​Korn It's (Still) On!

Published Nov 15, 2016

to make the music really dark and different-sounding and lower," he says in

Louder Than Hell

. Unlike a traditional six-string, whose lowest string is an "E," seven-string guitars have a low "B" making it easier for players to hit lower, heavier-sounding notes.

His dad Rick played in bands with Arvizu's father and Arvizu's mother babysat Davis for a time. Arvizu and Davis had even hung out a bit, through their dads, as teens. "

She made it her mission to make life so miserable for me that I wanted to move out."

"My favourite band was Duran Duran. I was a child of the '80s," he'll explain to Rolling Stone in 2014. "I loved more of the gothic and romantic kinda shit."

"I stuck out, I was this big dork, basically, and I suffered for it greatly," he'll tell Melody Maker. "I was picked on, called a faggot. Just because I wore makeup and they didn't know how to deal with it." Davis gets the homophobic nickname "HIV," which he later has tattooed on his upper left arm. He begins DJing, working with an events company playing dances and parties around Bakersfield. Although he identifies as heterosexual, constant taunting about his sexuality leads Davis to experiment with a 28-year old man. "I was very in touch with my feminine side and I acted upon it." When he decides he wants out of the relationship, the older man threatens to beat-up the young Davis's parents. Backed into a corner, Davis tells his father, who ensures the issue is "sorted." However, he continues to be embarrassed by his son.

"I'd come to work at his music store and he'd go, 'That's some kid I hired.'" At 17, he gets a job placement at the coroner's office doing autopsies. Davis leaves the house at 18 and attends mortuary school. "I liked trying to figure out how people died," he says in Louder than Hell. "You're cutting a fucking person open and you're not going to jail, that's awesome." Around the same time he begins drinking, as well as dabbling with speed and cocaine, to block out the trauma of his childhood.

1993 to 1995

Arvizu, Shaffer and Welch convince Davis to quit Sexart and his relatively lucrative job as a mortician and move to L.A.

The band weren't dark yet; it had, like, killer grooves and good riffs, but there was some happy edge to it," Ross Robinson will tell Rolling Stone. "When [Davis] walked into the room, it went dark and goth."

Robinson meets a band called Deftones at their show in Bakersfield. They give him one of their demo tapes. Korn hear the tape and, recognizing kindred spirits, book a gig with the Sacramento band. "Jon and Chino [Moreno, Deftones lead singer] were doing almost the same moves and wearing Adidas jumpsuits," recalls Arvizu in Louder Than Hell. The two groups become fast friends.

They field offers from Warner Bros. and Epic Records, but ultimately sign with Immortal because they had signed Cypress Hill, House of Pain and Funkdoobiest. In 1993, they record a demo called

recording raw and vintage, the album wouldn't sound dated, ever. So we didn't have any '80s reverbs." There's a cabin on the property where the band sleeps, although they are more often partying, inviting friends and getting extremely drunk.

Further complicating matters, Davis and Head are both addicted to crystal meth. They trick Robinson into taking them on a drug run before recording the vocals for "Ball Tongue." The group's rowdy behaviour leads studio owner Richard Kaplan to threaten to kick the band out. During the day however, Robinson, a health-nut, would push things like wheatgrass chlorophyll on the band, balancing out their intake.

After leaving Indigo, vocals are recorded in Davis's father's studio Fat Track. Davis tells Rolling Stone, "[Robinson] had his way and was digging in to me and pulling shit out. I was already writing stuff about it, but to get the performance out, he really just poured salt on the wound." Davis breaks down into tears while recording the vocals for "Daddy," a song about Davis's molestation as a child and his parents' subsequent refusal to believe his claims. Robinson keeps recording, encouraging the band to jam out the song's ending while Davis sobs in the vocal booth. This is the take that makes it to the album.

Korn

is released in October. It sells 1100 copies in its first week. In 2014 Rolling Stone will call the album "the most important metal album of the last 20 years." The band shoot videos for "Blind," "Shoots and Ladders," "Clown" and "Faget" (which is not officially released) with a young director named McG, who later gains fame directing the Charlie's Angels films and producing the TV series The O.C. "Shoots and Ladders" is notable for its lyrics — which consist of Davis reciting nursery rhymes — and its bagpipe intro, played by Davis. The use of bagpipes becomes one of the band's calling cards, appearing on numerous Korn recordings.

The band head out on tour with Biohazard and House of Pain.

We were into everything, from Pantera to Ice Cube," Welch tells Rolling Stone. "We liked the samples on the Cypress Hill stuff. The first record was about mimicking some of the hip-hop stuff that was going on in that day." They buy an RV for the trip. Davis kicks his speed addiction on the four-day drive from Huntington Beach to Atlanta.

They tour with Marilyn Manson and Danzig the following year and eventually play a handful of shows opening for Ozzy Osbourne in 1996. "Our music was so new," Davis will tell ArtistDirect.com in 2011. "It was just us and Deftones, and nobody knew what to do with us or where to classify us. We were touring with all of these different genres of music."

At the Jacksonville, FL stop on the band's 1995 tour opening for Sick of It All, the band meet Fred Durst, singer in local act Limp Bizkit. Claiming to be a tattoo artist, Durst invites the band for drinks and attempts to draw a "Korn" logo on Head's back. However the resulting ink reads "Nor" instead. Nevertheless the two bands become friendly and Korn asks Limp Bizkit to open for them on several tours.

There was an urgency to get back into the studio as soon as we got off the road," Shaffer tells Artistdirect.com, "I remember going straight back into the rehearsal studio and writing new songs. Everything about it was chaotic."

"A.D.I.D.A.S," an acronym for All Day I Dream About Sex, is the first song written for the record and along with "No Place to Hide" becomes one of the band's signature songs.

It was like 'Life Is Peachy,' but there's a dark side to it,

people [were] getting blowjobs right behind me, there were girls banging each other in front of me, people getting boned in the closet right behind me," Davis tells Scuzz TV in 2013. For his part, he refuses to start the session until Wright gets him an eight ball of cocaine.

The resulting album,

long on mood and short on gripping songs, or even memorable riffs."

Sometimes they stumble…but as sheer galvanizing force,

Korn III

delivers due to that combination of raw aggression and musical finesse," says Allmusic.com

Tempos at 140 with half-time drums, huge bassed-out riffs. We used to bring out 120 subwoofers and line them across the whole front of the stage, 60 subs per side. We were all about the bass." To pretty much everyone's surprise, the sonic shift works surprisingly well. Allmusic.com calls the record one of the band's better efforts.

Once again the band embark on a world tour in support of the release, with Davis's JDevil project one of their opening acts.

I had it out with producer Ross Robinson about that, because he just took our sound and gave it to Sepultura." Still, Davis admits that it is a good record and that Sepultura were a major influence for the band.