Jonathan Davis

This article is about Jonathan Davis, the lead singer of Korn. For people with similar names, see Jonathan Davis (disambiguation).

"Jon Davis" redirects here. For the professional wrestler, see Jon Davis (wrestler). For the poet, see Jon Davis (poet).

Jonathan Davis

Jonathan Houseman Davis (born January 18, 1971) is the lead vocalist and frontman for the nu-metal band Korn. Davis was ranked 16th on Hit Paraders list of "Heavy Metal's All-Time Top 100 Vocalists".

Early life

Davis was born in Bakersfield, California to Rick Davis and Holly Chavez (also the mother of Mark Chavez, the lead singer for Adema). His father was a keyboardist for Buck Owens and Frank Zappa, while his mother was a professional actress and dancer. His parents divorced when he was three years old, his mother leaving Rick for an actor, and was raised by his father and stepmother Lily in Bakersfield. Davis suffered severe bouts of asthma as a child, and had survived a near-fatal asthma attack when he was five, when he was pronounced clinically dead for several minutes. He also spoke of having a horrible relationship with his stepmother. Davis has said that his earliest musical inspiration as a child was the Andrew Lloyd Webber musical Jesus Christ Superstar, and his favorite musical group was The Cure. He graduated from Highland High School in 1989. He also attended the San Francisco School of Mortuary Science for a period of time.Recently he just admitted that he is bisexual and stated that he used music as an instrument to show he's anger to the world.

Career

Korn

After college, Davis worked for a while as a mortician, continuing the line of work he had begun in high school (Davis worked as a coroner's assistant as a teenager). He was the last member to join the band. James 'Munky' Shaffer and Brian 'Head' Welch discovered him in a bar, initially intending to only stay for a few minutes. Upon seeing Davis performing with his then-band Sexart, however, they were compelled to stay for the whole set. Later Reginald 'Fieldy' Arvizu called him and asked him to join their then band Creep. He came to the apartment where the band lived at the time to audition, and moved with them to Huntington Beach a few months later. In the early years of Korn, he was known for wearing a variety of normal and customized Adidas tracksuits onstage. The sports brand has become a kind of "trademark" for all Korn fans.

Korn released their self-titled debut album in 1994. It peaked at #72 on the Billboard charts. To date they have released eight studio albums, with a ninth, titled Korn III: Remember Who You Are, released on July 9, July 12, and July 13, 2010 in Australia, United Kingdom, and United States, respectively. Each of the first eight have achieved Platinum certification, with the exceptions of their untitled album, which achieved gold, and their recently released album on July 13, 2010 Korn III: Remember Who You Are.

Solo work

Davis' solo career started during his high school years as he had a solo project known as "Buck Naked", which featured musicians of what would later become Sexart. With them, he recorded several songs such as 'Come With Me'. His music took influence from the new romantic movement. In 1993, Davis got together with Human Waste Project to record a cover of The Go-Go's song "This Town".

In 2002, he began composing the musical score for the movie adaptation of Queen Of The Damned with Richard Gibbs. He also performed six songs for the movie's soundtrack, although his performances were not allowed on the retail release, due to his contract with Sony. He also composed the theme song for the 2002 revival of The Twilight Zone and performed a cover of Neil Diamond's "Love On The Rocks" for the movie Wonderland.

Jonathan Davis announced in October 2007 that he would be embarking on an acoustic solo tour called Alone I Play in November 2007. He performed songs from the Queen of the Damned soundtrack, cover songs, rarely-performed Korn songs, covers and Korn's most popular songs. The tour was completely produced by Richard Gibbs. Davis also played a solo set at the 2008 Download Festival at Donington Park, where he played the Queen of the Damned soundtrack in its entirety and a few Korn classics.

Jonathan Davis and the Simply Fucking Amazings is:

• Jonathan Davis - vocals
• Ray Luzier – drums, percussion
• Shane Gibson – guitar
• Miles Mosley – upright bass
• Zac Baird – keyboards
• Shenkar – violin

A CD–DVD package was released in 2007 titled Alone I Play. It is available at invisiblearts.com.

