Over the course of three decades, the Bakersfield, California nu-metal band Korn has remained a beloved act in the world of mainstream heavy metal. If you attend a Korn concert today, not only are you going to find fans in their 30s to 40s who grew up loving them, but you’re also going to find younger fans as well.
And according to Baroness frontman John Baizley, he has an interesting take regarding the nu-metal act’s longevity.
It’s during a recent interview with MetalSucks that Baizley shares his hot take on Korn. The Baroness singer and guitarist starts off by talking about how he was not fond of Korn when he first heard them. He then jumps to many years later, bringing up last year’s Download Festival, and sharing that he watched Korn perform live.
What Baizley saw from the band, and the audience around him, absolutely amazed him. It was upon seeing that performance that Baizley developed his interesting take on Korn. Here’s what Baroness’ John Baizley has to say about the nu-metal legends (as transcribed by The Pit):
“I remember when Korn put out a demo tape and I remember saying to myself two things: The first thing I said was ‘This is not for me,’ in much stronger terms than that. Much, much stronger terms than that. The second thing I thought to myself, coming out of punk rock and metal, it’s pretty easy to be less than congratulatory towards Korn; they operate in a different sphere than us and have for many years.
“But last year, we were playing Download Festival in England; I just happened to be out in the crowd ’cause I wanted to see what has kept Korn in this business so long. I was in a crowd of like, 30-40 thousand people and like, half my age – 20 years old, 17 years old.
“It was an unfuckwithable [sic] performance by Korn. I had to eat my humble pie and put my foot in my mouth, because when you see an audience that size responding like that, and the band is so obviously firing on all cylinders and has that level of talent – I’m always going to be impressed.
“The thing I disliked about them back then is the thing that I really appreciate about them now: It’s very weird music, at that scale. At that scale of being a headliner at a major European hard rock/heavy metal festival and bringing it that hard. Being that weird; I mean, there’s scat, there’s bizarre guitar playing – it really is weird – slap bass.