Even proto-metal master Ozzy Osbourne submitted to the new wave, crowding this year's Ozzfest juggernaut with new names like Tool, Limp Bizkit, Sevendust, and Snot. But while Ozzfest was a celebration for legions of metal fans, Family Values promises to be a lovefest fro the bands onstage as well, since they're all close friends who share a bizarre and juvenile sense of humor.

That's not all they share. KoRn, Limp Bizkit, and Orgy have a fondness for a strange jazzbo fusion of beat-heavy chaos, quirky tunings and seven-sring guitars. In addition, Korn helped get Limp Bizkit their record deal, and both bands are represented by the same management team. And of course, Orgy is the first band signed to Korn's boutique label Elementree. The incestuous Family Values shows will probably end with "All In The Family," a track from Korn's new album, in which Korn vocalist Jonathon Davis and the Bizkit's Fred Durst trade vile insults like a pair of old-school rappers. All the bands on the tour are in store for endless "headlocks and noogies," promises Munky.

However, one artist who shouldn't have to worry about backstage wedgies is hardcore rap pioneer Ice Cube, who guests on Follow The Leader, and whose presence on the Family Values road shwo marks his first tour in six years.

In all likehood, most concertgoers won't be there primarily for the Cube; they'll show up for Korn. That's a no-brainer, since the band is, hands-down, one of the heaviest, most innovative, and popular metal acts to come along in years. Its 1994 self-titled debut album went platinum, as did its 1996 follow-up Life Is Peachy, which debuted impressively at number three on the Billboard album chart. But the hard-charging psychodelia of Follow The Leader may be a challenge to old Korn fans. New textures have been added to the band's care beats and brutal rhythms, taking Korn to new, experimental extremes. Another stylistic hurdle for fans at the Family Values show may be Orgy, which owes as much to '80s industrial dance music as it does to primal metal, and greets audiences in thick-soled creepers that make its band-members appear over six-foot tall.

This afternoon, Head and Munky are talking all things Korn and plugging Family Values, but they're not hatching their plans alone. Present by speakrephone are Bizkit's Wes Borland, talking from his Ozzfest hotel room in Mansfield, Massachusetts; and Orgy's Ryan Shuck, who is calling from a hotel in Hamburg, Germany, with only CNN for company (Orgy's Amir Derakh was trapped on a plane to New York, and thus momentarily incommunicado. He added his comments later).

Over a 90-minute conversation, the guitarists discuss their common roots, hip-hop's conncetion to metal, freaked out tunings, and the beauty of pornography.

The New KoRn Manifesto

Were you trying to be more extreme or experimental on Follow The Leader?

    Munky:  No. We just groove musically. It still sounds like Korn, but it widens the spectrum of things that we do. You can't put out six records that sound the same. It's going to be boring.

    Head:  It's the same stuff, but with a little extra. It's basically the same songs structures and style of music.

    Borland:  I forgot to tell you guys, I really, really like the record. It's different and better. It's like the most experimental guitar stuff I've heard.

    Head:  Now we've got to try and find those sounds again.

    Borland:  I can't wait to see how you do it live.

    Munky:  Me neither.

    Borland:  You guys' pedal boards are going to take up the whole from of the stage, like just a row of pedals. You'll have to hire a pedal hitter.

Are fans of this kind of music automatically open to experimentation?

    Munky:  You've got to think about what the band wants. We make music that we like. We're happy with it, and that's all you can do. You can't be out therre trying to please everyone. It will never happen.

The Hip-Hop Connection

Why do hip-hop and metal work so well together?

    Munky:  The kind of hip-hop that I like is dark-sounding, not the radio shit you hear. The lyrics are real. A lot of it's tryue. And I think the stuff that Jonathing [Davis] speaks about is true. And they're both heavy.

    Head:  Hip-hop's influence makes heavy music move more. It makes it drive.

    Borland:  Hip-hop has the movement, but metal has the really brutal texture. The hard-hitting texture mixed with a danceable beat makes it really easy to move violently to.

