Korn guitarist Brian “Head” Welch discussed Limp Bizkit singer Fred Durst directing a ‘disturbing’ video for the band. He discussed 1999’s “Issues” on the Bringin’ It Backwards podcast. Ultimate-Guitar transcribed his comments.
“Yeah, it was crazy because – just writing ‘Falling Away From Me,’ that first track on the album – or it might’ve been second – that song just exploding on MTV, and it was so controversial.
“Fred Durst directed a really creepy, eerie video of that girl getting beaten by her dad, and all the kids just saying ‘no more.’ It was a crazy, really crazy video.
“I remember Busta Rhymes, the rapper who came to our show, he was like, ‘Man, only you white rock bands can get away with controversial stuff like that on MTV.’
“But he was laughing. He was like, ‘If I put out a video of a dude beating his daughter, I’d get banned immediately.’
“It was a disturbing video, it was real, and that was the thing – Jonathan [Davis, vocals] sings about real stuff, so yeah, that song really carried us to a higher level, and then ‘Somebody, Someone’ was really good, a lot of airplay and whatnot.
“We rode that record until [2002’s] ‘Untouchables,’ which is almost 20 years ago, and that was with [producer] Michael Beinhorn.
“A lot of us got divorced around that time, and a lot of difficult things went on with that album, it was a dark time for [bassist] Fieldy, for me, James [Shaffer, guitar] got divorced – Munky.
“We got so big that our egos couldn’t handle it, and our girlfriends or wives didn’t like it either – they knew they were getting cheated on, they were caught in a circus with kids involved and whatnot.”
After that record, that’s when you left the band – right after ‘Untouchables,’ right?
“No, we did one more record, [2003’s] ‘Take a Look in the Mirror,’ and that’s when I left. I was on meth on ‘Take a Look in the Mirror,’ so I did the whole record.
“I remember for some reason Munky didn’t want to do the cover song of ‘Another Brick in the Wall,’ and as a meth-head, I had to learn the solo for it, so on the recording, it’s not as smooth as it could’ve been because I was tweaking, so yeah.
“That record is arguably our worst record ever in our whole career as far sound-wise. The drum tones – horrible.
“There’s a couple of cool moments like that song ‘Did My Time’ that came out, and we’re on the soundtrack of Angelina Jolie’s film, so there were some high moments still.
