From an interview that aired in May, 1997, on the MAX, a music channel that broadcasts in Auckland, New Zealand.

KORN IN NEW ZEALAND

Fieldy: Good. Chillin' like a (dunno what he says here).

MAX: How long have you guys been in town?

Munky: About 12 hours.

MAX: 12 hours, not much.

Munky: Oh, a little longer than that, about 18.

MAX: So what do you think of it?

Munky: We like it.

MAX: Cool. So have you had a chance to see much or have you just been working, like radio stations and the rest?

Munky: A little bit last night, went out to a couple of bars.... the control room....

Fieldy: He was telling everyone what to do in that room.

MAX: So how's the material off Life Is Peachy going now?

Fieldy: It's all good in my neighborhood.

MAX: So like, your last tour was 18 months long and you've done full-on tours with Ozzy Osbourne; that man springs to mind, Marilyn Manson, KMFDM, was that your first big tour?

Munky: Ozzy Osbourne, no. I think our first big tour was Danzig. (Fieldy sticks a branch thing in Munky's hair and blows him a kiss)

MAX: So you did like this whole big stretch of touring?

Munky: What now? So.... what was the question?

MAX: Oh, I was just wondering if that was your first stretch of touring, like when you guys made the first record and went on the road for a long time, is that the first big touring experience you had?

Munky: Yeah.

Fieldy: Pretty much.

MAX: Straight out.

Fieldy: Straight outta Compton.

MAX: Or Bakersfield. That experience on tour, did it help shape the new record?

Munky: Yeah, I think so. We didn't write nothin' on the road.

Fieldy: For 2 years.

Munky: Yeah, we didn't write nothin' for 2 years, then we had a lot of creativity build up, like blue balls of creativity. In the studio it just kinda spewed out.

MAX: How did you manipulate it and get all the material together?

Munky: Just got in the studio and started jamming, started working ideas. The ideas just bounce off each other.

MAX: With the lyrics thing, did Jon write them at the same time or did he write previously, did he do it just right there?

Fieldy: We're on the spot kinda people.

Munky: Yeah, write under pressure.... (Munky and Fieldy start improvising and singing a tune)

MAX: Do you guys have a chief or leader in the band, someone who....

Fieldy: Yeah, I'm the leader.

MAX: So it's all like see how it runs, go with the flow.

Fieldy: We have a cheerleader there with us, our producer.

Munky: Ross Robinson.

Fieldy: If he wasn't there we'd be like....

Munky: What do we do?

Fieldy: Somebody plays something and no one says nothin' -- everybody's too lazy. He (points to Munky) could play something cool and it'll just go straight past 'cos were too busy being arrogant with ourselves. I'll be busy playing my stuff, I won't even hear what he's doing. We have to have somebody to point it out like "what are you playing over there?".

Munky: That's how we start with a riff or something.

MAX: Fill it up from there, play with it.

Munky: Yeah, exactly.

MAX: Otherwise you'd just play a million riffs a day.

Fieldy: All kinds of riffs go past that might be good that we just don't hear 'cos anything we play we don't think is good, somebody has to tell us you know, like "what was that?".

MAX: Jon's got a pretty interesting way of recording his vocals, he needs like 15 people in the room.

Munky: He likes it that way.

MAX: Yeah, pretty intriguing.

Munky: To give him support.

Munky and Fieldy: He likes to show off.

MAX: You guys have got a song on your album, it's probably the one word I can't say on TV.

Fieldy: .... Clown? (Munky starts chewing on the twig thing)

MAX: What was the intention behind that song?

Fieldy: It was just all cuss words.

Munky: It's just for fun, 'cos in school, everyone had their cuss words, their rhymes, their little songs they sang. Yeah, we just did it for fun.

Fieldy: We knew kids would dig it.

MAX: I read sonething about how Jon wanted to release it as the first single, 'cos with the radio stations editing all your stuff.

Munky: Yeah, we were gonna do that as a joke 'cos we knew they wouldn't play it, then follow up about a week later with the real thing.

Fieldy: .... but it never happened.

Munky: Nope.

Fieldy: Not that we wanted it to happen.

MAX: Did you guys.... have you copped a lot of flak for doin that song, 'cos I know the intentions were that the kids would dig it and stuff, but there must be some concerned parents, (Fieldy offers the cameraman a piece of the tree, too) feminists, moral raving lunatics and stuff. Did you guys cop any flak or did it just go by?

Fieldy: We don't care.

Munky: We didn't care.

MAX: Someone else deals with it.

Fieldy: If somebody don't like it, who cares? I don't care.

Munky: Turn the channel.

MAX: I'm just wondering if people picketed at your concerts or anything.

Munky: No, no, but some kids in Kentucky killed their family, and they said Korn made 'em do it.

MAX: Wow....

Fieldy: I didn't do nothin'.

Munky: I didn't either.

Fieldy: I was at home watching TV.

Munky: So was I. I got an alibi.

MAX: Are they gonna try and drag you guys into court?

Munky: Oh, I hope not. I doubt it.

MAX: Judas Priest got into big trouble a years back.

Fieldy: We ain't got nothin' to do with no lyrics, take Jon to court.

MAX: Take him away.

Fieldy: I just play bass.

