Jonathan Davis – Korn ‘Failed Miserably’ to Recapture Past on ‘Korn III’ Album
In 2010, Korn released Korn III: Remember Who You Are, but did they succeed in the mission statement the title inferred? While speaking with Australia's Music Feeds, singer Jonathan Davis shared his disappointment about the record.
Davis was asked about the band's later era recordings and if there was any of them were he felt flattened by the reaction. The singer responded, "I think Korn III: Remember Who You Are. That was hard because we were trying to recapture something and it was way in the past and we failed miserably."
The singer continued, "I mean, I like the record, but it wasn't fun to make because [producer] Ross [Robinson] was doing his methods and he really turned them on really hard. And it was just a fucked up, weird time in the band when we did that."
At the time, Korn's lineup was missing two of the members who originally had worked with Robinson back in their early days as drummer Ray Luzier had replaced David Silveria behind the kit and guitarist Brian "Head" Welch had exited the band after 2003's Take a Look in the Mirror album.
While the album did initially debut at No. 2, it did not fare as well commercially as most of their earlier work. The album did yield two singles - "Oildale," which hit No. 10 on the Billboard Mainstream Rock chart, and "Let the Guilt Go," which peaked at No. 23 on the same chart.
Where Korn attempted to recapture the magic of their early sound on Korn III, they went a completely different direction with the 2011 follow-up, which found the band experimenting with the growing popularity of dubstep music on The Path of Totality.
Korn will return with their 14th studio album, Requiem, this Friday (Feb. 4). The album has already yielded the singles "Start the Healing," "Forgotten" and "Lost in the Grandeur."