Producer Ross Robinson has told Metal Hammer that he’s finally come to terms with the idea of being called “the Godfather of Nu Metal”.
In a wide-ranging interview in the brand new issue of Metal Hammer, Robinson – who helped shape nu metal with his work on Korn’s debut album and, later, with the likes of Limp Bizkit and Slipknot – admitted that he spent years trying to distance himself from the scene.
“I was extremely resistant to it when they started doing it during the Glassjaw days [the New York post-hardcore band he began working with in 2000],” Robinson tells Metal Hammer. “I didn’t wanna be lumped in with all of the followers and the scene of silliness that happened afterwards, and I had a problem with that. Now, I think it’s sweet. If people wanna call me that, good.”
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In the same interview, Robinson looks back on working on Korn’s debut album, revealing how he coaxed Jonathan Davis’ harrowing performance on the song Daddy out of the vocalist.
“I just went up to him and held his arms, looked straight in his eyes and said, ‘You need to do it,’ and he goes, ‘I know,’ and that was it. And I still, to this day, haven’t been able to get that deep of a performance from anybody. His heart was exploding, and I think we made musical history.”
Robinson also recalls working with Slipknot on their 1999 self-titled debut album. While sessions were characteristically full-on, the producer says there were breaks from the intensity.
“There was a time where skunks were coming around Indigo [Ranch, Robinson’s studio], ’cos it was up in the mountains in Malibu, and I told Mick [Thomson, guitar], ‘Dude, if you catch one of those skunks, and give it a death growl right in its face, I’ll give you two hundred bucks.’ He stripped all the way down to his black bikini briefs, he looked like [something out of] Metalocalypse, looking for this skunk underneath a trailer that they’d hang out in, but he never got it. He turned out OK, he got plenty of money…”
You can read the full interview with Ross Robinson in the brand new issue of Metal Hammer, featuring Five Finger Death Punch on the cover and out now. Order your copy here.
