metal hammer presents: nu metal
DESCRIPTION
On Sale 15th January 2014TRANSCRIPT
PRESENTS ThE Loco SToRy of...
PR
ES
EN
TS
...
NU S
PECI
AL 2
014
PRIN
TED
IN T
HE U
K
£7.9
9
6 metalhammer.co.uk
08
12
22
26
34
38
46
50
58
62
68
72
80
84
92
96
106
110
116
118
126
130
Roots of nu metalYour guide to the bands that helped shape the sound of nu metal.
KoRnNew chat with Jonathan Davis, plus an in-depth archive feature.
nu metal momentsSlipknot on TFI, Linkin Park with Jay-Z and more.
PaPa RoachAll the best action from P-Roach’s nu metal legacy.
fReaKsNu metal’s most outlandish looks uncovered!
limP bizKitFred Durst as you’ve never heard him before in this all-new chat.
hiP hoP invasionHow the world of rap changed metal culture forever.
DeftonesThe inside story of one of metal’s most inventive bands.
iconic viDeosBullets! Ping pong! Ladybirds!
DistuRbeDThe early days of David Draiman’s industrial-tinged warriors.
essentialsThe fundamentals of nu metal revealed.
sliPKnotThe early days of the Des Moines noise terrorists revived.
Ross RobinsonNu metal’s most influential producer shares his darkest secrets.
incubusA celebration of the genre’s funkiest advocates.
family valuesInside the tour that changed it all with curator Jonathan Davis.
linKin PaRKChester and Mike leak the untold story of Hybrid Theory.
nu metal’s woRst banDsThere’s no place to hide for the dregs of nu metal!
coal chambeRDez’s spookycore crew get the full retrospective treatment.
unsung heRoesWe throw the spotlight on nu metal’s overlooked luminaries.
system of a DownRevisit the story of one of heavy music’s most unique bands.
toP 40A countdown of nu metal’s greatest tracks of all time.
bRave nu woRlDThe bands resurrecting nu metal for the next generation.
metalhammer.co.uk 7
14 metalhammer.co.uk
Keep all ‘helmet in the bush’ joKes to yourself
metalhammer.co.uk 15
he Costes Hotel, situated
bang in the centre of one
of Paris’s more upmarket
districts, is, if not the
height of luxury, then
at least of a sufficient
altitude to induce pretty
severe vertigo. A once-
over of the clientele lunching out in the terrace
restaurant reveals an impeccably turned out
David Ginola, doubtless gathering his thoughts
for his next piercing insight as part of the BBC’s
World Cup pundit panel, the ever-suave Johnny
Depp and an assorted collection of Armani’d up
nouveau riche.
In their midst sits a tallish fella with hair like
matted straw, decked head to toe in casual
sports gear, hunched low over a plate of
mozzarella and tomatoes, enthusing in a slightly
whiny American accent about the quality of
French food. His companion, slightly tanned
and sporting chunkier, neater dreads, but
looking no more healthy than the first, grunts in
acknowledgement, while toying with his multi-
storey club sandwich. As the French chattering
classes get at one with their déjeuner, you can’t
help but wonder what they make of Korn’s
Jonathan Davis and James ‘Munky’ Shaffer,
enjoying one of the many fringe benefits of
being multi-platinum-selling rock stars.
Hammer is in Paris to chat to Korn about their
impending new album Follow The Leader, by
their own admission the most important of their
career to date, but there’s one small problem:
we haven’t heard it yet. Or at least, not all of it.
However, if the five tracks we have been privy
to are anything to go by, then Follow The Leader
will be a stormer, the true follow-up to the jaw-
dropping headfuck that was their eponymous
debut – as opposed to the disappointing
second album Life Is Peachy. This, Korn fans,
is the real deal.
“This could be the one, this could be it for us,”
speculates Jonathan Davis over a wake-up call
Jack Daniels and Coke. “This is the album that
makes of breaks your career. If the third album
does well then you’re set for life.
“I’m stressed out at the fact that it’s that
good,” adds the frontman, and it’s a good thing
too, because once the dust on Life Is Peachy
had settled, the considered opinion was that
it was, well, arse. [It really wasn’t – Ed.] After the
ground-breaking debut, to be presented with
such a similar, and thus ultimately redundant,
record was a massive disappointment, which
the critics ultimately turned on. Fortunately,
Korn know this too.
