Sometimes he has a cute and even nerdy look but his voice is powerful, loud, and ripping. He was born on January 18, 1971, so let's get to know Jonathan Davis a little better, he has a pretty difficult past:
(Photo: Ethan Miller)
1. His full name is Jonathan Howsmon Davis.
2. He is a descendant of parents of German, Scottish, English, and Welsh descent. His father was a keyboardist for Buck Owens and Frank Zappa, among others, and his mother was a professional dancer and actress.
3. His parents divorced when he was 3 years old due to his father's many absences to tour.
4. At that time his parents produced the musical "Jesus Christ Superstar". When he regularly visited the rehearsals he already realized then that his life is going to be around music.
5. He moved in with his mother and started developing Asthma, he suffered from the disease for 7 years when he went in and out of hospitals many times. At age of 5, he had a very severe seizure that almost resulted in his death.
6. In his youth he loved "Duran Duran" and later fell in love with New Wave and Hip Hop.
(Photo: Unknown)
7. Davis experienced a lot of suffering in his youth, from his lyrics you can learn a lot about the difficult experiences he went through. There will be some hard points here so be prepared (even we had hard time writing).
8. As a child he was sexually abused by his babysitter who to this day has not been exposed, when he told his parents about it seeking help, they did not believe him and did nothing to stop the suffering. The song "Daddy" from Korn's first album is considered written about his father was actually written about these events.
9. Davis suffered a lot of harassment from his stepfather and at the age of 13 when his stepfather destroyed his drum kit he decided he was moving in with his biological father.
10. But there he did not know that the situation would get worse. His stepmother hated the fact that Davis entered their beloved and beautiful home with his gothic look and strange demeanor. She hated Davis and severely abused him both physically and verbally. One of the most memorable events Davis have is when he was sick she would make him tea and put hot pepper in it to "burn" the disease and he suffered from it badly. He said in several interviews that he did not believe how cruel she could be and how his father did nothing to help him. He wrote the song "Kill You" from the album "Life Is Peachy" about her.
(Photo: Brian Ziff)
11. Davis not only suffered from abuse inside his home but also from the outside. In high school, he suffered bullying from other kids because of his outward appearance and shy demeanor. He used to put makeup on his face and wear skirts and long clothes. He said he did not understand why everyone called him gay so he asked for help from his teachers and instead of helping him, they sent him for "conversion" treatment. The song "Faget" from Korn's first album was created from those events.
12. Several times he was asked why he did not leave back to his mother or run away from home and he said he just could not, he could not do it.
13. In most of the years he lived with his father, his stepmother did not let him out of the house much, but as soon as he reached the age of 18, she threw him out of the house.
14. Since his father threw him out of the house and his mother was too far away he went to study at a burial college. Yes, you read that right. He entered this line of job because he thought that way he would get attention, but over time he stayed because it was of great interest to him. He gained a great deal of experience in removing corpses from all sorts of places and was always intrigued by the cause of death.
15. At that time he began to suffer from post-trauma following the preoccupation with death and found consolation in drinking, he began to develop an alcohol addiction that accompanied him for many years.
16. In 1991 he joined the band "SexArt", a punk metal band formed by Dennis Shinn. They recorded six songs but did not release any albums and Davis left the band in 1993.
17. In 1993 at the age of 22 Davis and another guitarist named Brian Welch known as "Head" joined three more friends. Drummer David Silveria, guitarist James Shaffer known as "Munky" and bassist Reginald Arvizu known as "Fieldy". The five formed together a band called "Korn".
(Photo: Mick Hutson)
18. We will not review here the history of "Korn" because we will sail to other districts but we will mention a number of interesting things.
19. The name "Korn" started from the word "Corn" but then the friends thought they did not like the meaning and if the C is replaced by a K it will get a different and incomprehensible meaning.
20. You must also have wondered why the "R" in the band name is inverted, so it was created as a "tribute" to the fact that at the time of the band's formation, most of the band members worked on the "Toys R Us" toy store which has the R in the logo inverted.
