollo since Buddy Holly in the late 1950s. The production included the New York Police Department marching drum and bagpipe band, conducted by Richard Gibbs, and a complement of backup singers.

  The band had also appeared in an episode of South Park titled "Korn's Groovy Pirate Ghost Mystery", which premiered the first single, "Falling Away from Me". That single became Korn's first entry on the Billboard Hot 100, reaching number 99. A video for the track was directed by long-time friend Fred Durst.

  The band launched their Sick and Twisted Tour to support Issues, and every video from the album cycled through Total Request Live, two reaching retirement. Issues was certified three-times platinum. Lead singer Jonathan Davis also appeared in a brief RealVideo snippet of "Falling Away from Me" performing an interpretive dance as bassist, which was posted to their official website as an MP3 despite objections from the band's attorneys.

  In 2001, the clothing brand PONY initiated a new partnership with the band, adding to a run of sportswear affiliations that had become a defining feature of Korn's public image since the mid-1990s.

• 7. Departures and Instability

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  The personal fractures that had always run beneath the surface of Korn's music became impossible to ignore between 2002 and 2007. Untouchables, released on the 11th of June 2002, debuted at number two on the Billboard 200 with 434,000 in sales. The band blamed piracy for the decline from their prior debut figures, pointing to an unmastered version of the album that had leaked three months before release. "Here to Stay" won a Grammy Award for Best Metal Performance, and director team the Hughes Brothers handled both that video and "Thoughtless".

  Take a Look in the Mirror was released on the 21st of November 2003, four days ahead of schedule in direct response to leak concerns. It was the first album Korn self-produced. Davis described its emotional register without softening anything: "The previous albums I did, I think the last three, I was coming from a place of hurt. And I just finally got to the point where I'm done hurting and I'm just pissed off about it now."

  In early 2005, Brian Welch stood before a crowd of 10,000 across three services at Valley Bible Fellowship in Bakersfield, California, and announced he was quitting the band. He described a methamphetamine addiction that no treatment had addressed until he turned to the church. His departure opened a sustained period of lineup instability.

  In late 2005, Davis was diagnosed with idiopathic thrombocytopenic purpura during a European tour. He revealed to fans that he was dangerously low on blood platelets and at a high risk of death from a hemorrhage. The band played on at the Download Festival without him, drawing on guest vocalists including Corey Taylor of Slipknot, Matt Heafy of Trivium, Benji Webbe of Skindred, and M. Shadows of Avenged Sevenfold.

  In December 2006, founding drummer David Silveria announced an indefinite hiatus. A 14-song acoustic set for MTV Unplugged, filmed on the 9th of December 2006 with guest appearances by the Cure and Amy Lee of Evanescence, sold nearly 51,000 copies in its first week at number nine. Joey Jordison of Slipknot covered live drumming duties until Ray Luzier permanently joined in 2007, confirming Silveria's exit.

• 8. Legacy and the Genre They Built

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  Korn is widely credited as the originators of the nu metal scene. Greg Kennelty of Metal Injection stated that the band practically invented the genre and that their fingerprints are all over modern metal. Richard S. He of Billboard wrote of Follow the Leader: "More than any other album, Follow the Leader opened the floodgates for countless nu-metal acts to infiltrate the mainstream." Lauryn Schaffner of Loudwire grouped Korn with Sepultura, Pantera, and Tool as one of the "Big Four" of 1990s heavy metal.

  The band's relationship with the nu metal label was always complicated. Davis told Metal Hammer that he hated the tag when it first appeared. Brian Welch echoed that discomfort: "We never gave that tag to ourselves... When you're in a band, you want to call the shots, you want to be in charge of your branding, and it was someone else who branded us that." Davis eventually reconciled with it: "If we invented nu-metal then fuck yeah, cool. It's pretty cool to say we helped invent some kind of movement."

  The influences running through Korn's music were specific and deliberate. Davis said directly: "If there's no Cypress Hill there would be no Korn." The entire band traced a profound debt to Faith No More's The Real Thing, released in 1989. Welch listed it as the album that changed his life in Guitar World's January 1997 issue. From Faith No More, the band discovered Mr. Bungle, whose 1991 self-titled album left a lasting mark on Korn's dissonance and experimentation. A flat fifth chord the band called the "Mr. Bungle chord" became a recurring trademark throughout their discography.

  By 2021, Korn had sold more than 40 million records worldwide. Fourteen of their official releases peaked in the top ten of the Billboard 200, eight of which reached the top five, tying them with Van Halen for the most top-ten records among rock and metal artists. They earned two Grammy Awards from eight nominations. Their latest album, Requiem, was released on the 4th of February 2022 through Loma Vista Recordings. As of March 2025, the gap since Requiem had become the longest between Korn albums, surpassing the 1,109-day stretch between The Paradigm Shift and The Serenity of Suffering, with a new single, "Reward the Scars", finally arriving on the 23rd of April 2026.