KORN's Next Album Will 'End Up A Heavier Record,' Says BRIAN 'HEAD' WELCH

March 23, 2016

KORN is continuing work on its twelfth studio album, due out later this year. The band's guitarist Brian "Head" Welch spoke to Billboard.com about the direction of the new disc. "Me and James ['Munky' Shaffer, other KORN guitarist] wanted to go heavier on the record, because we're the guitar players and KORN was a guitar-heavy band," he said. "The last record that we did [2013's 'The Paradigm Shift'] 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. So after three years, we went into this album, and we're focusing on guitars and spending a lot of time on them. It sounds really good, and I think it's going to end up a heavier record."

Welch said in a 2015 interview with "Do You Know Jack?" that KORN's new music was "heavier than anyone's heard KORN in a long time."

Welch added 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.

KORN singer Jonathan Davis told Noisey that "The Paradigm Shift" was one of his favorite records, in part because it was the first KORN album to be made since Welch's return to the band. "I wasn't there during the writing sessions when he was there, because I was going through hell coming off of benzodiazepines and all kinds of shit, trying to get my mental shit in check," he said. "I'd been on that medicine for a long time and it really gets you fucked up when you come off it. It makes your brain rewired one way and then it shifts back to another way. So I was whacked out of my mind. But I was just happy to have Head back, and I was trying to get my shit together and my life together. It wasn't like I was a drug addict, but I was medicated by a doctor for so long and it was time for me to come off. If you're on for too long, you have to take them for the rest of your life. And I wanted to do the record using some of those elements from 'The Path Of Totality' and taking it a little bit farther."

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