BREAKING IN A SEQUENCE (a.k.a. BIAS), the hard rock band featuring former KORN drummer David Silveria, was recently interviewed by Portugal’s Underground’s Voice. You can watch the chat below.
Asked how it feels to be credited with having originated the “nu metal” sound with KORN, Silveria said: “Supposedly [KORN] invented nu metal, the genre. I think if you Google ‘nu metal,’ KORN comes up as the inventors and all that shit. But we had our influences too before KORN came out.
“It’s never hit me that we invented a whole new genre of music, ’cause, to me, we were just making songs, and we were just writing what we wanted to write, and what felt good,” he continued. “Not one time when we were in the studio did we go, ‘Hey, we’re making a new genre right now. Let’s do it.’ That never happened. So when people say that we invented the whole nu metal thing, I don’t really know how to act. It’s definitely a great thing to hear — it makes you feel good — but I really don’t know how to react to that, just because I felt it was five guys making music, not inventing a whole genre of music.”
KORN‘s self-titled debut, which came out in 1994, went on to sell more than 10 million copies worldwide and featured the band’s first classic, “Blind”. The LP is credited with launching the nu metal movement, setting the template for albums from bands like DEFTONES, LIMP BIZKIT, COAL CHAMBER and others.
Essentially a fusion of rap and alternative rock (arguably born out of RAGE AGAINST THE MACHINE), nu metal inexplicably swept the airwaves and peaked for a brief period in the late ’90s and early 2000s, with Gregory Heaney of AllMusic describing the genre as “one of metal’s more unfortunate pushes into the mainstream.” Along the way, several bands associated with nu metal, including KORN, DEFTONES and SLIPKNOT, took a somewhat defensive stance against being labeled as such. Even those less apologetic nu metal groups eventually changed their sound, effectively disowning the genre that they helped pioneer.
In a 2012 interview with Gibson Guitar, KORN guitarist James “Munky” Shaffer said that he and his bandmates “never considered ourselves ‘nu metal,’ or any particular genre for that matter. When we came out, certain media outlets coined that phrase to group all these bands together, but we’ve always tried to do our own thing,” he said. “We love metal, but also incorporate hip-hop, funk, electronic music, and try to keep challenging ourselves to be different and push our own boundaries with our music. I think that’s kept us in a good creative space that our amazing fans have been so supportive of, thankfully.”
Last August, Silveria told the “Talk Toomey” podcast that countless people have credited KORN with creating nu metal. “I do agree that we changed the music scene and put the course of heavy music on a different route,” he said. “I just feel like me — I don’t feel, like, ‘Oh, I did something. I changed the whole entire scene.’ It’s not a feeling that I have. I’ve heard it so many times, I don’t really understand it. But I guess we did — for all intents and purposes, I guess we did kind of change the scene and created this new genre called nu metal.”
In a 2017 interview Italy’s Linea Rock, Silveria‘s replacement, Ray Luzier, said that he doesn’t consider KORN to be a “nu metal” band. “To me, I don’t know what that is,” he said. “Anyone could make a style up. I don’t know… all of these emo [bands], I don’t get it. To me, KORN is KORN. It’s its own thing. It’s hard rock, it’s metal, it’s hip-hop, it’s funk…all of this stuff wrapped into one. It’s not just aggressive metal music. I can’t call it metal, but hard rock doesn’t fit either. It’s KORN. It’s the style. [Laughs]”
Last month, BREAKING IN A SEQUENCE released its debut EP “Acronym”. The effort features a cover of FAITH NO MORE‘s “Midlife Crisis”, as well as BREAKING IN A SEQUENCE‘s debut single “Pity”, which reached No. 23 on the Billboard Indicator chart and No. 9 on the Foundations chart upon its initial release.