How did Ice Cube end up on the new record?

    Munky:  His manager is our manager. He asked us to work with him on a tribute Clash record; he did "Should I Stay Or Should I Go?" We put some guitars and bass on it for him. Then we asked him to come over and sing on our record.

    Head:  [Korn bassist] Fieldy wrote this electronic song in the next room at the recording studio. It was good, so we put a bunch of guitars on it. We got Cube a tape and the next thing we know he's down there writing lyrics. That song was put together with Jonathon in one night. Cube's so professional. He came in there andwas just writing stuff down.

    Munky:  Rapping it out loud, pacing back and froth. "Want something to drink Mr. Cube?" "No, no, I'm straight, I'm straight."

    Head:  Then he went in thereand did it in 15 minutes-the whole song. He's my favorite rapper.

    Shuck:  He's always been hype. Whenever he does anything, it just sounds fresh.

    Head:  He's got the vioice. He's got the tone. And he's really smart, too.

In the early days of hip-hop, nothing wasmore distasteful to some hard rock fans than rap. But you all mix it up. Have the barriers come down?

    Munky:  People have been trying to do it for a while, like Aerosmith and Run-DMC [with "Walk This Way"]. Thyat was all right. I kind of like that one.

    Head:  Remember that Anthrax and Public Enemy thing ["Bring The Noise?"]? That was pretty cool when it came out.

    Borland:  I think barriers are the dumbest thing I ever heard of. Classifying music is a joke.

Family Values

What's the story behind the track "All In The Family"?

    Munky:  It's some of the stuff that Jonathon and Fred always wanted to say to eachother. It's in fun.

    Head:  We were drinking, and it was funny. We were laughing all night when we recorded that.

    Borland:  We have a scheme to put "All In The Family 2" on our next record, to have Jon come in and we can fight.

Do you have a favorite line from that song?

    Head:  I like when Jonathon says, "Come on hillbily/Can your horse do a fucking wheelie?"

    Borland:  My favorite is when Fred goes, "Nappy hairy chest/Look, it's Austin Powers!"

    Munky:  It's an old-school hip-hop thing , when rappers would battle back and forth.

    Head:  Fred was writing those lines as we were going alon. He would say, 'Okay, I just wrote something, push Record." Then he came up with these lines and everybody in the whole place was just laughing.

The Masses

Who is your audience?

    Munky:  People that were just like me when I was 12, 13, 14, and I rode around on a little bike, putting shit on the railroad tracks. That's who our fans are.

    Borland:  I think we have one fan named Mike, and another one named Ralph, and one named John, and maybe a Linda. They're not very nice. They throw things.

    Shuck:  I think we'll have a lot of the same fans, and just people who are open to new music and doing something a little different and fun-which I think is the same people that appeal to you guys.

What is the weirdest thing a fan has done?

    Head:  This guy came to a Korn signing, and he brought a dead racoon's head: "Would you sign this?" So we had to sign a dead racoon's head.

    Munky:  It was real, I swear.

    Borland:  There was one show we did that was in a small club with a low ceiling. It was low enough for people to reach up and grab onto the pipes and stuff. We were playing, andI remember there was a guy on one of the pipes. And if you've ever seen the movie Alien - how they shimmied throuhg the pipes-this guy looked exactly like that. He looked like he was on PCP or something, and the guy was moving so fast thatI hada nightmare about it later. This kid had a Mohawk, and he was moving really fast on this pipe towards the stage. I don't ever worry about people getting onstage and stuff; that's mostly just funny. But I swear he was moving eight feet-per-second. I remember I startedpanicking inside. theguys eyes were big and bugeyed, like he was goingto come and eat us. He was getting closer and closer, and I was going, "Oh, my God, someone stop him! Don't let him get on the stage!" Finally this big burly security guard grabbed him and slammed this guy, and he just freaked out. That was the highlight of the entire tour.