Davis will be bringing his solo tour to Europe. Once that concludes, he will release a studio album with exactly the same band. They will be recording new, original songs and cover songs for this upcoming release. It was announced on Kornspace that Davis is referring to his solo band as The Simply Fuckin' Amazings.

In April 2008, Davis canceled numerous dates on his previously announced "Alone I Play" European tour slated to begin in late May due to "personal reasons". Some of the canceled shows included those in Sweden, Belgium, France, and most of the UK and Ireland leg of the tour.

Davis played at Ozzfest in August 2008 with The Simply Fuckin' Amazings, playing a variety of songs played on the Alone I Play tour. The following month Davis released a cover version of Lil Wayne's "Got Money" featuring Jim Root on guitar and Ray Luzier on drums. While there has been no official news with regards to his solo album, in an interview at Ozzfest 2008, he said that he hoped to have it out by November or December 2008, and that a world tour would follow.

Davis has confirmed that he has postponed work on his solo album so he could get into the studio to work on the new Korn album.

Acting

He has a cameo in Queen of the Damned as a ticket scalper. Davis plays a minor role as Ricky, a crack dealer, in the film Seeing Other People. Davis also has a role as a store clerk in the indie film The Still Life. Davis is billed to appear in the upcoming horror film Sin-Jin Smyth where he will be playing the lead role. According to Bloody-Disgusting, Jonathan Davis is currently working on a script with writer/director Clive Barker entitled Oblivion. Davis describes it as a "dark opera about the end of the world" and that it differs greatly from Korn's style of music. The project's currently been postponed for an indefinite period.

He has also been featured in many other bands' music videos, sometimes with Korn and sometimes solo. He has appeared with Korn in Limp Bizkit's "Break Stuff", Deadsy's "Brand New Love", Ice Cube's "Fuck Dying", Videodrone's "Ty Jonathan Down", Sugar Ray's "Answer the Phone", and Lil' Wayne's "Prom Queen" as a cameo appearance. He has also appeared in Videodrone's "Ty Jonathan Down" (which he sings in), Cold's "Give", and Busta Rhymes' "Fire." He has also worked with Infected Mushroom, a psychedelic trance and electronic music group, in the song (and video) titled "Smashing The Opponent."

Davis and the rest of Korn appeared in a 2005 episode of the comedy-drama television series Monk, titled "Mr. Monk Gets Stuck in Traffic". As well as appearing in Monk. Korn also made an appearance on The Man Show in which hosts Jimmy Kimmell and Adam Carolla claimed to be two members that were kicked out of the band in the style of a VH1 Behind The Music special.

Davis and Korn voiced themselves in season 3 of South Park in the episode "Korn's Groovy Pirate Ghost Mystery", which features them as Scooby Doo-esque characters, driving a Mystery Machine-like van and trying to solve a mystery about pirate ghosts.

Personal life

Davis' childhood is a big influence in Korn lyrics. The song "Daddy" gave rise to a rumor that Rick Davis (Jonathan's father) had raped his son, even though Jonathan has gone on the record in many interviews saying it was written about a family friend who raped him. He said that, when he tried to turn to his family as a child to tell them about the abuse, they ignored him. (Neither Jonathan nor Rick Davis will say who the person was, though both say it was a woman.)

Davis has married twice, marrying his high school sweetheart, Renee Perez, in 1998 in a Medieval-themed ceremony. Together they had a son, Nathan Houseman Davis, but divorced in 2001. On October 5, 2004, a decade after the release of Korn's first album he married again in Hawaii, this time to former pornographic actress Deven Davis. In 2005, his second child, Pirate Houseman Davis, was born. Davis's third son, Zeppelin Houseman Davis, was born on April 28, 2007.

Davis has not used alcohol or other drugs since August 22, 1998. On the band's Deuce DVD, Davis's bandmates all say they are proud of him for his sobriety. On August 19th 1998 Davis was on a three week drinking binge with his Irish cousin Colin "Diggie" Dignam, which lasted for days at a time and he has since said that it was this session is what has led him to his absolution.

