...states KORN vocalist Jonathan, who used to work as an autopsy assistant. These days he's in one of the hottest bands in LA.

Katherine Turman hogs a seat on their tour bus.

Phoenix: It's 110 degrees in the shade on Korn's tour bus. Lanky singer Jonathan Davis bounces around the vehicle, twisting his dreadlocks with nervous energy; while drummer David is slightly calmer, sitting at a table at the front of the bus moaning, "Turn on the damn A.C. It's fucking hot on this bus!"

Outside, a couple dozen feet away on stage at the Desert Sky Amphitheatre, Souls at Zero are pounding away, soon to be followed by Lucy's Fur Coat, Ugly Kid Joe and the Goo Goo Dolls. Korn are headlining this fest for radio station KUPD, and the 16,000 seat venue is packed to capacity for this free show.

Back in the relative calm of the bus, as the 'Best of Blondie' CD blares from the stereo system, Jonathan and David reflect on the crazy uphill ride since the release of the Korn's self-titled Immortal/Epic Records debut. In the year since then, the band - rounded out by bassist Field and guitarists Brian Welch and James "Munk" Munkey (sic) - have been a touring machine, hitting the road with acts as varied as Primus, Biohazard and Megadeth. And it's paid off, with their disc climbing the chart.

The 24-year-old singer settles down slightly and grins. "I thought touring would be one big-ass fucking party - chicks everywhere, the whole fantasy. It's nothing like I thought. It's better. If it was like what I thought it would be, I'd be dead now."

The magenta-haired drummer chimes in: "Rather than so much partying, it's a lot more of a success-and-achievement feeling; you feel good about yourself. It's rewarding. Yeah, there's girls, yeah. But a lot more than that. We want to break the hell out of this record. I wouldn't gauge our success on what Billboard says it is on the charts, but we want it to go Gold, and go out and headline our own US tour.

"Every Wednesday morning we call our managers to check on sales," continues Jonathan. "Our managers are as psycho in the office as we are on stage! They're so excited and gung-ho!"

As is Jonathan, although one might not surmise that from his lyrics. On 'Korn', words of rage, familial angst and drug problems burst forth, backed by aggro and ultra-heavy riffage; not unlike labelmates Rage Against the Machine without politico spewing. In fact, in some ways, off stage Jonathan seems to be the antithesis of his almost macho on-stage personality. In person, he's amusing, revealing, open and sensitive, waxing enthusiastic about his first child, who is to be born to the vocalist and his girlfriend at any moment - literally.

"See this?" he says, indicating a beeper attached to his belt. "This tells me when my child's coming. If I'm on stage, I say: 'I'm having a baby now, bye!' My astrologer told me it was going to be a girl. My little girl has been coming to me in my dreams, and it's breaking my fucking heart."

David puts his head down on the table in not-so-mock horror. "He has no clue what's coming," he mutters about the impending birth.

But Jonathan continues excitedly. "If it's a boy, it's cool. But if it's a girl her name is Salaam - it means peace. Her middle name is going to be Dementia, which means insanity."

(Note - Jonathan is now in fact the father of a baby boy, Nathan Houseman Davis)

The latter running in the family, perhaps? Actually, Jonathan has felt aberrant since childhood. Growing up in Bakersfield (as did the rest of Korn), Jonathan felt a powerful sense of alienation from the more narrow-minded brethren in the agriculturally-based community, and many of those demons are exorcised on 'Korn'. In 'Faget', which is one of the first songs written after Jonathan joined the band, he rails against being called "pussy" and "queer" and being picked on at school for his artistic leanings. "I was a major geek," he admits.

True, he is what you might call 'different', sporting an HIV tattoo on his left arm (it's a nickname, and he's said that the tat is a "fuck you to everybody" for calling him a fag), and having pursued a career as a coroner previous to Korn. "Once my mother figured out how I really am, she wasn't too happy," notes the cheerful singer, not looking too unhappy about the fact.

And how is he? It doesn't take much convincing for a grinning Jonathan to run to his bunk and return with some pretty hard-core pornography purchased in Amsterdam, including the fine magazine Animal Orgy. He flips it open. "Man, how could you suck a pony's cock?!" he says admiringly. "If I had her phone number we could call her and ask. We gotta call her!" says David enthusiastically, before asserting seriously, "Being on the road for seven months straight has made us sickos. You're going straight to hell," he continues, looking at Jonathan. Nevertheless, other paraphernalia, including bondage gear and vibrating sexual aids, are also displayed proudly by the energetic vocalist.

So what did his mother mean about "How is he?"

"She's proud, stoked, but doesn't understand the way I think. She's like 'What did I do to make you like this? What happened to my son?'"

Actually, Jonathan is refreshingly unpretentious, warm and open about everything, from sexuality, to other bands, to autopsies.

"Autopsies are a rush. It's like a drug. You know what kind of power that is when you cut a human being open, be it dead or alive? You know how many people would like to do that, but they can't 'cos of jail? I can gut someone in less than five minutes, from arsehole to tongue.

"Remember Mitch, in Oildale?" he says, turning to David. "That motherfucker fucked dead bodies. This guy, he was a freak. Every time I'd go to the mortuary to drop off bodies, he was all (creepy voiced) 'Hi, Jonathan, how are you? How are you? come here...' And he'd always be rubbing me."