The Roots of Metal

How is Family Values different from Ozzfest?

    Borland:  The Ozzfest has seats, and we almost got kicked off thefirst two days of the tour for getting the kids to break though the barricades. Sharon Osbourne waspretty angry with us because we almost incited riots.

    Munky:  Oh, killer!

    Head:  It's not all hard music like the Ozzfest. We've got Ice Cube and Orgy.

    Shuck:  I think this a more innovative tour, with more diversity.

How do you feel about being labeled metal?

    Head:  It doesn't really bug me. At first it did. But if they listen to us and they hearjust metal, let them hear just metal. I listened to metal when I was a kid. I also learned chet Atkins, I learned Ted Nugent and Billy Joel, Tom Petty solos. I learned all kinds of shit.

What you do is a lot different from '80s metal.

    Munky:  Yeah, that's good. It shows heavy music is changing for the better. People aren't afraid of incorporating dark music into a mainstream sound. I think it's great.

Do you identify at all with '80s metal?

    Shuck:  I was into everything from Bauhaus to Depeche Mode as well as heavy music. I definently went through the '80s metal thing. I think that's still with me, also. It would be dishonest of me not to claim it. A lot of people went through that. I don't think it's bad to give it credit for what it was.

    Head:  It probably added to what we are about right now.

    Shuck:  There was the cheesy factor, but there were some real killer things, too. Every music has killer aspects. Hopefully, with this tour people will open their minds even more, because there is a lot of variety, from Ice Cube to Korn to Limp Bizkit to us. It's going to be a fun tour, and it's probably going to show.

    Borland:  I'll bet my life that '80s glam metal is coming back. I don't think I'm ever going to dress with big hair spray or anything like that, because I never did it in the '80s; I kind of clung more to the death metal scene that was going on in Florida then. But they said disco would never back, and people are wearing bell-bottoms again.

    Shuck:  It all translates differently. If you do something exactly how it was, then it's ridiculous. But if it's incorporated into what you're doing, and you just take the parts that you like and twist them in a futuristic fashion, then it becomes cool and innovative and fun.

    Amir Derakh:  I was part of the '80s glam metal scene. I used to be in a band called Rough Cutt, so I know all about it. I wanted to paly guitar synths back then, nobody would ever allow me to put it on the record because back then it was considered a faux pas. One of my favorite albums was Judas Priest's Turbo, and I know that turned off a lot of fans, but not for me. It was way ahead of its time. I've always sort of lived a double life. even though I was in that band, I was way into gothic music and that whole scene. I was the youngest guy in the band then, like 21 or something. I was also into the new wave and other stuff, but I like metal, too. I loved Judas Priest, Scorpions. But as much as I loved that, I loved Tones On Tail, Bauhaus, Dead Or Alive, New Order, you name it. I've always been that way. Now I'm finally getting to do the other side of me that I never did back then.

How would you describe your sound?

    Shuck:  I make up a new word every time I describe it. It's pretty hard.

    Borland:  I just say we cross over a bunch of different stuff.

    Munky:  It's kind of like a heavy fusion. It incorporates a lot of different styles and a lot of different rhythmic patterns that are sound in all different types of music.

    Head:  If I'm in a hurry I just say [talks fast] "heavy metal!" If I'm not in a hurry I'll take more time.

    Borland:  If I'm having a real bad day, and I don't feel like explaining it, I just say, "You wouldn't like it. It really sucks." If somebody asks us if we're in a band at truck stops, we always say we're a traveling soccer team or we're with the circus.

The New Bosses

Do you feel like you're part of a new music movement?

    Munky:  I do, don't you guys? It's a whole new generation of bands that are coming up.

    Borland:  Rage Against the Machine was one of the first bands to cross over with rock and rap. Korn are the forefathers of this movement, and you guys were definently an influence onus. You guys are the best. You are the biggest and the funnest, I wanna give you massages.