Davis has stated that Untouchables is his favorite Korn album and that "Do What They Say" and "Hollow Life" are his favorite Korn songs.

In late 2006, Davis was recognized and honored at Buck Owens' Crystal Palace in Bakersfield, California, by Buddy Alan, son of the late Buck Owens.

While Korn performed at the Download Festival in 2006, Davis was unable to perform with them, as he had developed idiopathic thrombocytopenic purpura (ITP), a rare bleeding disorder. This left him bedridden for days after his band's performance. Assorted other artists also at Download filled in singing for Korn during the performance including M. Shadows of Avenged Sevenfold, Matt Heafy of Trivium, Benji Webbe of Skindred, Dez Fafara of Devildriver and Corey Taylor of Slipknot.

Davis created an original fighting game, Pop Scars, which pits popular musical personalities against one another in one-on-one combat. Participants include members of Limp Bizkit, Staind, Marilyn Manson, and Korn itself. Each celebrity has its own personality and sports character designs sketched by comic book artist Marty Emond, while stages feature environmental traps that impede opponents as they fight. Pop Scars never made it past the early design stages, as Davis himself pulled the plug on the project in late 2004.

Equipment

Davis is usually seen during Korn's live performances and in their music videos with a microphone stand that was designed by the Swiss artist H. R. Giger. However, there are some shows where it has been replaced with a standard microphone stand, or a standard stand with rope string lighting on the inside, for unknown reasons.

Discography

Main article: Korn discography

Korn

• Neidermeyer's Mind (1993)
• Korn (1994)
• Life Is Peachy (1996)
• Follow the Leader (1998)
• Issues (1999)
• Untouchables (2002)
• Take a Look in the Mirror (2003)
• Live & Rare (2003)
• Korn: Greatest Hits Vol. 1 (2004)
• See You on the Other Side (2005)
• MTV Unplugged: Korn (2007)
• Untitled album (2007)
• Korn III: Remember Who You Are (2010)

Solo

• Alone I Play (live) (2007)

Other appearances

• First Demo (Human Waste Project) (1993)
• Deadsy (1996)
• Roots (1996)
• Blood Rooted (1997)
• Coal Chamber (1997)
• Candyass (1998)
• Videodrone (1999)
• Significant Other (1999)
• Amplified (1999)
• Black and White soundtrack (2000)
• Strait Up (2000)
• Rock'n Roll Gangster (2002)
• Commencement (2002)
• Reanimation (2002)
• Gorilla Pimpin' (2003)
• Linkin Park Underground 4.0 (2004)
• Phantasmagore (2006)
• Criss Angel: Mindfreak
• Will Rap Over Hard Rock For Food (2009)
• Legend of the Black Shawarma (2009)
• For Obvious Reasons (2009)

Singles

Solo

Year	Title	Album
2003	"Love on the Rocks"	Wonderland soundtrack
2007	"Careless (Akasha's Lament)"	Non-album single
2008	"Got Money" (feat. Jim Root)

As featured performer

Year	Title	Peak chart positions		Album
		US R&B	US Rap
1999	"Ty Jonathan Down" (Videodrone feat. Jonathan Davis)	—	—	Videodrone
2000	"Year 2000" (Xzibit feat. Jonathan Davis)	76	28	Black and White soundtrack
2002	"The Key to Gramercy Park" (Deadsy feat. Jonathan Davis)	—	—	Commencement
2003	"Cut Throat" (Marz feat. Jonathan Davis)	—	—	Gorilla Pimpin'
2009	"Jerry Bruckheimer" (The Changing feat. Jonathan Davis)	—	—	For Obvious Reasons
	"Smashing the Opponent" (Infected Mushroom feat. Jonathan Davis)	—	—	Legend of the Black Shawarma
	"The Enabler" (Chuck Mosley feat. Jonathan Davis)	—	—	Will Rap Over Hard Rock for Food
"—" denotes a release that did not chart.

External links

• Official Korn website
• Jonathan Davis at IMDb
• Interview with Jonathan Davis
• Interview with Jonathan Davis at Inked Magazine
• Interview with Jonathan Davis from Rolling Stone