KORN's BRIAN 'HEAD' WELCH: JONATHAN DAVIS 'Started Falling In Love With Heavy Music Again'

In a brand new interview with Two Doods Reviews, KORN guitarist Brian "Head" Welch was asked how he and his multi-million-selling bandmates manage to make music that is still relevant and full of angst, nearly three decades after the group's inception. He replied (hear audio below): "Well, there's a lot of other things in life that can wrong. And when you have money, it's not like everything's perfect. Like, our latest record, our singer's [Jonathan Davis] wife passed away during the writing of the record, so that's where we got the angst for the last record [2019's 'The Nothing']. The couple of records before that, when I just rejoined and everything, it was him really getting his aggressions out on the fact that she was very sick and she was a massive addict. Then we was writing songs a lot about that. The dude is tortured soul, man. I'm telling you. In order to be Jonathan Davis, he needs to go through all this trauma. But all of us in life go through shit, so that's what we've done with our band — is process pain."

Welch also elaborated on the writing process for "The Nothing", saying: "Going in with the music was the same thing — we go in and we just start. We get in a room and start jamming and come up with riffs. Like I said, our singer's wife passed away and then things changed. I wouldn't say the writing of the music changed, [but] I think the purpose of the record was changing, and it was just really, really heavy. And we didn't even know when we'd get started back into it. But I would say that's what made it different. And another thing cool is that Jonathan started falling in love with heavy music again. 'Cause he went through his different styles that he liked and whatnot. And I don't know — he's come back around. And I'm a heavy guy — I love heavy, heavy music. And so does Munky, the other guitar player, so we were quite happy and quite pleased to hear him saying that he wants to go back in that direction."

This past September, "The Nothing" debuted at No. 8 on the Billboard 200 chart with 33,000 equivalent album units earned (of which 29,000 were in album sales) in its first week of release. KORN tied VAN HALEN for the fifth-most top 10s on the chart among rock bands; ahead of them: THE ROLLING STONES, with 37, THE BEATLES (32),DAVE MATTHEWS BAND (16) and SANTANA (16). "The Nothing" is KORN's 14th Billboard 200 top 10 album.

"The Nothing" was released on September 13 via Roadrunner/Elektra. The follow-up to 2016's "The Serenity Of Suffering" was once again produced by Nick Raskulinecz.