    Derakh: Bands like Rage Against the Machine have definently opened the door for non-conventional guitar parts. Some people are going to like it, and some people aren't. Ryan uses pedals and plays the seven-string, so he brings a whole other aspect to his sound. It's more palettes and colors to bring into the picture. I just want our band to be able to do a lot of really different things.

    Head:  What we're all doing is the new heavy music. It's just fresh and new.

    Borland:  But there's going to be something different that's going to keep us all on our toes.

    Munky:  So we've got work to do.

    Borland:  Being versatile is the main thing about being able to stay in themusic and make a career out of it, because people are so fickle. They'll think one thing is awesome for a while, and then suddenly they don't like you anymore. I think musicians and bands should go with whatever makes them happy-just like Metallica. They're a lot older now, they don't want to play these crazy big riffs that blow people's heads off their necks.

    Borland:  People give them a hard time: "Oh, they're selling out, they're changing." Good. Great. It's what they wanna do, and theystill have a lot of true fans. It's over for bands once they start going, "Oh, are we doing something our fans don't want to hear?"

Were you always confident that this kind of music could be popular?

    Munky:  That just shows they they're not really listening. Orgy and Limp Bizkit are bands that have tapped into something. You've got to look past it, and listen for what it is...[trails off, and pauses]. Sorry, I'm fuckin' stoned.

What kind of music did you listen to growing up?

    Munky:  When I first heard Black Sabbath, I said, "Whoa! That's scary shit." It frightened me. I was about 11 or 12.

    Head:  For me it was Billy Joel and Queen's "Another One Bites The Dust." I was listening to eight-tracks. I wanted to play drums when I heard Billy Joel because he had this drum fill; then when I listened to Queen, I wanted to play guitar.

    Munky:  Ah, so that was the spark.

    Head:  Then my dad goes, " You don't want to haul around a bunch of drums." He was trying to lean me to the guitar direction. He said, "If you get a guitar, you just need a guitar and an amp." And I said, "Yeah, you're right."

    Borland:  My biggest influences were like Edie Brickell and New Bohemians, and I liked Carcass, Metallica, and Tori Amos and Morbid Angel.

    Munky:  Do you like Bjork? I like Bjork.

    Borland:  Ween is my biggest influence now.

    Munky:  Who's that?

    Borland:  Ween. I like anything that's really retarded and mindless.

Guitars

    Munky:  Wes, how do you tune your guitar?

    Borland:  We just drop standard tuning a step and a half. I was a six-string for a really long time, and then I finally got this seven-string when I went up to New York. Then the Korn guys came by and Munky tried to buy it from me. I thought it was killer that Korn used the sevens. A lot of our songs had already been written on the six-strings, which were in standard tuning dropped a step and a half. So the E was B#, and everything in accordance to that. And I tried to play with a low B dropped to G#, and couldn't do it. So I ended up messing around with all these different ways: What string could I put where? Where was the extra string going to go? And it ended up just being an extra higher string, because I'm a six string player who got a seven-string. I have two high E's It's sort of a let down cop-out; I feel like it's stupid every time I talk about it, that I'm not making the best of the seventh string. But it works for me.

    Shuck:  I tune just sharp of you guys (Korn). You guys tune to A? I'm just sharp from that. I'm A# and up.

    Derakh:  I play guitar-synthesizer. There's a lot of sounds on the record that you probably think are keyboards that are me. We tune really low, to A#, so it's a bit tricky. None of these things were ever designed to work with that low of a tuning. So I have to use really larde strings and have my guitars modified so I can get proper intonation with that tuning. It's a bit weird. A lot of times we try to show each other parts, and they're in different places on the nexk. The glitching I sort of like, because it does crazy things sometimes. I've been into guitar synths since they came out. I'm sort of a closet keyboard player. I've always wanted to use it and do something different with it, becuase I know a lot of jazz guys have used them in the past, and still use them. But nobody's ever figured out a way to make it work in a rock band. You have to be a bit creative. It's not easy, but it's worth it.

How important are these tunings for your sound?

