SoCalMusicToday.com:

SoCalMusicToday .com recently sat down with Ray Luzier, drummer for Korn, to discuss the excitement of getting back to headlining a major festival, the making of the new album Korn III: Remember Who You Are (due out this Tuesday) and the struggles of joining a band that has made a name for itself for over a decade.

SoCalMusicToday .com: First, right off the bat, Korn is headlining Mayhem Fest 2010, how excited are you guys?

Ray Luzier: Super excited, it's awesome because I've been in the band three years now and Korn hasn't really done a headlining festival since Family Values in 2007 and that's when I got the gig was at that last show of Family Values, so I'm excited. There's no fan base like Korn fans so it's awesome to have that scene come together. There's a lot of great bands on the bill with Zombie and Five Finger (Death Punch) and a bunch of other bands we've played with, it's pretty heavy duty. We just got off our own Jagermeister run and it was cool because we did everything from small clubs, to theaters, to mini-arenas. Now our record comes out in three days and we're super-pumped to promote it.

SCMT: You mentioned a previous tour, how did that run?

Ray: Yeah, it was the Jagermeister tour and we started out in Alaska and Canada in the beginning of May and we've only been off for two weeks.

SCMT: And you're just getting right back into it, huh?

Ray: Yeah (laughs), well when I got this gig we did a 35-country tour in 4 1/2 months. It's kind of cool to go to South Africa and Dubai and Russia and there's fans with Korn tattoos and the album covers down their legs and the art was cool.

SCMT: You mentioned that you have been with the band for 3 years now, how did you become involved with the band?

Ray: I was in a band called Army of Anyone and we were managed by the same company as Korn, with Robert De Deleon from Stone Temple Pilots and Filter, so we had that band and before that I was in David Lee Roth's band, the Van Halen singer for 8 years. Your name kind of gets around the industry just from the higher profile gigs. It's not my first barbecue, but I'm fortunate to have a gig and I'm lucky to stay working, but I've always been a huge Korn fan and to have the same management, they would always bring in the new single like, "Here's Twisted Transistor" when I was in Army of Anyone and I thought it was so cool. Then I got a call from this management saying, "Hey, Johnathan Davis might need some solo stuff done," and I said I would be honored to play on the solo stuff. I had no idea it would lead to Korn and I never even got to his solo stuff, it went to Joey Jordison from Slipknot who was filling in and Terry Bozeo, one of my favorite drummers of all time played on most of their Untitled record and they needed somebody permanent, so next thing you know, last show of the tour was Joey and then I auditioned in Seattle and played 6 songs at a sound check and then they said "Welcome to Korn, we'll see you in Dublin."

SCMT: Coming out with the new album, is this the first one that you're playing drums throughout?

Ray: Yeah, I had done recordings with them before on the Nightmare Before Christmas soundtrack, we did "Kindap the Sandy Claws," which was a really cool version of that if you ever want to check it out. I did "Got Money" a remake of Lil' Wayne with Jonathan and did some recordings here and there, played on some of Jonathan's solo record, but this is the first full-blown Korn record. We got Ross Robinson back, the producer who did the first two Korn records and that was awesome because that's hence the name Korn III because it's the third record with Ross. We're not trying to sound like the first two, just trying to get that old school way of playing.

SCMT: It sounds at first listen kind of like "Follow the Leader," like you're going back to the roots. Was that a plan that they had before you guys started doing the album?

Ray: I think everybody got sick of doing the "fixed records" and I got sick of it too, I mean you can make anyone a perfect singer or throw it into a machine and make them sound perfect and Ross, he goes, "I will not let you ruin this record with a click track," and almost all drummers play to a click track and he said no. In half the size of this [dressing] room we did the record. Our drum room in the studio is like a gymnasium for a drum room, where literally he said we were too comfortable and that we needed to go back to when we were young and hungry and didn't even have a record deal. Basically where we usually just mic up the amps, that's where we did the record. I was in the corner and Munky's [guitar] neck was leaning over one of my cymbals. Fieldy's neck was leaning over, Jonathan was singing in the corner and Ross was jumping up and down kicking cymbals and yelling and screaming, it was brutal. It wasn't like "Hey guys! Let's do a fun rock record!" I mean, Jonathan would be crying, I would be bleeding on my drums, it was intense. It was like war zone and we would have these therapy meetings before we even started playing where Ross would say, "Ok, let's put the sticks down, let's put the guitars down and talk about why we're here, what are we giving to the people?" Just these intense moments, I'm cooling down and my arms are feeling soft and I want to play, but he said no, we're not going to play, we're going to sit here and talk.

Read the full interview here.