“Well, yeah, we knew, it was obvious. We know
that album sucked,” admits Jonathan, before
going on to qualify this statement with: “Well it
didn’t suck, there’s good songs on there, but we
know we rushed it. We were really upset with the
last album. It was awesome, but it could’ve been
better. We settled.
“Life Is Peachy is all at one tempo, it’s all the
same,” Jonathan continues. “On Follow The
Leader, we’ve got a lot of weird things going
on, a lot of variety.”
Ahead of the release of Follow The Leader, Hammer caught up with Jonathan and Munky to talk about cracking the mainstream
and putting bananas inside members of Marilyn Manson.
WORDS: DAn SiLveR PHOTOS: MiCK HUTSOn
“i’m schizo, i have two
personalities. i never have
any guilt that i have a wife and
kid at home. i party”
Jonathan Davis
38 metalhammer.co.uk
LIMP BIZKIT: SIGNIFICANT OTHER ERA BIZKIT FEATURING WES’S FORAY INTO THE BIZARRE AND THAT RED CAP
The band that captured the minds of the mainstream and best defined nu metal.
Three Dollar Bill, Y’all – onwards, it was clear
that Bizkit were lovers of rap and rock in equal
measures. This was not the hokey Run-DMC
and Aerosmith novelty we were used to seeing.
This was a genuine hybrid. As if any more
proof were needed, the band’s second album,
Significant Other, featured guest appearances
from both Scott Weiland of Stone Temple Pilots
and Method Man of Wu-Tang Clan. There really
were absolutely no boundaries. And while the
band faced criticism in the aftermath of mass
violence during their set at Woodstock ’99, it
wouldn’t stop them creating songs that were
musical dynamite to mosh pits everywhere.
The year after the ruckus at Woodstock,
Bizkit unleashed Chocolate Starfish And The
Hot Dog Flavored Water. A bona fide behemoth
of a record, it was an unstoppable hit-fest
which saw the band flung into the mainstream
public consciousness, with songs like Rollin’
and My Way proving to be crossover smashes.
Durst’s knack of mixing up yell-yourself-hoarse
choruses with crunching breakdowns
was one that was hard for people
of all walks of life to resist – even
if some more ‘tr00’ metal fans
stuck their noses up at the
band’s genre-bending ways.
It didn’t matter by then, of course.
Limp Bizkit were a staple of the
mainstream, their frontman even
getting namechecked by the likes
of Eminem in songs about sexual
encounters with pop starlets.
Most importantly of all, though,
Bizkit were a genuinely great
band, whose power, punch and
give-a-fuck attitude helped not
only to define nu metal, but also
converted a whole generation
of kids into rock fans.
WORDS: TOM DOYLE
A DAY TO REMEMBER “There’s something about Limp
Bizkit, the music they wrote and
their overall vibe that’s made to
control a crowd of any size. I don’t
even think it’s intentional – they do
their show without having to do any
stunts or anything crazy. It’s one
of the most inspiring things. We
watched them every night we played
with them on festivals. They played
right after us at Download and
to watch 80,000 people go that
nuts… Fred doesn’t even have to
go crazy. There’s just a vibe and
an aura to Limp Bizkit that makes
people go crazy. The hardest of
hardcore bands can’t get the vibe
to that many people to go that nuts.
Surely everyone loved Limp Bizkit
at some point in their lives. They
didn’t? They’re lying to themselves.”
I Like
LimpBizkit
metalhammer.co.uk 39
f nu metal was ruled
by charismatic,
ostentatious frontmen,
it’s no surprise that the
band people associate
with the genre above
all others had the most
outlandish frontman
going. Limp Bizkit’s Fred Durst was nothing
short of a phenomenon. A foul-mouthed whirling
dervish who was two parts bravado and one
part deep self-loathing, it was his ubiquity and
infamy that helped catapult Limp Bizkit into
pop culture’s glaring limelight. Everything about
Durst was instantly recognisable. Your father,
your mother, your sister, your brother – all of
them knew what a backwards red cap meant in
2001. He was a cartoon, larger than life, a new
generation of rock star. He was brilliant.
