Korn guitarist Brian ‘Head’ Welch wants to write the band’s 12th album with live audiences in mind.
He says that’s the way they used to work – and revisiting their debut release on stage recently has turned his thoughts back to those early days.
The focus on performance echoes recent comments by bandmate Munky, who suggested the possibility of delivering DJ-style sets featuring sections of songs instead of full ones.
Head tells Puregrain Audio: “We’re talking at the moment about taking a couple of months off and going in straight away as it will probably take the rest of the year for us to do the album.”
Asked whether revisiting their self-titled 1994 debut has affected their thinking on material, the guitarist replies: “I’m hoping. We won’t go back and do that record again, obviously – but I was telling Jonathan Davis that I wanted to do some more faster-tempo stuff again.
“When Korn wrote songs we’d think about the live show. You can write good songs all day long, but if they’re not fun live then you’re stuck playing them for years.
“Korn used to always think, ‘What would the crowd be like if we played this?’ I want to do that on this new record. I don’t want to go out there and play songs over and over that are boring.”
Head returned to the band in 2013 after an eight-year absence during which his colleagues developed a strong relationship with recent tourmates Slipknot.
The guitarist admits: “They’re so brutal – I told Mick Thomson and Jim Root the other day that, at first, it was too heavy for me. I wasn’t into that whole thrashy thing, but Corey was always just something else.
“Whereas Jonathan was raw and emotional when we came out, Corey was just like, ‘I’ll rip your soul out!’
“It was just another level of angry and hatred. The man is a machine, he doesn’t stop. For 15 years it’s just poured out of him. He’s a poet.”
Former Korn drummer David Silveria launched legal action against his ex-colleages earlier this month, revealing he’d pleaded to be allowed to rejoin the band for their 20th anniversary tour. The current lineup play a one-off show at London’s Brixton Academy on July 16.
