The tour kicks off on 18 October in Stuttgart and works its way through Europe and into Italy on 21 November. Along the way, the UK receives five dates, with the first four being intercepted by a Dublin date before the London show. 

Accompanying the band on this tour are metalcore band Architects, electronic punk act Youth Code and dark wave band Pixel Grip. This ties in nicely with the release of Architect’s last album, ‘The Sky, The Earth & All Between’, released in February last year and on the back of which they have toured. 

The last few months have been full of rumours and debate around Korn’s ongoing activities. Since the release of their last album, ‘Requiem’, back in 2022, the band have contradicted themselves and changed their view on new work. Despite having previously said that the band would be releasing an album in the near future, just last month guitarist Brian “Head” Welch said that the band would not be releasing anything for the foreseeable, focusing instead on touring in the manner of a legacy band. 

Speaking of a new album, Welch said that “we’re a fortunate band, we’ve been around for a while and we’ve got an extensive catalog with a lot of well-known songs. We’re focusing right now on our live show… It feels like we don’t even need a new album… I feel like it’s not priority right now.” 

They have made full use of this touring advantage, in part helped by their often-discussed appeal to a younger generation who experienced them through social media and may not have had the chance to experience them before. Next month, they are due to play ‘90s and ‘00s throwback festival ‘Sick New World’ in Las Vegas with System of a Down, Bring Megan The Horizon, Mastodon and Evanescence. Following this, the band go to Latin America for a seven date tour with emergent metalcore act Spiritbox and Seven Hours After Violet. 

The band, though almost hegemonic among teenage alternative music fans on the internet, have had a storied career. Emerging from California in 1994 with downtuned riffs, bizarre vocals and slap bass, the band became one of the leading bands in the nü-metal explosion of the late ‘90s alongside Limp Bizkit, Coal Chamber and Slipknot. While they experienced a significant downturn with the coming of metalcore in the mid-2000s, they made their peace with the circumstances and, in the early part of this decade, were revived in their fortunes in taking their place as a touring legacy act, which has been rumoured to be the reason for their lack of new album release. 

Tickets are available on presale tomorrow at 8AM GMT with the general sale taking place on Friday morning at the same time.

A post shared by KoRn (@korn_official)

With the debut of their maiden album, the eponymous album, on the horizon, Korn is teasing their fans with the prospect of a colossus of a show.

And, yes, it has been 30 years since the appearance of Korn. Their debut, self-titled album, turns 30 in October, and the band teased what looks to be a huge headline show.

The legends from Bakersfield, California, took to social media and posted a video of the band’s iconic record cover with the number 30 emblazoned on it in place of the band name’s usual spot.

Tomorrow. pic.twitter.com/wSC3bgLZCY

— Korn (@Korn) March 4, 2024

Naturally, this doesn’t necessarily mean anything. But the fact that promoters Live Nation and California’s BMO Stadium’s social accounts have also shared the same teaser has really caught the eye. This leaves us with the potential image of Korn playing their debut album in full in front of thousands of adoring fans in Los Angeles.

It is not clear yet whether this would be a one-off show or maybe even a tour, but what we do know is that an announcement is due to be made later today (March 5th)—so we won’t have long to wait.

Korn is a nu-metal band from Bakersfield in California that was formed in 1993. Heralded as pioneers of the ‘nu metal’ genre, the band was among the first to bring the genre to the masses.

Initially formed in 1993 by three members of the band L.A.P.D., Korn’s current line-up features founding members James “Munky” Shaffer (guitar); Reginald “Fieldy” Arvizu (bass); Brian “Head” Welch (guitar, backing vocals); and Jonathan Davis (lead vocals, bagpipes), with the addition of Ray Luzier (drums) in 2007, replacing the band’s first drummer David Silveria. As of 2021, Korn had sold more than 40 million records worldwide, and 12 of the band’s official releases have peaked in the top ten of the Billboard 200, eight of which have peaked in the top five. Seven official releases are certified platinum by the Recording Industry Association of America (RIAA); two are double platinum; one is triple platinum; one is certified five times platinum; and two are certified gold.

The band also has an incredible 14 studio albums, seven video albums, and 5o music videos. And the fact that it has been 30 years since their debut is a testament to their longevity.

Korn will be back in the UK this summer for several shows, including their biggest-ever headline date on this side of the pond.

Catch them at the following:

August

8 Scarborough Open Air Theatre
9 Halifax Live At The Piece Hall
11 London Gunnersbury Park

Get your tickets now.

Big names such as KISS and System of a Down were meant to play this year, and were able to perform for viewers via YouTube and other social media streaming platforms. Luckily, both bands have been confirmed for next year as well. Joining them as headliners will be none other than Scottish rock band Biffy Clyro.

Other acts to grace the stage include A Day To Remember, Korn, Frank Carter and the Rattlesnakes, The Pretty Reckless, and many more incredible bands, with more to be announced in the coming months. Download organisers posted on the official Instagram page to let fans know, saying, “After a year apart, we’re so ready ROCK with you once again.” Check out the full line-up below.

