Korn's Jonathan Davis Details Country Project

Yesterday, (Oct. 27) it was revealed that Megadeth's Dave Mustaine moved to Nashville to support his daughter's country career, but while Mustaine isn't jumping into country music, another hard rocking favorite is, albeit briefly. Korn's Jonathan Davis revealed earlier this year that he was recording some music for a tribute to Bakersfield's country sound. Davis, of course, grew up in Bakersfield and while his band rooted in hard rock, he was no doubt exposed to the country sounds as a youth.

When asked about his collaboration with country superstars Big and Rich, Davis revealed to Westword in an interview that, "The Big and Rich thing, I'm doing a country record. It's a record to commemorate the Bakersfield sound. I'm not going country or touring as a country artist. But it's a compilation of a whole lot of Bakersfield-sound songs that I'm covering with country artists."

He went on to give more specifics, saying, "It's pretty cool. Big and Rich did 'Waitin' in Your Welfare Line' from Buck Owens. They're doing the background harmonies and all that s--t. It's not like I'm trying to go country, though. I'm from Bakersfield, and it was a huge thing back in the '60s. I wanted to pay homage to that." Mentioning his own contributions, he said he will be singing a Merle Haggard song, continuing, "I need to work on it some more, but I just sang the 'Kern River' song. I'm looking for the darker kind of stuff. That's the vibe I'm going for."

The Korn singer also has some more collaborations in the works, giving an update on his teaming up with Marilyn Manson. As Manson stated back in May, “Jonathan and I used to be really close. We hadn’t seen each other in quite some time. Now he and I are talking about doing something completely unexpected together.” Davis just added, "Yeah. I'm going to get back and start working with him on ideas and s--t. We hadn't talked for a long time and we recently hooked up again. He was one of my best friends back in the day. We just rekindled our friendship and started talking a lot about doing something together. I love the dude to death. He's a great guy. So I'm down to do something cool."

While Davis is venturing into the country and Manson side projects, Korn fans shouldn't worry. The band has already begun coming up with ideas for their next album and should find time in 2016 to start recording the follow-up to The Paradigm Shift.

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