MAX: In an interview Jon said he's happy that no one knows the names of the band members and that you were still underground. Is this true now? I mean, you are in New Zealand.

Fieldy: I think it doesn't matter how big you get, you could be playing 20,000 seats. To me, I think kids are still gonna think we're underground, 'cos our music is so heavy, and we cuss so much and we really don't care, we don't write for radio or tv, we just do what we like. So to me that's underground.

MAX: It's an attitude.

Fieldy: Yeah, attitude. You could play it everyday on the radio, but kids know we ain't writing for radio, you know?

Munky: Yeah, I know.

Fieldy: .... but if they want to play us, cool. That's underground to me.

MAX: When you guys were touring and stuff on your first big tour and doin' all the support acts, did that, being a support band, make you want to go out and kill the lead band?

Munky: Yeah, totally.

MAX: That like shaped the way you are on stage?

Munky: Yeah, 'cos when we did those early tours and stuff, we'd go out there and try and be better than the leading act, now we gotta go out and do it every night.

Fieldy: We set a trap for our ass.

Munky: We did.

Fieldy: Now people expect it, we have to.

MAX: Your first record you made, I read after, that you'd only been together for 2 months. That's a really short time.

Munky: That's not all true.

MAX: That's not all true?

Munky: Well, we wrote 4 songs in the first 2 months we were together and put it on a demo tape. About 6 months later we were signed, and then about another 2, 3 months later, we recorded the record. So it took about 8 months.

MAX: Still pretty fast.

Munky: .... and we were giggin' the whole time.

Fieldy: We've been in and out of bands for the last 10 years, but when Korn got together, we were signed in less than a year.

MAX: Was it quite daunting, going in and recording the record? You didn't exactly have years of experience....

Munky: We were so confident going in and doing it, we didn't doubt ourselves one bit. I think that's why we came out with such good music.

Fieldy: 'Cos we've been playing together for years in so many different bands once we got a band that was, the vibes, there was nothing to worry about.

Munky: We weren't worried about it at all.

Fieldy: I mean, even today, there's just like a vibe, a chemistry between the 5 guys, it's undeniable.

Munky: It's an undeniable vibe.

MAX: So how did you guys get together? I mean, what was the process you went through?

Fieldy: Me, him, and David have been in the band for the last 10 years at least. We always had different singers and guitarists, and finally we got Head in the band with us and we were going through singers and singers and then they saw Jon in a bar in Bakersfield.

Munky: Singing in a little club.... and then, our singer in the band that we had was a complete psycho, and when we kicked him out, 'cos he was psycho, we got a new psycho.

Fieldy: .... but this psycho works.

MAX: So you guys just approached him.

Munky: Yup, we did.

Fieldy: When he came to try out for us, Jon, and we played a song for him, he just sang it from beginning to end.

MAX: Improv.

Fieldy: Freestyle, and we knew....

Munky: Before he was done.

Fieldy: Yeah, even before he was done we were like, "You're in. You're in the band." Just like that.

Munky: Except you've gotta change those shorts.

Fieldy: Get rid of that hairdo. When he came to the band, he was.... he was.... ohhh man. In his old band, he used to wear skirts.

Munky: Dresses and shit. Oh! I'm not allowed to swear, am I?

Fieldy: .... and makeup and stuff, he used to dress like a girl.

MAX: That's sure changed.

Fieldy: He wanted us to do it too, and I was just like, nope. That ain't happenin.... he's gay.

MAX: Do you think your music has got a lot to do with coming from Bakersfield? Like, a small town?

Munky: I think it carries a bit of angst, Jon's lyrics mostly, we just, me and him, we just like to play heavy music.

Fieldy: We don't ride motorcycles no more, gotta do something agressive.

MAX: 'Cos I was talkin to this guy, today actually, he said he'd just been to Bakersfield recently.

Munky: Yeah, I met him.

MAX: He said he could understand your music a lot more.

Munky: He was there, I talked to him last night, I said, "What do you think of it?" and he said, "It has a very strange vibe in the air." He said his father lives there or something.

MAX: You guys have done a lot of stuff on the Internet, like that live broadcast, stuff like that. I read an article in Time that said that before you did this you guys were so alternative that less than 500 people would come to see you. Do you think it's helped or is it all the touring?

Fieldy: It's not my area. I'm not that involved in it at all. Maybe him, I'm not.

Munky: I was thinkin about something else.... sorry.

MAX: So all the 'Net stuffs....

Fieldy: He's not that involved in it.

Munky: What was the question?

Fieldy: You're not involved, don't worry about it.

Munky: I'm not involved.

Fieldy: Maybe someday, but not today.

MAX: You guys, you seem to tour a lot. Does it wear you down, did you have to take a break for your livers?

Fieldy: You can't hurt steel.

Munky: Nope.

Fieldy: My liver's unstoppable.

Munky: Everything's alright, except our livers look like beef jerky.

MAX: What they do eventually, they break down, and literally melt.

Munky: Mmmmm, it does.

Fieldy: Mines already melted.

Munky: Then you start pissing it out. A little blood in the toilet....

Fieldy: I did that already.

Munky: A little blood in your cough.

Fieldy: I got a Yamaha 2000 plastic liver.

MAX: That's why you need rock star status, so you can afford better medical equipment. That's a lovely note to end this on. Yup. Korn.