Korn

Yellow Scene: How has the tour playing the first album been going?

Ray Luzier: It’s been awesome. This starts my ninth year in the band and I’ve been a fan of that first record for some time. It’s cool to see how Korn has evolved and made such a difference throughout the years. There’s something magical about famous bands’ first records. There’s something very powerful and special about that. The fans are really losing their minds. We’re fans ourselves, and we know that are certain songs off the first record which we never play, and this time, because it’s the 20th anniversary, we’re doing the whole record. It’s a great feeling. There’s a lot of emotion – it’s a very dark record lyrically. You look at the crowd, especially during the song “Daddy,” and there’s a lot of darkness. Fans relate – maybe they’ve had similar experiences.

YS: Are there any songs on that first record that you had been chomping at the bit to play on previous tours, that now you have the chance to?

RL: We started doing “Ball Tongue” a couple of years ago, and I always wanted to do that song. Throughout the years, we’ve played “Need To” and “Helmet in the Bush.” “Fake” we’d never done live while I was in the band, and it came out really good. We’re about nine shows into the tour right now and we’ve got our groove on. It’s awesome playing that first record, then doing five or six hits at the end.

YS: Do you like playing Colorado?

RL: I do. I’ve been there many times throughout my whole career, from Jake E. Lee to David Lee Roth, and even Army of Anyone, my last band [featuring members of Stone Temple Pilots and Filter] played through there. Korn has been there quite a few times. We just did Red Rocks and we love it there. There are cool sights to see and the people are always very nice to us.

YS: Other than the first album, what can we expect from the set?

RL: You’ve got to play your “Falling Away From Me” and “Here to Stay,” and stuff like that, or people get bummed out. Korn has over 130 songs now so it’s really hard to pick a setlist. We started mixing it up a little bit. Last night, we threw in “Spike in My Veins” off The Paradigm Shift. The fans really liked that. So we switch them up a little bit at the end. They have so many hits. A lot of bands out there only have a handful, and then they keep doing them. Korn have had a lot of different videos and songs that have made them popular, and you always get the diehard fans who say, “You didn’t play this, or that.’ We try to please as many people as we can.

YS: When the tour’s done, what’s next?

RL: We’re working on another studio album right now. It’s a fun thing because you’re on fire on stage performing in front of people, and then you get in the studio and you have a little bit of the live energy. I personally prefer to go straight in instead of taking three months off. We’ll have a lot of shows next year to support the new record. Right after this tour, we go to Asia – Singapore, Hong Kong and Tokyo – and then we’re done touring for the year.