“I didn’t know what was going on, I was going insane”: Korn’s Jonathan Davis looks back on Issues, the first album he made sober

The mid-late-’90s was a tumultuous time for Korn. Breaking out of Bakersfield with their self-titled debut in 1994 with their downtrodden, downtuned nu-metal (which would influence thousands of imitators in the decade to come), they released four LPs before the new millennium – three of which were fuelled by addiction. 1999’s Issues album was different, however, as frontman Jonathan Davis decided he had to clean up his act and kick the gear. Unlike his celebrity peers who might check in to a posh rehab clinic, the Korn vocalist did it the old-fashioned way: purging his system and detoxing while also trying to make a new record (like that scene in Trainspotting, but presumably with more Adidas). With the band’s previous albums (Korn, Life Is Peachy and Follow The Le...

unsplash-logoLilith Redmoon