Photo by Mick Hutson/Redferns
The best way to understand the success of Korn's double-platinum-selling second album, "Life is Peachy,” released in October 1996, is to consider the situation of an 18-year-old in 1992 who wanted to get involved in pop's alternative scene, as opposed to the situation in 1997.
In one period, pop’s alternatives included listening to House of Pain and Nirvana rather than to Boyz II Men and Eric Clapton. Five years later, however, the death of Nirvana’s front man Kurt Cobain, together with Soundgarden breaking up, Pearl Jam’s break in touring, and Alice in Chains’ front man Layne Staley leaving the group meant that half of that musical conversation—the grunge phase of heavy metal—had reached its peak while being completely overlooked in the age of pop’s most widely promoted mainstream culture.
If you look further into the data, you will find that about 1 in 100 CDs sold in America in 1996 was Alanis Morissette’s album “Jagged Little Pill”.
Even though Korn had managed to break out of the underground metal scene in Northern Los Angeles, success did not exactly lead to the band’s best behavior. It must have been a rather bold move to assume they would be among the groups aiming to extend pop’s boundaries beyond singer-songwriters and soulful crooners.
Six months before “Life is Peachy” came out, Jonathan Davis, the frontman of Korn, told journalist Jon Wiederhorn in a 1998 interview that “we were drinking huge amounts of everything and, when we were really drunk, you didn’t want to be near us. I used to bite people when I was drunk, biting all the members of the band hard; I didn’t know what I was doing, and I didn’t care."
Impressively, producer Ross Robinson got the band sober enough to work on and finish a raw, edgy album.
“It was probably about 60% knowing what I was going to play and 40% just playing whatever came to mind at that moment…It ended up really good, and it has a kind of energy I probably wouldn’t have gotten if I’d worked everything out beforehand,” said band drummer David Silveria in their 1998-released biography.
“Each time we heard a playback of (‘Life Is Peachy’), we used to get goosebumps,” James “Munky” Shaffer, guitarist with Korn, said in an interview given in 1997.
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Inside the Mayhem: Korn’s Rise and “Life Is Peachy”
A grassroots campaign that operated on a global scale, involving artists famous for their intense aggression—the kind that had caused the band to move past self-harm and instead passionately incorporate wellness into their songs—eventually led to over two million units of Korn's second album being sold.
The year 1996 saw them release the album, carry out arena tours as opening act for Metallica, Ozzy Osbourne, and White Zombie, give a second-stage headlining performance at the Monsters of Rock Festival in Donington, England, and carry out four dozen dates on a multi-genre tour which they headlined, including Limp Bizkit, Delinquent Habits, The Urge, and Pharcyde.
Via Reddit, a ten-song opening set before Metallica’s headlining performance four days after Christmas in 1996 was described thusly:
“It was pure chaos. Hunched over, playing his guitar by his feet, Brian 'Head' Welch lifted his head briefly to spit into the audience, and I happened to have my mouth open at that moment, instantly swallowing his loogie. In disgust, I almost vomited, but was kicked in the head by a barrage of feet, crowdsurfing up to the front of the line. I almost died, but was a lifelong Korn fan after that.”
Suitably, the lead single from "Life Is Peachy" was called "No Place To Hide." The song looks at memories of shame and hatred and how they result in a kind of profound alienation, which causes paranoia and psychological violation.
“I see your faces, and I do not understand why / each time I dream you're standing there, right by my side / why do you make me, you take my pride and in my eyes / you come to rape inside,” Davis sings.
To the extent that their subsequent single “A.D.I.D.A.S.” involves Reginal “Fieldy” Arvizu, the band's bassist, producing a high-treble slap bass sound that moves more in the direction of funk and hip-hop, this is achieved with the help of guitarists Brian "Head" Welch and "Munky" Shaffer, who generate sounds similar to a DJ scratching breakbeats by using drop-tuned guitars.
What was the song inspired by? Young people who change the letters of the well-known German sports clothing brand into an acronym that means "All Day I Dream About Sex.”
An Italian reviewer in 2007 referred to the album as a triumph of "esoteric malevolence." To get a fascinating insight, combine the two dictionary definitions of these words.
“Something meant for or understood by only a small group of people with special knowledge or interest in a deep-seated desire, intent, or quality of causing harm, evil, and ill will toward others.”