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Your first DL2021 lineup announcement has landed, including @kissonline, @biffy_clyro, @systemofadown and so much more. After a year apart, we’re so ready ROCK with you once again, 4-6 June 2021. Tickets on sale Friday 7 August 9am.

A post shared by Download Festival (@downloadfest) on Aug 3, 2020 at 1:00am PDT

The festival will go ahead on 4th-6th June in the small English town of Donington, in Leicester. Pre-sale tickets will be available from Ticketmaster on Wednesday 5th August, while general sale tickets will be released on Friday 7th August at 9am.

Booker for Download, Andy Copping, spoke to Kerrang! about what’s to come for the festival and the future of the live music industry. He explained that “it’s not just festival promoters, it’s yourselves in the media, the labels, and without doubt the fans – you’ve got to get behind these acts.” Since the Covid-19 pandemic has made it unsafe to gather large groups of people, many music industry workers have been fighting to save venues and festivals such as this, to confirm the future of music as we know it.

Copping continued, “Even if it’s not somebody that you particularly like personally, to keep things alive we’ve got to be bringing bands through.” He gave an idea of who he feels will be performing at Download in the future as a headliner, which included Bring Me The Horizon, Paramore, Architects, and Frank Carter & The Rattlesnakes.

Moreno revealed that Deftones repeatedly turned down the chance to tour with KoRn- one of the world’s biggest bands for much of the 90’s- despite the personal friendships the band shared with KoRn and it’s members. “We did make a very conscious choice of who we were going to play shows with […] It was hard to be this young band and having to turn down tours. I can’t remember how many times I turned down KoRn! And they got pissed at us. Jonathan [Davis, KoRn frontman] would say, ‘Why do you hate us?’ and I didn’t know what to say. I’d tell him, ‘Dude, I don’t hate you. I love you, guys. You’re my friends. But I don’t want to tour with you. I don’t want to be on the ‘Family Values’ with you and Limp Bizkit’.

KoRn were the spearhead of the “nu-metal” genre, which for better or worse means that they still carry some weight today. Moreno saw the tag as a negative label however, and elaborated that “The name of the genre was nu metal, so anything that is new is one day going to be old. And I didn’t want to be old with it.”

Deftones guitarist Steph Carpenter also weighed in on the issue, criticising the compartmentalisation of music, rather than any of the band’s involved. “I remember when these subgenre names didn’t exist. It was just metal. So I don’t think we made a decision to step away from it — we’ve never paid attention to what anyone else was doing. We just did what we thought was right, and tried to make a killer album.”

Deftones recently had to cancel a tour date in Koln, Germany, due to Moreno taking a fall onstage in Paris, and breaking his foot, as you can see in the video below. Miraculously, the singer was able to continue and finish the set, and after the cancellation in Germany, looks set to finish the tour.

Morrill was a former vocalist in the band L.A.P.D, which would go on to become Korn, and claims that he gifted a copy of the song to Stefani in the late 1990’s, and is taking the lawsuit against both Interscope records, and the singer’s own Harajuku Lovers company. Pitchfork reports that Morrill is seeking damages, “all gains and profits that they have enjoyed” at his own expense, as well as legal fees, and public acknowledgement of the track’s copyright infringement.  You can compare the two tracks, and their questionable choruses, here.

This is not the first time that Pharrell has been involved in a musical lawsuit, having famously  been ordered to pay the estate of Marvin Gaye $7.4 million in March 2015, having been adjudged to having illegally stolen the music of the late soul icon, when writing the track “Blurred Lines” with Robin Thicke and T.I.

A recent image from their newest release ‘The Paradigm Shift’

The lead singer told Rolling Stone Magazine that his 3-year stint with anti-depressants had started to seriously convolute his ability to harness lyrical composition or vocal ability, “I was in a straight haze. I detoxed off that medication – it was an anti-depressant, the anxiety and stuff. I’d been on it for three years and the doctor told me you gotta get off this, it’s bad for you.” The recent relief of Davis’s trauma may have dislodged a two-year creative barricade, making way for both the most recent Korn release and his dubstep pseudonym ‘J Devil’, under which he released 3 remix tracks last year; ‘Thunder Kiss 65’, ‘The Kids Will Have Their Say’ and ‘Bug Party’, however a recently proclaimed solo album for 2012 has not materialised.

The band’s newly unified guitarist also confessed his detoxification, claiming anecdotes such as “having to finish our blow right before we got to the border because they were gonna come check to see if we had anything” are things of the past; “Those crazy days are long gone.”

The title expresses their diversion from the band’s ethos with self-analysing tracks such as ‘Love and Meth’ and ‘Pray For Me, although we can all assume that the chugging craze that epitomizes their sound will still be present in this latest work. An acoustic venture is certainly not on the cards.