Kornin Brian ”Head” Welch yhtyeensä uudesta levystä: ”Uskon tämän olevan se albumi, jota fanit ovat odottaneet”

Full Metal Jackie haastatteli nu-metalia soittavan yhdysvaltalaisen Kornin kitaristi Brian ”Head” Welchia Whiplash-radio-ohjelmassaan. Welch kertoi uudesta With My Eyes Wide Open: Miracles & Mistakes On My Way Back To Korn -nimisestä kirjastaan ja siitä, mikä tekee kirjassa nähtävästä avautumisesta palkitsevaa:

”It’s seeing the fans and the people that have read it thanking me and telling me, ’You’re a rock star, whatever you are in the music world, but when I read your book, I have so many similarities.’ ’Cause we’re all just people; we’re all broken people trying to make it and be happy on this planet. And so hearing them and looking in their faces as they tell me that is worth it all. And I share a lot of… We all have family dynamics that we need to work through and fight through sometimes, so I shared a lot of my struggles with my teen daughter and how she fell into depression, suicidal thoughts and self-harm and all that. And so I just hope to help a lot of these teenagers; it’s an epidemic what they’re going through nowadays.”

Kun hänen kykyään jakaa henkilökohtaisempiakin asioita kehuttiin, hän vastasi:

”Thank you so much. It’s hard to write… I mean, it’s a long process — it takes a year and a half or two years or something — and I literally was trying to protect my keyboard from my tears at some points in the book as I was writing them, ’cause the stuff with your kid, that’s just… it’s brutal. And so every fear that I had about raising a teen girl, every fear came true. So it’s pretty brutal to write about and think about it.”

Welch kertoi myös siitä, miten hän on kehittynyt kirjoittajana aiempiin kirjoihinsa verrattuna:

”Wow. I don’t even think of myself like an author still. To this day, I just feel like I’m just sharing stories — sharing my life stories, all the way from raising my daughter when she was young, all the way to the teen years and then starting my solo career and rejoining KORN. I just write out stories. And you know what’s funny? I turned in the book, and when I was done, I was, like, ’Okay, I’m done. I shared everything.’ And [the publishers] were, like, ’Okay, you’re not done. You’re far from done. And we need to get you someone to help finish this. The story arc is all over the place.’ So I needed a lot of help, but I got through it eventually.”

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Yhtyeensä tulevan albumin tekemisprosessista hän kertoi seuraavaa:

”Oh my Gosh! This record, I’m telling you… Me and Munky [guitarist James Shaffer] have connected in a way that we haven’t, literally, in years and years. Last record was awesome, and I love it. But we came… We connected at Carolina Rebellion [in 2012], I played one song with them. Two weeks later, I was on the phone with Munky, and then a couple of weeks after that, I was in the studio with them. So it was, like, ’Hey, you wanna come write with us?’ So we’ve had time to hang out and jam together for three years on the road. And so me and Munky really have connected as guitar twins, guitar duo, whatever you wanna call it. And so this is a really guitar-heavy record. And for the first time in our whole career, we recorded our guitars at the same time, facing each other and just jamming, riffing out. And this record is… I don’t wanna blow it up or whatever too much, but I just really feel like it’s the KORN record that all the fans have been waiting for. The intensity in Jonathan’s [Davis] vocals and the music, the heaviness of it, is like no other KORN record in years. So I’m really, really excited for people to hear it.”

Kun Welchilta kysyttiin, miten yhtyeen jäsenten väliset suhteet niin ystävinä kuin muusikoinakin ovat kehittyneet vuosien saatossa, hän vastasi:

”I love that question, ’cause the personal connection is the biggest thing. If you’re not happy, and you hate everybody around you, what kind of fun is that? So that personal connection… You know what the key is? It’s humility. And everybody in KORN, with each other, it’s total… Just the humbleness is crazy, and it was not like that before I left. It’s like everybody just wants everyone to be happy. And we give and we take in a healthy way so that everybody has a chance for their input. It’s like we’re united, pretty much, in what we like, so it’s not always like an argument or anything like that. But even if there is some kind of an argument or a disagreement, we’ll be, like, ’Okay. This guy can have it this time.’ It’s just really a humble atmosphere, which is key.”

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Siitä, millaisessa valossa Korn näki Los Angelesin uransa alkuvaiheessa ollessaan vielä nuori yhtye Welch kertoi:

”Oh my Gosh! It was, like, everything. I mean, we were in Los Angeles. That was, like, the entertainment capital of the world, you could say. I mean, all of America’s entertainment, especially back then, was just all over… the movies and the music, you know. And so just growing up two hours north of Los Angeles was just mindblowing, and to have a foot in the door like that… It’s hard because if you don’t have something special and unique, then it’s hard to get into that industry. But, luckily, when we got Jonathan, we knew that we had the sound as a band that was unique and different, and the vocalist that was just such a freak… I mean, the coolest metal singer ever. And so those doors started opening. We didn’t know how big it was gonna get, but once we got him, I knew that we were gonna do something. And just to see how far it’s [gone], and how long it’s lasted — I mean, almost twenty-two years — it’s crazy. So it’s incredible.”

Siitä, ajatteliko hän koskaan, että Korn soittaisi kiertueita ja julkaisisi levyjä edelleen kaikkien näiden vuosien jälkeen hän sanoi seuraavaa:

”No way! No way. Not even in a million years. I thought… When we were hitting close to ten years, I was, like, I thought we were gonna do this a few years and then the next music comes out or whatever. And so when I was a drug addict in KORN, I was, like, ’When is this gonna stop? When does this train stop so I can rest?’ It was crazy. But, yeah, it’s just going and going and going, and the fans are what make it… They’re still coming out — they’re still buying the music or downloading it for free. [Laughs] But at least they’re coming to the shows. So they’re keeping it alive. And hats off to them.”

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