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What ultimately emerged was that while two million Americans had a special interest in the macabre, the number of fans worldwide was, in fact, double that.
Distilling a band with a lead singer drunkenly biting his bandmates into that energy feels apropos, but also dangerous. Coming back for round two with the band, producer Ross Robinson recalled a significant amount about his creative process on the recording:
“I wanted to help them capture their fire and make sure it stayed completely lit,” said Robinson in a 2000s-era interview.
What did that require?
At times, satisfying unhealed emotional wounds through sexual intercourse.
"I'm only talking about myself, I'm a horny motherf***er," Jonathan Davis said regarding "A.D.I.D.A.S."
In 2020, researchers from the Yale Center for Emotional Intelligence and the Yale Child Study Center observed that the period during which Korn put out their album coincided with the beginning of a generation in which teenage apathy—having been mostly ignored in the context of social activity—developed into "exhaustion" and "negative thoughts about society".
The number one single of 1996 on Billboard’s all-genre Hot 100 chart was "Macarena" by Los Del Rio, and the following year, Elton John paid tribute to Princess Diana's memory with "Candle in the Wind".
Imagine that, for many young men, especially, by comparison, Davis singing to an ex-partner, “Won't you get the f*** out of my face now?” on “Good God” sounds much more immediately socially relevant.
“Korn sounds mad at everybody, including themselves," wrote the New York Times’ Jon Pareles, summarizing the mood perfectly.
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What Fieldy told Bass Player Magazine in 1997, “(crossing) hip-hop's beats and bass lines with sickness,” synergistically complemented what Munky noted in a 2011 interview: the band’s developing “angry punk rock feel and attitude.”
What was the outcome? The album received a Grammy nomination in the Best Metal Performance category.
When the band released their chart-topping album "Follow The Leader" in 1998, Robert Christgau of The Village Voice noted that what they had discovered in "Life Is Peachy" had since been developed into an even more refined version.
He believed that the album’s radio and video airplay crossover smashes "Got the Life" and "Freak on a Leash" reflected a strategy of songs that reflected the band’s ethos of “fear girls, pity themselves, and rage against a world they'll never beat,” played at a “self-obliterating volume,” with a “self-aggrandizing display” of a performance.
How was that achieved? Well, according to Fieldy in the band’s biography, producer Robinson had evolved from enforcing the band’s sobriety to punching Jonathan Davis in the back in the vocal recording booth.
The New York Times’ Jon Pareles’ belief that the band was perpetually mad was overwhelmed by the review of “Follow The Leader” by Rolling Stone’s David Fricke:
He wrote that Korn had the perfect record for those “long, black days” when all you could do was exclaim, 'What the F***! What the F***! What the F***,’ at a “bloody murder volume.”
“'Follow The Leader' is a lot of silly fun,” added Jim Farber of Entertainment Weekly.
Art and Survival: The Emotional Core of “Life Is Peachy”
In a 2011 interview recalling the making of “Life Is Peachy,” Jonathan Davis offers a stunning commentary regarding his psychological well-being while recording the album:
“I was in a really weird space. I was coming off meth and slowly becoming an alcoholic. I was switching from one extreme to the other. There was a weird leeway in between there.”
Davis also remembered producer Ross Robinson using that leeway with great empathy, thereby demonstrating one of the group's professional characteristics.
“I was closing my eyes and letting s*** go. It was being real. I was turning off any doubt in my mind about my lyrics or what I was saying, and letting it come out in free form. Ross taught me a lot about that. I think my lyrics get the point across in a really simple way.”
Asked to summarize what he remembered best from the recording process and the resulting mega-acclaim, Davis added, “I think we jumped miles.”
Looking back, it is astonishing that the intense energy that had been transformed into "Life is Peachy" did not immediately destroy Korn. Indeed, the fact that this did not happen—mainly since millions of young people around the world identified with the emotions they expressed on the album—is even more incredible.
Korn's second album shows that there are occasions when life mirrors art so exactly that the two match on the same wavelength.
If life and art are in sync, then your everyday life becomes a natural outpouring of your inner truth and creativity. When reality and imagination combine, your dreams blend in with your daily routine. The outcome is that you no longer want to escape your life, since your future seems like something you want to create.