Ironically, Durst wasn’t even the most
cartoonish-looking member of his band. That
accolade went to Wes Borland, the guitarist
whose churning riffs were the engine room
of Bizkit’s brand of balls-out hedonism and
all-encompassing anger. Together with the
impeccable rhythm section of Sam Rivers
and John Otto, and with the help of DJ Lethal
bringing it on, Limp Bizkit were the
band who, more than any other
of the nu metal generation, fully
and most obviously embraced
the influence of hip hop. Sure,
there were plenty of other acts
bringing in rap influences, but it
was the Jacksonville quintet who
were donning the big shorts,
rocking Adidas shell tops and
emblazoning their album
covers in graffiti fonts.
From their debut record –
the Ross Robinson-produced
72 metalhammer.co.uk
metalhammer.co.uk 73
They quickly became too heavy for nu metal but Slipknot arrived in a hail of DJ scratches, rap influence and extreme reckless abandon.
hile the nu
metal era was
undeniably
responsible for
unprecedented
levels of
polarisation
among the metal
faithful, one band gleefully made a mockery
of the notion that this new approach to heavy
music represented some kind of betrayal of
cherished atavistic values. Careering into view
in the same year that Limp Bizkit made their first
credible bid for mainstream glory with Significant
Other, the first Slipknot album was nothing
short of bewildering. A remorselessly brutal
and uncompromising onslaught of foul, chaotic
riffing and throat-wrenching vocal hostility, it
showcased a band unafraid of embracing many
of nu metal’s key traits.
From the frenzied turntable wizardry of DJ
Sid Wilson and the colon-flagellating rumble of
Paul Gray’s bass lines to the staccato verbosity
of Corey Taylor’s quasi-rap vocal delivery and
the superficial impression that they had at
least two more members than any band could
ever realistically require, Slipknot were plainly
a product of the post-Korn age.
But underneath that pointedly contemporary
exterior, a malignant undercurrent of
underground extremity and diehard metallic
devotion ensured that no matter how frequently
exasperated purists decried Slipknot’s rise to
prominence, the notion that the Iowan nonet were
anything other than an authentic heavy metal
band was never more than wholly preposterous.
In truth, Slipknot unintentionally sounded nu
metal’s death knell. These nine masked men from
the middle of fucking nowhere plainly owed a debt
to their Adidas-adorned forebears, but within the
first few seconds of [sic], the opening track from the
band’s eponymous debut, it was abundantly clear
that the nu rulebook was being comprehensively
trashed and rebuilt as something much more
dangerous, daring and downright destructive.
The clattering breakbeats and disorientating
noise that fizzed and snarled at the heart of a song
like Eyeless –arguably nu metal’s most exciting four
minutes – belonged firmly to modern times, but the
core of Slipknot’s sound had far more in common
with the blistering, ultra-ugly slice of brutal death
metal than with Coal Chamber or Orgy. For every
astute squall of almost radio-friendly bluster like
Wait And Bleed or Spit It Out, Slipknot had several
much less user-friendly outbursts, ranging from
bellicose tirades like Surfacing and No Life through
to amorphous, sludgy dirges like Prosthetics and
harrowing eight-minute closer Scissors.
Those who dug deeper discovered the feral
attack of bonus cuts Get This and Eeyore, even
further removed from nu-metal’s polished façade.
Slipknot arrived fully formed, angry as fuck and
ready for war, as they kicked the door open for
Lamb Of God, Killswitch Engage, Trivium and
countless others for whom old-school metal values
were no longer derided relics of a bygone age.
When nu metal stumbled into obsolescence
a couple of years later, Iowa’s finest just kept
getting stronger, casually defying the odds to
become one of the biggest rock bands on the
planet. More than a decade on and they’re
still there: unique, inspired and unstoppable.
WORDS: DOm LaWSOn PHOTO: mICK HUTSOn
PaRKWaY DRIVE “I first heard (sic) on a body-
boarding video and it’s still one of
those tracks that I get stoked on
and you always want it to be in the
live set. I wasn’t really into nu metal
at all but Slipknot were different
to all of the other bands. It feels
weird to say it when you look at
the suits and masks but it felt a bit
less goofy. It was raw and loads of
different elements went into it. It
didn’t sound contrived and even
among all of the insane heaviness,
there’s still melody in there. It’s not
controlled heaviness either. There’s
people just smashing kegs and
there’s all of these crazy sounds
and samples scratched up and it’s
just layer upon layer of craziness.
To me, Slipknot were the sound of
controlled chaos even when they
were a nu metal band.”
