Band helped recast metal, inspiring other musicians, teen-age misfits

By CHRIS PAGE, Californian staff writer
e-mail: cpage@bakersfield.com

Sunday November 10, 2002, 12:00:00 AM

History has a way of glossing over the bumps.

Korn wasn't blazing an entirely new trail when it released its debut album of heavy rock music in 1994. Inspiration came everywhere, from hip-hop a la Cypress Hill to funk-metal acts Faith No More and Rage Against the Machine. And as for darkness and introspection, today's Korn fans could have been yesterday's Nine Inch Nails fans.

"Korn completely rejuvenated heavy metal," wrote music critic Kevin Boyce, managing editor of the College Music Journal, in an e-mail interview with The Californian. "Instead of focusing their lyrics on heavy metal's stereotypical themes of evil and sophomoric debauchery, Korn focused within. Suddenly, instead of Dio battling mythic dragons, you had (Korn singer) Jonathan Davis battling his parents and high school bullies ...

"Every frustration, rejection, hostility and unloved moment that Jonathan Davis had ever experienced in his life was being systematically and therapeutically divulged on that first Korn album. Every unpopular high school kid in the United States suddenly had a voice."

When the smoke clears on the stage of rock history, it's likely Korn will be remembered as the father of what's either called alternative-metal or nue-metal -- inspiring acts like Limp Bizkit, the Deftones and Linkin Park to make an even denser (though much more commercial) hybrid of rap and metal.

It wasn't calculated. In the early stage of its career, the band wasn't sure how young listeners would be affected by the band's music. For Davis, penning dark, introspective lyrics was nothing more than expressing personal pain.

"I had no idea, when we put out the first album, that we'd have that kind of crazy response," Davis said in a telephone interview with The Californian. "I had kids coming up and telling me I was helping them out."

That Korn achieved its popularity at a time when high school frustration also translated into tragedies like the Columbine shootings was not lost on Korn's fans and critics. But to squelch some of the controversy, the band does not print its lyrics in CD inserts.

Since the mid-'90s, Korn has also innovated the way in which bands communicate with their fans. On the Internet, it set up special Web sites like www.KornTV.com, which offers behind-the-scenes videos to hype new albums. It created an online pay-based fan club, and asked site visitors to pick songs for upcoming shows. The band also developed an elaborate e-mail database and mailing list to keep fans up to date.

The Bakersfield-born band has defined just how a music group can market itself in an MP3-easy era that makes spending $18 on an album seem pointless. The key: Think value-added. Albums are crammed with goodies like music video clips for the band's more computer-savvy listeners.

The biggest sonic innovation of Korn's career, though, has been in using the seven-string guitar.

The instrument functions like a normal six-string, but an extra string -- a low B -- was originally used by some jazz musicians for extra chord voicings.

Rock instrumental guitarist Steve Vai discovered the instrument and had guitar manufacturer Ibanez make his own model in the early '90s. He used it heavily on his 1990 album, "Passion and Warfare." When Korn guitarists Brian "Head" Welch and James "Munky" Shaffer heard that album, they were impressed enough to try out seven-strings for themselves.

But while Vai used the extra string to help finger speedy solos without having to move his hand up and down the guitar's fretboard, Shaffer and Welch played low power chords with distortion, making for a monstrous sound that went well below the grind of most other heavy metal acts. They even tuned their guitars a whole step down, making that low B rumble to a low A.

By the time Korn started to make waves in the mid-'90s, Ibanez was ceasing production on its seven-strings. The crowd of alternative rockers didn't want flashy riffs or solos. But Korn made other rock guitarists, like Wes Borland of Limp Bizkit, consider adding new sonic depth to their arsenal of sounds.

"All of a sudden, our phones started ringing again," said Ibanez spokesman Paul Specht.

Soon, seven-string guitars could be found in guitar shops across the country. The members of Korn got their own model of Ibanez seven-strings in 2001, which sell to the public under the model "K7." Arvizu Jr.'s five-string bass model is "K5."

Later, Welch and Shaffer took the turntable scratching and sampling of hip-hop and interpreted it on their guitars.

"Instead of sampling P-Funk beats and eerie synthesizer melodies like a good deal of gangsta rappers do, Korn did it live," wrote Boyce, of CMJ. "They completely reinvented how to play the guitar."

These days, Specht said, sales of the seven-string guitar have peaked. It's another indication of what music critics have been pointing to as a sign that alternative-metal by bands like Korn are on the way out.

Korn's latest album, "Untouchables" (which cost a reported $3 million to make) has fallen off the Billboard album chart's top 100 list since its June release -- though Korn tour mates TRUSTcompany are at No. 88 for "The Lonely Position of Neutral." Many critics have said "Untouchables" is the weakest of Korn's five albums.

"There are some songs on 'Untouchables' that sound like Korn looked at the success of Linkin Park and said, 'Wait a minute. We should try that. We should be making that money -- that's our sound!'" Boyce wrote. "But what Korn doesn't understand is that they are being influenced by a band that was clearly influenced by them. Ultimately, they are beginning to sound like a parody of themselves."

But Boyce still holds out faith in Korn's ability to rock audiences in its live show. After all, the critic himself has seen the band play five times.

"In a live setting, there isn't a band in the world that is more powerful and impressive than Korn," Boyce wrote. "I've always appreciated that the five guys in Korn manage to gel into one sonic beast when they are on stage."