korn FAQ - tom's korn page

how did the band come together?
when head and fieldy were about 15 they used to jam together on the guitar. brian said i know this person at school that could play as a second guitarist. so they called munky and asked him if he wanted to come down and try out. "it wasn't even if i could play or not, it was i had long hair," -munky so now they were looking for a drummer. david is only like 13. he hears about them wanting a drummer, and even though he didn't know them he still called them. so they all went down to david's house and played in his garage. that all agreed that david was bad at drums. that's how that part of the band got together.
head and munky are looking for a singer. the go to this club, and this band, sex art, is playing. they were just about to leave when they heard jonathan, the singer of that band, start to sing. they both turned to each other in amazement. so they stayed and watched the rest of the show. they got a hold of jonathan and asked if he wanted to come try out. jonathan didn't want to do it, so he went to a psychic. the psychic told him that he was stupid if he didn't do it. at the first practice they played a song and jon sung the lyrics to it, and it just clicked.

how did the band get it's name?
this is a rumor, but not confirmed to be correct. when jon was still with sex art, he was at a party in his home town of bakersfield. he was talking to the two gays, and they told him this story: one of was eating the others butthole. the one being eaten had the runs, and he crapped in the other's mouth. when the one without diarrhea opened his mouth there was a corn kernel on his tongue. then after jon told this story to others he would keep saying corn to gross them out. he got use to saying this, and when it was time to decide on a name for his new band he blurted out corn.

how did korn get it's logo?
after the band had already got a record deal and everything, they realized they needed a logo, and fast. jonathan took a big black crayon, and with his left hand skribbled out korn.

how did the band get their nicknames?
munky: james can spread his toes out like a hand, and everybody said they look like monkey hands.
head: brian has a really big head, no hats will fit him. that's why you only see him wearing stretchable beanies.
fieldy: had these chipmunk cheeks when he was younger, so they called him garfield, then it turned into gar, then they started calling him garfield, then it became fieldy.
hiv: jonathan has a tattoo that says hiv on his arm. other kids made fun of him when he was younger so he got the tattoo to show he didn't give a shit.

what was jonathan's childhood like?
from what i've heard all the kids picked on him. they called him a faggot, and said he had hiv. his aunt was a psychic, and he said it was cool having all the psychics around him all the time. for a while jonathan was a mortician. he said he saw some pretty sick things, like a baby that died because it's legs were broken due to molestation by it's father (the song "pretty" on follow the leader). when jonathan finally decided he wanted to become a singer, his father, being a priest (from what i heard), did not support his decision. his father said he didn't want him to have the kind of life where one minute your rich the next minute your poor (wooops!)..there's also a little more behind the story....

munky's finger:
when munky was a teenager he was trying to sneak out in the middle of the night on his 3-wheeler. his finger got caught in the chain, and squished the tip of his finger. when james went to the doctor, he was told he needed to rehabilitate his finger by taking up an instrument or something. right away munky thought about that guitar in his closet, so he started playing guitar.

jonathan's "hiv" tattoo:
jonathan has a tattoo that says "hiv" on his arm. jonathan does not have hiv. he got this tattoo to show all the people that used to make fun of him, and say he had hiv that he doesn't care.

lyrics to twist:
jonathan isn't saying anything in twist. "i'm not saying a god damn thing" -jonathan davis.

life is peachy album name:
korn named their 2nd album life is peachy because they say that's exactly the opposite of what it is.

lowrider vocals:
head is the one singing lowrider, but he is using vocal effects.

a.d.i.d.a.s:
jonathan's son nathan sings parts in a.d.i.d.a.s.

wicked:
chino, the lead singer from deftones sings most of the lyrics in wicked, along with jon in the background and 1 verse.

chi:
chi (track 2 from life is peachy) is named after the bassist and backup vocals from deftones.

korn's pedals:
after munky and head buy there effects pedals, i believe it's ross robinson (their producer), that opens them up and makes them better. also during the making of life is peachy, korn spent $2000 on effects pedals.

sepultura & korn:
jonathan wrote the lyrics to lookaway (track 8 off of sepultura’s roots cd), and he sings the vocals along with mike patton, and max cavalera. and david plays percussion (drums) on ratamahatta (track 4 off of sepultura's roots cd), which sepultura made a bad ass claymation video for. also sepultura borrowed korn's distortion pedals for the making of roots, since korn customizes their pedals. for all you sepultura fans out there, i've got some bad news, sepultura broke up. max left the group, and i believe andreas kisser sang for the rest of their tour. i guess what happened was the band got mad at the producer who is max's wife, and the band wanted to kick her out, but max said if she goes he's going too. now max has a new band called soulfly.

blind:
sexart was the band that originally wrote the song "blind". denis and ryan are credited for it on the video, but deroo and chaka were not because korn rewrote the bass and some guitar parts, eliminating what deroo and chaka had contributed to the sexart version. the lyrics and other parts are very much the same, though. the riff for the chorus of "need to" was originally used in the lapd song "excuse me", before it was later changed to "alive".

what the hell does “korn” mean?
the name "korn" is rumored to come from a party that jonathan was at where he overheard two homosexuals talking about felching each other. one had diarrhea and shat on the others face and when he opened his mouth a corn kernel was on his tongue. from then on, whenever he said corn to anyone, they would get close to puking, hence the altered korn (the way a child would spell it).

sean olson:
sean olson, from the crow 2: city of angels soundtrack, is actually the name of a close friend of the band, supposedly the first jock that jonathan considered a friend. he is also thanked by the deftones in their album, "adrenaline".

el caco:
el caco is the guy heard during the intro of "helmet in the bush". his real name is michael, and he likes taco bell. he has been friends with the band for years. david has said that the baby inside the self-titled album behind where the cd goes (and on the cover of the "blind" promo) is the charmin' baby. they put a wig on it and changed its eye around a little bit.

the cover of "korn":
on the cover of the self-titled album, the man in the shadow is holding something in his hand. when asked about what it was, jonathan said, "i'd like to leave it up to your imagination, but i like to say it's a horseshoe."

the deftones:
when asked about the deftones, korn says, "deftones are like our brother band. when we were in california, they were from the north, we were from the south, we used to switch up and down the coast and when we play together we usually do a song together."

what is that on hidden track at the end of “daddy” on korn (self-titled)?
that clip of the argument that plays at the end of "daddy", about 8:00 into the song, is not related to the band in any way. it was on a tape vthat a studio engineer had while korn was recording the album, and they thought it was amusing, so they decided to put it on.

the lyrics:
jonathan has said that the lyrics of the first album are mainly about his childhood, and the lyrics from "life is peachy" are about his experiences on the road over the last couple of years.

life is pee-chee?
"life is peachy" was originally supposed to be titled "life is pee-chee", after the pee-chee folders that were popular school supplies on the west coast, with the cover art being a replica of one of those folders. that name is copyrighted, however, so they had to change it to "life is peachy".