BRIAN 'HEAD' WELCH Says Upcoming KORN Album Has 'A Lot Of Aggression'

KORN guitarist Brian "Head" Welch spoke to Music Radar about the progress of the recording sessions for the band's twelfth studio album, due out later this year.

"Being back in KORN is just incredible," he said. "Being back in the band for [2013's] 'The Paradigm Shift' was awesome. It meant so much to me to be back in the band and I enjoyed making that album; it was a slightly different sound for KORN. But then nothing satisfies me more than this new record that we're doing right now, though. It feels like who we are, but it feels like on this record we're working on now, it feels like we've come back to what KORN started out as."

Elaborating on the new record's musical direction, Welch said: "There's a lot of aggression on this new album. We just had fun, we sat down together in a studio and jammed out for six to eight hours a day. We just wrote together in the studio. It feels like we're at a really great point in our career. It just feels like KORN."

Welch previously told Billboard.com that he and fellow KORN guitarist James "Munky" Shaffer "wanted to go heavier on the [next] record, because we're the guitar players and KORN was a guitar-heavy band. The last record that we did was me coming back. I saw them at a show, played one song with them, and a few weeks later, was in the studio with them writing new songs. We didn't have any time to hang out. To live with everyone on the road and to function in the band, with the fans and business together for three years, we really connected and felt comfortable."

Welch said in a 2015 interview with "Do You Know Jack?" that touring with SLIPKNOT in 2014 inspired KORN to get back to a heavier sound, saying, "I think it sparked and reminded everybody in the band what KORN started out to be."

KORN last fall completed a North American tour on which the band performed its debut album in its entirety at every stop.