    Munky:  It's kind of important or Korn. When you hear the lows you know it's Korn.

    Shuck:  It adds a certain thickness to the sound, even thouhg we don't play the same type of riffs as Korn.

    Borland:  It just makes the guitar so you can feel it more. if you ever heard how killer a bass sounds with a real warm, awesome, smooth distortion on it, it's just that wow! It's so punchy and low. A guitar lower-tuned has a little bit of that effect.

    Shuck:  Fuckin' evil.

    Borland:  really bass-y, and really low and where you can actually feel it in your chest when you play.

What inspired you to use unconventional tunings?

    Shuck:  The devil.

    Munky:  I remember when I saw Steve Vai, when he introduced that Passion And Warfare album, and he ahd the whole seven-string thing. I thought that would be cool if I could get one. I accidentally stumbled upon playing it tuned low with heavy riffs. So I tuned the whole guitar down a whole step.

    Head:  I joined the band after, so I copied Munky.

    Borland:  And I copied both of them. They started it.

    Shuck:  I found one a couple years ago at Guitar Center for half-price, and it solved my detuning problems. It was so cheap because someone brought it back because they couldn't play it-or they though they couldn't play it. I picked it up and instantly dropped down to what I had a six-string tuned to, and it was killer on a seven string. I had a great time playing it the next day. We have a sex-string and a seven-string in the band. I have a huge amount of pedals, too. I try to disguise the guitar.

    Borland:  That's what DJ Lethal and I do. We try to copy each other. His turntables sound like guitars sometimes.

The Music Business

Why did Korn start a label?

    Munky:  We're businessmen now. You got to think sometimes like a businessman, if you want to retire nicely or have a family. But mostly we wanted to give bands what we wanted to have. We got fucked around on a lot of tours, and we want to rewrite the book on how to take care of an artist as a label.

    Shuck:  They've really carried through with their promises, and more. I'll vouch for that definently.

Did Korn's involvement with the label convince you to sign with Elementree?

    Shuck:  We tried to not make it a factor, but of course they're friends. The thing is, they came right to the table and they know what a band needs. That showed. You couldn't refuse them. Not only were they great friends, but they knew what they were talking about. It gets better every day. They've been through a lot of the bad things that bands have to go through, and they do whatever they can to make sure we don't have to do through that.

    Head:  [Speaking in old man's voice] Back in my day, I used to tour in a van!

    Shuck:  It's hard when someone who's not amusician comes in and tells you, "I don't think that part works." If Korn told us something we'd listen, because they're musicians. We needed to get away to write this record. So they let us run to the top of Tahoe and rent this ski cabin, and we were just alone for two months. A lot of labels won't let you do that.

    Derakh:  You couldn't ask for a better situation. Rough Cutt was a cool band, but we had bad management, nobody at the label understood us. The guy who signed us left. We were a little fish in an ocean. Now it's a whole different story. They also allowed us creative control, because they're all in a band, too, and they know what it's all about.

Nasty Habits

You guys are openly into pornography?

    Munky:  Oh yeah, we love it! Why not? We're men, we're young. Anyone that tells you they don't like pornography, I don't think they really looked at is. It's fuckin' sex, everyone loves it.

    Borland:  I'm into at certain times.

    Munky:  Right after I bust a nut, I don't think about it. I stop thinking about it for a couple of hours.

    Shuck:  I'm turning red over here. I'm on the other side of the world and I'm turning colors.

    Head:  I'm not a pornography guy.

    Shuck:  You have a baby now, so that probably changes a lot of things in your life. Like don't let your kid buy Orgy's record when she gets older, or Korn, for that matter. They're a bunch of subversives.

As the interview draws to a close, the guitarists make their obligatory final comments. Then, almost as an aside, Borland says, "I miss you guys a lot, by the way." Head pauses, puts down his milk carton and responds, "Yeah, can't wait to hook up."

Aw, maybe these porno-pushing reprobates have feelings after all.

By Steve Appleford

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