Small, dusty, conservative Bakersfield, California was not the best place for an arty, New Wave/goth obsessed, makeup-wearing teenager to grow up. Because he was all these things, Jonathan Davis got harassed by jocks on a daily basis.

Years later, Davis is lead singer with the fast rising aggro/metal quintet KORN. When he performs "Faget," a song about the stupidity of homophobia, he looks out into the audience and sees big, brawny guys singing along and realizes that, had the circumstances been a little different, they might have been beating him up a couple of years back.

"Sick Rush" This, he said, gives him a "sick rush" - and a feeling of vindication. Several of the songs on the band's eponymous October 1994 debut - "Faget", "Clown", and "Daddy", deal with overcoming abuse by others, while "Helmet in the Bush", is concerned with self destruction via speed. Davis sang the 17-minute "Daddy" only once, he says, and it was so hard on him emotionally that he won't do it live.

"Mortition" "Recording the CD was horrible for me, " says Davis, who gave up a career as a mortician to, in 1993, "eat Top Ramen noodles and live an a garage" to play in the band. "It was a hard time for me, but liberating. I feel better now, definitely."

And after more that a year on the road opening for everyone from rappers House of Pain, to metal acts such as Megadeth, and Danzig, KORN's wrenchingly emotional, cathartic music - and rigorous road work- has given the Orange County based band a toehold among young alt/metal fans, so much so that scores of people left after their set opening for Megadeth in the summer in Dallas.

"I think a lot of those kids relate to what I'm saying. and the band is good," says Davis, who also plays bagpipes on one song, "Shoots and Ladders". "We noticed it this past spring, on the Danzig tour - kids were showing up a lot earlier. On the road, moving from small halls with House of Pain and Sick of it All to a European jaunt with German industrialists KMFDM to its current arena tour with Ozzy Osbourne which stops Saturday at the Worcester Centrum.

"Unsettling"

It was all a lot for Davis to adjust to; he considers himself a "private person" and says he had no idea he would be so popular. And although he's happy the band is doing so well, it's also a bit unsettling.

"I like to go out for a nice, quiet dinner sometimes, and all these people want to come up and talk about Korn," he says

The tour has been so rigorous, Davis says, that the band hasn't had a chance to work on its sophomore effort. But the slightly more leisurely pace of the Osbourne tour, he says, should help.

"it's just been, go go go we haven't written anything," he says. "We've just been kicking back since we got home from Europe. But on the Ozzy tour, we actually have days off, and we have a little studio set up in the bus, so we can work on things."

Datebook Magazine, Unknown