Okay. Though the singer has respect for human life and death, and is a great believer in both karma and reincarnation, he's also into, well, pain. To what extent?

"Any extent I can get it."

What do you think that says about you?

"I like being miserable."

Why?

"I guess I'm punishing myself. I guess I punish myself every day. I don't know... I haven't really analysed myself lately. I just like the pain," he concludes with a chuckle.

"Gettin' whipped! That's fucking pain. Definitely. I've been whipped with a Judas Priest belt, that was the best one - whakkk!"

This is the same man who admits that Duran Duran is one of his all time favourite bands (yes, he seems to be serious), and who likes it when his girlfriend dresses him up in women's clothing. Yet at 10:30 that night, he's on stage in Adidas sweat stage-wear. The upper half comes off to reveal a skinny torso which writhes as he growls out the words to unsettling tunes like 'Blind' and 'Faget'.

Cowboy-hatted, Aerosmith T-shirt-wearing concertgoers gleefully shout his own words back at Jonathan - 'You can suck my dick and fucking like it!' And as the show draws to a pounding conclusion, bonfires erupt in the grassy area of the amphitheatre as frenzied kids set trash cans on fire and thrash around with bacchanalian abandon...

Later, post-show, the vocalist is his sweet and amusing off-stage self, hanging happily in Korn's dressing room, cutting up laughing with friends and musicians including Fight's Mark Chausee and Jay Jay, and Ugly Kid Joe's Whitfield Crane, whom he attempts to teach to create a pentagram by interlocking both hands. Beer and leafier substances flow freely and the vibe is good. A road crew member arrives to inform the singer that "there are two fourteen-year-old girls who want to meet you." Jonathan looks pleased, shy, but not especially eager, and replies softly, "In a little while."

After this tour, Korn are likely to have plenty to write about. If the debut record was about getting the anger and pain of growing up out of their systems, what will their second record reveal? Jonathan admits he hasn't given it a lot of thought. "People bottle shit up, and on that fucker (the first LP) I fucking had a lot of shit on my mind a long time that I wanted to get out, and our producer, Ross Robinson, brought it out from me."

"Ross is a very pure and clean-spirited person, and you feel it when you're with him. He's the the kind of person that can draw that out of you, " confirms David.

"I felt very safe with Ross," continues Jonathan. "It was a very hard record to do. (Next time) musically it's one thing, but lyrically, it's going to be different."

Perhaps he'll vent about how Korn has been lumped in with the Huntington Beach, California scene that has spawned the likes of Offspring - though Korn have been together for seven years, beginning with a different singer who was unceremoniously fired several years ago. "Everybody asks the same questions: 'How do you feel about the new wave of music that's coming here now'" they sigh.

Or perhaps Korn will write about the fun and excitement of touring. For instance, the band is 'sponsored' (as are quite a few groups) by Jägermeister, and receive free booze... and Jägerettes -- cute company spokeschicks. "It's cool. You get drunk and you get to hang out with some cute girls," laughs Jonathan.

Or the first tour, where they purchased an RV and hauled their equipment behind it in a trailer, it "broke down about four times the day we left", remembers David. "We left in LA, and broke down in San Bernardino!"

Quite a different scene from when the children of Korn where growing up in Bakersfield, partying in "dirt fields" outside the semi-rural suburbs.

"It was kinda cool though," reminisces David. "It's and area where it's just cars for days and some bonfire in the middle of nowhere with like, 300 kids around; except someone will fight someone for something that happened ten years ago. Dummies."

"Dumb motherfuckers," agrees Jonathan, who began making the two-hour drive to LA at the age of 15 to catch shows, his first being Cradle of Thorns. "Shit, every time I'd come over the Grapevine (a freeway pass to LA) I'd be shaking I was so happy."

So Mr. Uncool of Bakersfield has become Mr. Cool with a record deal?

"Nobody started out being, from day one, what you would call 'cool,'" opines David. "You learn. Usually (musically) you take after what you listen to, and hopefully you break through and start realising your own thing. I just didn't start being able to do different things with both feet and hands."

Check this for cool: Korn do covers of the Scorpions' 'Rock You Like A Hurricane' and Lionel Richie's 'Hello' at practice. David flosses his teeth daily and wears a retainer once a week. They've got a CD of 'The Village People's Greatest Hits' on the bus...

For now, Jonathan is having too much fun to think seriously about the new record, though it should be out in '96. But not even one song written? Jonathan shakes his long dreads. No notebooks of lyrics or phrases that he might use someday? The singer laughs, "I'm not like your normal fucking citizen. I hate shit like... (whistles a happy sounding song). I like writing right there on the spot. It's more fun.

"On 'Korn' I wrote most of the shit on drugs, fucking methamphetamines," he confesses. "But for writing, I get a vibe from the music. Lately it's been a lot of children's themes. I did some shit about Mr. Rogers (US kid's TV character). I fucking hate Mr. Rogers! " The future father continues his rant, concluding "When I was a little kid, Mr. Rogerts is all 'You've got to be nice and be honest and be a good person.' Being that way as a kid, I got fucking picked on and I was a nerd. I never got anywhere. I always got shit on! So fuck you!"

Metal Hammer, February 1996