21. The band began its breakthrough after the independent record company Immortal Records discovered the band at one of the shows and signed them to a contract.
22. The band's first album bearing the band's name was released in October 1994. It reached number one on the Heatseekers Albums charts and received enthusiastic reviews that stated that it had created the New Wave Metal genre and revived Nu-Metal.
23. This album is Davis' favorite album, it made him feel that he is not alone. On the one hand, he was happy that so many people liked and connected to the album but on the other hand, it hurt him that people connect to the pain and that they probably also experiencing difficult things like him.
24. The band's first tour to promote the album was not a great success but in the second round they were chosen together with "Deftones" to warm up Ozzy Osbourne and there they started to create a very large fan base and the album reached gold sales already in the middle of the tour.
25. The band has released 7 albums with the same lineup: Life Is Peachy (1996), Follow the Leader (1998), Issues (1999), Untouchables (2002), Take a Look in the Mirror (2003) and See You on the Other Side (2005).
26. The stand of the Davis microphone, which is shaped like an alien woman and created by the artist Atelier HR Giger, is considered the sixth member of the band and has been with them since 2000.
(Photo: Clay Patrick McBride)
27. In the early years of the band they lived like in the "Motley Crue" movie, with a lot of drugs, alcohol, and one big madness. Davis, who consumed a lot of drugs and alcohol, went into a complete frenzy and began to behave in an extreme way when he suffered from symptoms of nervous breakdowns and anxiety attacks.
28. Immediately after their appearance on MTV Unplugged in 2006, which by the way is one of the musical moments that Davis is most proud of. Drummer David Silveria decided to leave the band indefinitely. In 2007 he was replaced by Ray Luzier who is a member of the band to this day.
29. Together they have released 6 more albums: Untitled album (2007), Korn III: Remember Who You Are (2010), The Path of Totality (2011), The Paradigm Shift (2013), The Serenity of Suffering (2016) and "The Nothing" (2019).
30. The album "The Nothing" was very difficult for Davis who had lost his ex-wife and mother a year earlier. These events mentally broke Davis and the album is simply his outlet and therapy with the whole band supporting him and helping him create out of the difficulty, out of "The Nothing".
31. Davis began working on a solo album back in 2007 when he formed the band "Jonathan Davis and the SFA". Although they did not release a studio album, they released two live albums: "Alone I Play" (2007) and "Live at the Union Chapel" (2011). The band disbanded in 2014.
32. Davis also had a small DJ career in which he used the stage name "JDevil" and we even have an Israeli connection... In 2011 he made a media comeback to the DJ stand when he came up as an opening act for "Infected Mushroom's" main show, after also appearing on their song "Smashing the Opponent", from 2009.
33. He would also DJ as an opening act for Korn, Rob Zombie, and Marilyn Manson.
34. Since 1998 Davis has been clean of alcohol (do not ask about drugs because we do not know) and he has not touched a drink since.
35. In the early 2000s Davis began to amass a collection of souvenirs of serial killers, in 2005 he wanted to open a museum with these items but the initiative did not materialize.
36. In 2004 Davis began developing a video game called "Pop Scars" in which musician celebrities fight each other, but the game did not see the light of day.
37. Davis played small roles in two films: "Queen of the Damned" (2002) and "Seeing Other People" (2004).
38. In 2006 he developed Immune Thrombocytopenic Purpura as a result of antibiotics he was taking. This is a disease in which the blood in the body loses its clots. He was forced to stop Korn's tour but he recovered a year later. The songs "Starting Over" and "Hold On" are about the experiences he went through during that time.
39. In May 2018, Davis' first solo album, "Black Labyrinth" was released.
40. Davis married twice, in 1998 to Renee Perez and they had a son Nathan and in 2004 to Deven Davis and they had sons Pirate and Zeppelin.
41. In February 2022, the band released their 14th album "Requiem", you perceive the power and survival, 14 albums. This is one of the biggest bands in the Nu-Metal world that continue with all their power and releases albums and go on big tours!!
Listen to Korn's last album "Requiem" on: Spotify, Apple Music