HEAVY MUSIC HISTORY: Follow The Leader – Korn

Let’s cast our mind back to a time when nu-metal was taken seriously. Was there ever really a time? Probably not but in the 90s this hybrid of metal and everything that wasn’t was all the rage. Though this would quickly lead to oversaturation and copy-cat syndrome. With everyone sounding like everyone else, who better to turn to for guidance than the founding fathers of nu-metal: KORN. With their third album, Follow The Leader, releasing in 1998, that’s exactly what people did.

Follow The Leader did exactly what was said on the tin; spearheaded a newer sound for the copy-cat bands to emulate. Following their eponymous debut and the largely popular Life Is Peachy, the band wanted to capitalise on their popularity. Building upon the parasocial relationship between band and fans, KORN would set up KORN TV, a live streaming service which documented the making of the record. Their After-School Special series was accessible each Thursday night and featured appearances from LIMP BIZKIT, STEVE VAI, 311, and ICE CUBE.

When it comes to the record, what’s the first thing we think of? Aside from the nasty breakdown during Freak On A Leash. Its striking artwork. Having a slight penchant for depicting children in quite dangerous situations, Follow The Leader’s cover star is an animated girl about to run off a cliff while the other children hang back and look on. These children are the work of comic book designer Todd McFarlane of The Amazing Spiderman and Spawn fame. When horror franchise Spawn was adapted for the big screen, McFarlane would approach the band for a track to contribute to the soundtrack. In return the band would recruit the artist to construct the landmark video for Freak On A Leash, one of the first videos to ever be retired from MTV’s Total Request Live (TRL). The official first video to ever be retired from TRL would be KORN’s Got The Life.

Diving into the material itself; the physical release featured a staggering 25 tracks, the first 12 of which contained complete silence. So why have them? The running rumour points to a suggested superstition of Jonathan Davis’ (vocals) who couldn’t have the album end on track 13. It would seem fear and the resulting aggression would be a theme of the album and it’s this which makes Follow The Leader the legendary cut it is. To achieve this, the band reunited with record producer Ross Robinson though not on a producing basis. Instead Robinson would work with Davis as a vocal coach. We’re not experts in the field but repeatedly punching someone in the back isn’t the first technique which comes to mind with vocal coaching. However Robinson’s reputation for being a brutal producer precedes him having worked on SLIPKNOT’s Iowa (2001) and MACHINE HEAD’s The Burning Red (1999) with similar processes.

Spinning Follow The Leader leads to a dark, haunting experience. Definitely not one to listen to whilst under the influence of mind altering substances. Though there are harrowing reasons behind this. According to Loudwire, Pretty alludes to Davis’ time working as a mortuary assistant in his late teens. It depicts the story of an 11 month old girl who had been physically and sexually abused then murdered by her father. While we have that end of the spectrum of how cruel life can be, Justin leads to the other. The titular Justin was a fan of the band who had been diagnosed with terminal intestinal cancer. One of his final wishes was to meet the band and it has been said the 12 tracks of silence at the beginning of the album is also a tribute to the fallen fan.

Though this tortuous depiction of life, self-loathing, and spiralling mental health proved immense for KORN. While peaking at number five on the UK album charts, it would shoot straight to the top spot on the Billboard 100. Follow The Leader would achieve a five-time Platinum status in the UK and triple-Platinum in Australia. At the time, it released to critical acclaim with David Fricke of Rolling Stone penning that KORN had crafted the “ideal record for those long, black days when all you can do is stand up and scream, “What the fuck! What the fuck! What the fuck!” at bloody-murder volume”. Elsewhere Janiss Garza of Yahoo! Music would describe the album as KORN being “intensely tortured and savage as ever” while stating the ferociousness of the records comes from somewhere “far darker than your everyday neurosis”.

Twenty-five years later, Follow The Leader is an essential listen for any heavy music fan. Though we can take or leave All In The Family which features an MC battle between Davis and LIMP BIZKIT’s Fred Durst. Freak On A Leash would go on to become KORN’s most-known song, even given an acoustic rendition with EVANESCENCE‘s Amy Lee during an Unplugged performance. Influencing bands such as LIMP BIZKIT, DEVILDRIVER, and STATIC-X, it can be argued the landscape of heavy music was forever altered by Follow The Leader. Regardless of the opinion around the band’s later material, there is a solid reason they are regarded as one of metal’s leading bands and it is Follow The Leader.

Follow The Leader was originally released on August 13 1998 via Epic Records.

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