A CUT-BY-CUT LOOK AT KORN’S `FOLLOW THE LEADER’ WITH JONATHAN

IT’S ON:

“This is my peer pressure song. It’s about me, being so stressed out, going out, partying and everybody’s just going `Come on dude, it’s on.’ That’s partying: it’s about the alcohol, women and everything else…all that wrapped into one. Like in the chorus I when I talk about `Why am I really doing this?’ It’s all my fault that I’m doing this because all the booze and the women do is just make it worse. They just rearrange all the problems into a different order so I can deal with them one moment at a time.”

FREAK ON A LEASH:

“That’s my song that rails out against the music industry. It’s about how I feel like I’m a fuckin’ prostitute. Like I’m this freak paraded around, but I got corporate America fuckin’ making all the money while it’s taking a part of me. It’s like they stole something from me–they stole my innocence and I’m not calm anymore. I worry constantly. I’m not just talkin’ about the record business. Everything’s involved. I’ve lost something. I’m not all there anymore. I love what I do, but I wish I could have it all back. It’s like the `Peter Pan syndrome.’ I wish I could still fly.”

GOT THE LIFE:

“I’m baggin’ on myself in that song. It’s about how everything’s always handed to me, how I look up to God and say I don’t want this anymore. Like I want something more out of life than all this. And I’ve got everything I really need, but sometimes I don’t like it and I don’t know how to explain it. I have to sit through the songs more to actually get into what I write. I really and truly know the meanings of the songs…almost. But it’s like I’m haunted by demons that influence my writing. It’s a give or take of that. I mean I love being a rock star, I love all that it entails, but I hate all the pressure and all the bullshit’s that involved. And I’m asking God, you know, take this away and make me happy. But he’s telling me, `hey, you got the life. You get to see the world, you get to do this, you get to be in a great big band.’ My mindset when I was writing the song was that I was really down on everything. It’s like I’m sick of this bullshit, all the stress and the pressure. But if it were all gone, I’d be in even more hell.”

B.B.K.:

“That stands for `big black cock!’ That’s what I call a Jack-and-Coke that’s served in those little glasses like in Europe. That’s what I named it, `big black cock.’ And that’s another song about me dealing with the pressures of this album and how I’m trying to kill myself, but, do I really want to kill myself? Things I’m just questioning myself. Like me and myself are just destroying myself with alcohol and everything, because I can’t settle everything. But I have decided to get in one of the residential treatment centers that accept private insurance. I’m a really scared little boy.”

CHILDREN OF THE KORN:

“(Ice) Cube came up with the title. I fed off of what he wrote–he was talking about growing up during puberty, and having people dictate to him what he can do, like `how you gonna tell me how to live and who to fuck.’ And in one of my verses, I’m talking about being a kid that’s always known as the fuckin’ town faggot. It’s funny how things change–how some of these people picked on me and all of a sudden, look who’s laughing now, because I’m a big rock star now. And in another verse, I talk about all these parents fuckin’ hating me for what I do, saying I’m corrupting their children, but in turn these parents need to step outside of themselves and really listen to what I’m talking about. Then I think they can understand that they were kids before. They’re just really quick to judge me. All the `Children Of The KORN’ are all our KORN fans. All those kids going thought that shit and feeling what I feel.”

DEAD BODIES EVERYWHERE:

“That was the song about my parents trying to keep me out of the music business. My father was in it and he knew how it was and I totally understand him now that I have a son. I want Nathan to be a musician, but I don’t want him to go through the hell I went through. That’s the same thing my dad was doing. A lot of people can relate to it, because it’s like the dads wanting their sons to be football players and their sons want to be doctors or something else. That kind of pressure we get from our parents when we’re growing up. It’s like trying to make their sons into something they’re really not. The `Dead Bodies’ thing is like how I did just that. I worked at the coroner’s office instead of being a musician, and all I got out of it was `Dead Bodies Everywhere,’ and I got all traumatized. Thanks a lot mom and dad.”

PRETTY:

“It’s a story about this little girl that came into the coroner’s office when I was working there and she was fucked by her dad. She was an 11-month-old little baby girl. Her legs were broken back behind her, and he had raped her like a toy doll and chucked her in the bathroom. It was the most heinous thing I’ve ever seen in my life and I still have nightmares about it. I was about 17-1/2 at the time. It was heavy man. I went through all kinds of therapy. I found out I have post traumatic stress disorder from seeing all those bodies, like how American veterans in the Vietnam War got it from seeing all the death around them. When you see someone dead it traumatizes your brain. You don’t know what to do with all this shit. It’s like one of the reasons I’m so fucked in the head is because I was so young and my brain couldn’t store the stuff. It didn’t know what to do with it, so my brain freaks out and causes trauma. That’s why I’m afraid of death. I can’t talk to people, really. I’m scared to talk to people I don’t know. I’m afraid of flying, and I can’t drive. I’ve dealt with the reality of death. Most people think they’re not gonna die. Well I never had that chance of denying it `cause I saw it every fuckin’ day. It was the reality of death. It could happen any time, any minute. I live my life everyday like it’s gonna be my last. I always gotta go back into the reality in my head that I could die at any minute, and I don’t wanna die, because I have so much to live for.”