I Like
Slipknot
96 metalhammer.co.uk
THE DEFINITIVE LINKIN PARK SHOT TO PROMOTE HYBRID THEORY
Nu metal’s most commercially successful band turned the world of metal on its head and remain
one of the biggest acts in the world today.
inkin Park have
made the biggest-
selling debut album
of the 21st century.
Breathe that fact in
for a second. Bigger
than Adele, bigger
than Lady Gaga,
bigger than absolutely everyone. When Hybrid
Theory hit, it was like a tidal wave sweeping
through the world of metal, rock and beyond.
As inescapable as it was powerful, it quickly
became the benchmark by which all other
contenders were judged. They had taken the nu
metal formula and distilled it to utter perfection.
From the spidering opening riff of Papercut,
with its swooping DJ embellishments, to the
futuristic pulse of closer Pushing Me Away,
Hybrid Theory is an album that doles out
massive hooks like Zakk Wylde dishes out
pinch harmonics.
Chester Bennington and Mike Shinoda were
a formidable duo up front: the latter offered the
twisting rhymes that propelled the band’s verses
along with fist-pumping gusto, but it was the
former who was the true weapon. Bennington’s
coarse singing timbre lit up Linkin Park’s songs
with a unique, unmistakable panache that set
them apart from the crowd. Powerful enough
to blow the windows out of a skyscraper, his
roar could also be dialled down into a subtle and
emotive focal point which afforded the band a
diversity of sound that eluded a lot of their peers.
Hybrid Theory won countless awards and
more importantly still stands as a monument to
metal at the turn of the millennium.
Following such an all-conquering behemoth
should have been a struggle yet with Meteora,
Linkin Park delivered an album which satisfied
the vast majority of appetites. The singles Faint,
Somewhere I Belong and Numb in particular
picked up from where Hybrid Theory left off,
slickly produced off-ya-feet gold that could
raise the pulse of even the most hardened
cynic. The album was another commercial
smash. Some 16 million copies sold and
the most successful record to ever hit US
alternative radio? Not a bad day’s work.
Unfortunately, from that point
onwards the band began to be
overtaken by challengers who years
earlier would only have been snapping at
their heels. For all their ability, Bennington and
Shinoda lacked the personality of Fred Durst
and collectively they seemed unable to move with
the times in the manner that Papa Roach and
Deftones did. The result was that their futuristic
shtick, which chimed so well as we entered a new
century, suddenly felt very dated only a few years
down the line, even if they were still capable of the
odd moment of brilliance (What I’ve Done, Burn It
Down, Bleed It Out), and some of the tunes from
their heyday had a little life breathed back into
them courtesy of their collaboration with Jay-Z.
Linkin Park are, in commercial terms at
least, the most successful band of the nu
metal crop, but it’s hard not to see them as
something of a relic in 2013 – an artefact so
definitive of a time and place that they have
never been able to truly escape it. Nevertheless,
as nu metal goes, it doesn’t get much bigger
that the boys from Agoura Hills.
WORDS: TOm DOyle
ISSUeS “I grew up on country music and then
I discovered N*Sync, R Kelly and
Usher and hearing Linkin Park was,
to me, like a metal band but one that
I could relate to. It wasn’t this huge
jump into super heavy music, Linkin
Park was a natural step into what I
would listen to next. It could appeal to
someone like me that liked what they
heard and discovered heavier guitars
but could still enjoy the melodies.
I got into them when Breaking The
Habit hit radio but after that me
and all my friends got into Hybrid
Theory and it was a huge part of my
childhood and made us skaters and
rockers. Chester’s voice and melodies
really stood out. I liked the pop side
of hip hop and so the rapping made it
cool but Chester had this voice that
didn’t have a lot of vibrato to it and he
could put emotion into their music
with his voice and that was something
that made me really love what Linkin
Park were doing.”
I Like
LinkinPark
metalhammer.co.uk 97
STEP INSIDE THE LOCO WORLD OF NU METALA 132-PAgE CELEbRATION OF ALL THINgS NU METAL!
CLASSIC FEATURES, 12 POSTERS, STICkERS AND ALL NEW INTERvIEWS WITH Fred,
CObY, CHINO, JONATHAN AND MORE!
ORDER AT:WWW.MYFAvOURITEMAgAZINES.CO.Uk/NUMETAL
-------------------------------------------------------
-------------------------------------
ON SALE JAN 15TH