KORN guitarist Brian "Head" Welch spoke to Meltdown of the WRIF radio station about the progress of the songwriting sessions for the band's follow-up to 2016's "The Serenity Of Suffering" album. He said (hear audio below): "We have been taking our time — taking a break. A month with the family, a couple of weeks in the studio writing. So where we're at is we're done with the drums of the songs that we've written, and I think we're gonna write more. And the guitars aren't done yet. The bass is far from being done. Vocals have been messed with a little bit. And so we're taking our time, man. And we're gonna hit it hard the beginning of the year and hopefully get this thing knocked out."

He continued: "We've taken the biggest break that we have in years, and it was meant to be. Someone's watching over us, because Jonathan [Davis, KORN singer] and his tragedy that he's gone through, he needed time off and he needed to focus on things more. So, yeah, it's been good, but we can't wait to get back, man. We've got things cooking, so we're hoping to make some announcements early next year."

Davis's estranged wife's died in August at the age of 39. The former girl-on-girl porn star suffered with sobriety and substance abuse throughout her life.

Welch told Good Company earlier in the year that KORN's next disc would likely be "a combination of maybe both ['The Serenity Of Suffering'] and [2013's 'The Paradigm Shift']. We'll try some new stuff though, but we're gonna definitely focus on guitars again."

Earlier in the year, Davis said that there were "really good ideas" and "cool grooves" in some of the early material that had been written for KORN's next album. The singer also shot down as false Internet speculation that the band is using outside writers for material for its next studio album. "We're writing everything; we're still writing our own music," he said.

"The Serenity Of Suffering" marked the second KORN album since the return of Welch.