ALL IN THE FAMILY:

“That song was originally for B-Real (of Cypress Hill) and it didn’t work out `cause his record label wouldn’t let him do it. Fred (Durst of Limp Bizkit) was at the studio one day after a `KORN-TV’ taping, and we said, `Let’s do a song together. Hey, man, let’s go back and forth and rip on each other like an old-school battle.’ I don’t know who’s idea it was. I can’t remember if it was mine, or FIELDY’s, or Fred’s, but we came up with the idea and we started writing and we worked on it together. I even came up with some bags on myself for Fred to say. It was all in good natured fun.”

RECLAIM MY PLACE:

“I always do a song about a band member, and this one is about the whole band and how all my life I’ve been called a homosexual. Even now, I became this big rock star in a band and I’m still called a fag even by my own band. So it’s like I was fuckin’ pissed off at them. It’s like, `erase them all because I’m gonna reclaim my place and say hey, they owe a lot to me for what I did, and I owe a lot to them back, but, it still kinda sucks.’ I’ve never ever gotten away from that `fag’ fuckin’ title. Just because I’m a sensitive kinda guy, and kinda feminine. It really sucks.”

JUSTIN:

“Justin is a kid who’s terminally ill and dying of intestinal cancer. His last dying wish was to meet us and it really freaked me out. That threw a whole bunch of new kind of pressure on my head. That’s really intense. Someone’s gonna die and his last thing he wants to do is come hang out with us. So I truly just freaked out. It’s like, `why would you want to meet me? What makes me so special?’ And in turn, I talk about how I admire his strength and his life. I couldn’t stare at him, because he was so content that he was gonna die. No one could look him in the eyes. I totally admire his strength. I wish I had it.”

SEED:

“That’s all about the same thing again, like in `Got The Life.’ I’m lying in bed in my hotel room or wherever thinking, `do I really need all this stuff? All this pressure on me?’ Because I’m a stressed-out freak. The song’s about Nathan (JONATHAN’s son), it’s about how every time that I look into his eyes, I see myself how I used to be, innocent and stress-free. I’m kind of jealous of it. It really sucks, I used to be that way. It’s like I have to work so hard at this thing in my life. I have to become a stressed-out freak, but I have to put food on the table for my child. Every time I look in his eyes, I just see myself staring right back at my ass laughing. I was like care-free, innocent as a child. It’s really weird and I’m really jealous of it. That little fucker has my exact same eyes, too. I’m looking at myself when I look at him. It’s sad, it’s sad.”

CAMELTOSIS:

“That’s a love song. It’s about women in general, women who hurt me. It’s Tre’s (from the Pharcyde) lyrics. He’s going on about chicks, and my chorus is like I’m so scared to love anyone and really let them in after I got hurt really really bad by a girl. I’ve let Renee (JONATHAN’s fiancò) in a little bit, to be honest, but I’ll never be that in love ever again. That’s what I’m saying, now matter now many times you’ve loved, once or twice, you’re gonna get fucked, `cause you usually do eventually. The word `Cameltosis’ is a joke. You know, like how girls get `camel toes’ when they pull their pants up too high in their crotch? We call it `camel toes.'”

MY GIFT TO YOU:

“Renee always wanted me to write her a love song, and that’s why I called it `My Gift To You.’ It’s my gift to her and you know how I get sick. I always had a fantasy of fucking her and choking her to death. I fantasize about what it would look like through her eyes, with me in her body watching me do it. So it’s like a really sick, fucked-up song. I did it in the mindset of `I love her so much, I want to take her out of this world.’ It’s really strange. She used to leave notes on my pillow with 25 ways she’d like to kill me. She’s got this weird death fetish. We’re kinda fuckin’ freaky. She got it. She’s all, `Thank you, that’s kinda fucked up. I was expecting a fuckin’ `I love you, baby’ kinda song.’ I’m all, `No, you know me. I mean, I can’t do that.’ I couldn’t write a straight love song. I don’t know. I put a lot of love into that song, and people were freaked out by it, wondering how I could think like that? But I mean, it comes from my upbringing. All that death around me all the time. I’ve had those sick fuckin’ thoughts and I’m not afraid to talk about them. I’m sure everybody’s thought about killing themselves. One time I was thinking about it while making love and taking her away from this fuckin’ place. I just had the balls to write about it.”

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