Chords for Korn's Brian 'Head' Welch on Jonathan Davis 'Suffering' + New Album

What's up?
This is Head from Korn.
You're watching Loudwire.
_ _ _ Hey [N] everyone, Graham from Loudwire here joined by Brian Head Welch of Korn.
Thank you so much for
coming by.
Hi!
What's up man?
It's good to see you again.
The Serenity of Suffering.
This is your
second album back into Korn since your departure, but I feel like this is somewhat of a more
important one because this is really your first time back after spending years with the band on
tour and being around the guys so much.
So you know as opposed to like getting right back into
it and making a record you know.
So how was the recording process different in this sense?
Was
it different with the chemistry between you guys?
Oh wow.
Well the first record back it was like,
hey you guys, oh my gosh it's been so long.
And we met into the studio and started work on music
right away.
So you're right, I've had a chance to get to know everybody and live with them.
And so this record it was just like we were focused more.
We were like what's Korn about?
You know and it was always about the live shows, the intensity live.
And so that's what we tried
to capture on this record to have fun live shows.
The other record was cool.
I still like the songs
on it, but it just they didn't really translate the songs live as well.
Some of them did,
not just not all of them.
But so and then we got Nick Raskolniks who did like Diamond Eyes and
you know and that other one I can't pronounce from the Deftones.
He did Alice in Chains.
Koyo.
Yeah Koyo, Koyo, Koyo.
And then he did a lot of the Foo Fighters just energetic stuff.
And so
he's really he came in he's like okay you guys he's really a good very polite
critiquer.
So he's nice but he'll tell you what's wrong with your band.
And so he came in and was
just like man you guys haven't done this and I want to hear this as a fan.
I used to flip burgers
to you guys you know listen to you guys back in the day.
And so we just took it we we were focused
on what we wanted.
Nick as a fan knew what to pull out of us and Jonathan though he had to kind
of fall in love with heavy music again because you know he went his own way with electronics and
stuff.
Sure.
And so with me and Monkey back it was just like you know we really need to be guitar
focused and we you can't put us back together and just have a little bit guitars.
Like we need to be
just firing on all cylinders like Monkey likes to say.
Yeah.
And so Nick really helped us do that
and Jonathan it was a little hard at first.
He was like not feeling it.
And the last thing you want
to do is like hear your singer say he's not feeling the music that you're writing.
And so it was hard
and but but he Jonathan's so awesome and he was like he was like I want to I want to make the
band happy and I want to you know I want to like it but I just it's hard for me.
And so he started
falling in love with it again and so it grew on him and grew on him and then once he got the lyrics
down he was like okay this is awesome.
And he was down with it.
Yeah.
Wow.
So I think you know
talking about you and Monkey there's always been something very special between you two like
especially when you're kind of like trading licks back and forth like in the beginning of Blind.
Like so then you have the song Black is the Soul.
Was there trading on that too?
Because it sort of
reminded me of that back and forth.
Totally.
Yeah.
Yeah.
Nick that's one of the things Nick was
critiquing he's like you guys man you guys like are guitar twins man you guys like you need to go
back and forth like you did in those early albums just cool.
And so I agree with him that's a good
call from him I think.
One thing that I always kind of associate with a great Korn song is sort of that
weird like skin crawling uncomfortable kind of twisted feeling.
So when you guys are in the
studio when you feel that kind of feeling like oh we've tapped into that is that like an enjoyable
sensation for you?
Oh yeah totally.
It's just like because you know it's like what we started the band
to do you know to get that feeling.
And so when I feel that when all of us do it's just it's really
because you know you know we're playing this summer's been great with Zombie.
It's like
we love playing with Zombie.
It's been like awesome.
We're averaging 12,000 people a night
and it's just been so awesome.
And so but we know what's gonna like connect us with our fans and so
when we feel that feeling in the studio and we know we envision going out and playing in front
of the how many ever people every night you know it's like oh this song's gonna go off it's gonna
be so fun because we are the ones that have to play the songs night after night after night after
night.
So we have to like it and so when we get that feeling it's it's a good feeling.
The Serenity
of Suffering album title songs like Rotting in Vain it just reminds me of sort of this comfortable
feeling that people can get in their own depression.
I feel like songs like Rotting in Vain
speak to that.
Is that something that you guys wanted to capture?
I think so.
I think Jonathan
finds a serenity in suffering.
He's so nice.
The guy's so sweet and he lets people kind of
walk over him even to this day.
Yeah he just he he puts up a lot.
If he loves someone
they can like you know they can do damage on him and he'll just he'll just be you know he'll stick
it out and he'll believe the best and everything and so he's done it with friends he's done it
with loved ones and so so he finds serenity in that because I don't know it's just and and for me
personally like Serenity of Suffering I know there's a promise like in my faith and everything
there's a promise that when you walk through something it's like you get paid back for it.
It's like you something good is going to come always from something bad so that's my serenity
and suffering but yeah but Jonathan is just going back to him he's just like he's a special guy man
and I mean no one's perfect but he's just he's a really nice guy I mean so yeah I feel bad for him
but it seems to work out good for Korn.
All right.
His suffering.
You know he's made us a lot of hap
made us very happy with his suffering.
I want to thank you so much for dropping by again I
appreciate it so much.
You know that.
Love you guys too.
The Serenity of Suffering October 21st.
Brian Head Welch from Korn.
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