Jonathan Davies

Davis co-founded the band Korn, which formed in Los Angeles in 1993 after the breakup of two bands, Sexart and LAPD. Davis quickly gained fame for his intense and powerful live performances with Korn.[6] Relying on his personal lyrics and distinctive tenor vocals, Davis launched a successful career that spanned nearly three decades, although his popularity declined in the mid-2000s.[7] Davis's vocals, which alternate between angry tones and high-pitched, atmospheric and aggressive, have become Korn's signature throughout the band's career.[8]

From 2000 to 2001, Davis and Richard Gibbs recorded and produced the Queen of the Damned soundtrack album, which is his first work outside the band. He started his side project Jonathan Davis and the SFA in 2007 and continued to experiment with music. He released his first solo album in 2018. Throughout his career, he has collaborated with a variety of artists, ranging from metal to alternative rock, rap, world music, and electronic music. Davis is a multi-instrumentalist, playing guitar, drums, bagpipes,[9] piano, double bass, violin, and clarinet.[10][11] He is also versatile across many genres, mixing tracks and performing DJ sets with his alter ego JDevil. Over the decades, Davis has had fascinations with visual art, horror films, comic books, and video games.[9]

Fourteen of his albums have reached the top ten of the Billboard 200, including MTV Unplugged and Greatest Hits, Vol. 1.[12] In the United States, he has been certified fifteen platinum albums by the Recording Industry Association of America (RIAA). In Australia, he has received eight platinum album certifications from the Australian Recording Industry Association (ARIA), and in the United Kingdom, he has received six gold certifications. During his career, he has received two Grammy Awards from eight nominations.

Jonathan Howsmon Davis[17][18] was born in Bakersfield, California on January 18, 1971, to Holly Marie (née Smith; May 6, 1949 – February 25, 2018) Chavez and Ricky Dwayne "Rick" Davis (born December 14, 1948). His parents married on February 27, 1970. He is of English, German, Scottish, and Welsh descent.[19][20] He has a sister, Alyssa Marie Davis (born February 8, 1974), a half-brother, Mark Chavez[21] (vocalist of the band Adema; born November 15, 1978), and a half-sister, Amanda Chavez (born July 31, 1981), from his mother.[22] His father was a keyboard player for Buck Owens and Frank Zappa, and his mother was a professional actress and dancer.[23] His parents divorced when he was three years old, and he was subsequently raised by his father and stepmother.[23] As a child, Davis suffered from severe asthma attacks,[24] and had to be hospitalized every month from the age of three to ten, and suffered a near-fatal asthma attack when he was five. He attended Highland High School, but was constantly bullied for wearing eyeliner, baggy clothes, and listening to new wave music.[26][27] He was constantly called homophobic names,[27] which later inspired the Korn song "Faget".[28] Davis's "HIV" tattoo on his left forearm was also inspired by his experiences with bullying.[29] At age 16, Davis found work as an assistant coroner,[30] and immediately enrolled in a one-year program at San Francisco Junior College after graduating from high school.[30] He enjoyed spending time in San Francisco, where he spent his days studying an embalming textbook and his nights living and working in funeral homes.[30] However, he dropped out after two semesters to become an apprentice at a morgue closer to home, the Kern County Coroner's Department, and also to become a professional embalmer at a funeral home.

Davis has also spoken about having a terrible relationship with his former stepmother.[32][33][34] He said that she abused and tormented him; giving him tea mixed with Thai hot oil and jalapeño juice to drink when he was ill,[32] locking him in cupboards and slipping him cigarettes.[33] Although she later divorced Davis's father, the song "Kill You" was nonetheless written about her.[33][34] In an interview with The Guardian, Davis said that he left home when he was 18 because he felt like "public enemy number one" as his stepmother—quoted as "twisted and sadistic"—hated him and his own father was too embarrassed by the situation to do anything about it.

Davis formed his first band, Buck Naked,[36] of which only two songs were recorded on a demo tape and distributed among his friends at school;[36] including the new wave song "What I Have Done" and the love song "Come With Me".[36][37] But Davis soon befriended college student Ryan Shuck and agreed to join his band, Sexart, which formed in 1991.[38] Davis described the experience: "I had no idea what I was doing, I didn't know what the hell to do with my voice."[39] In early 1993, former members of LAPD, who had formed a new band called Creep,[40] spotted Davis at a club in Bakersfield[41] and were pleasantly surprised by his performance with Sexart.[42] Davis, who was already friends with Reginald Arvizu, subsequently reluctantly joined Creep, although he was flattered by the musicians' stubbornness in recruiting him into the band.[43] However, he only decided to audition after meeting with a psychic, who told him that he simply had to leave Bakersfield, move to Los Angeles, and join Creep.[43][33] Davis left Sexart after rehearsing with the four members of Creep, commenting, "I was a little upset because I was doing Sexart at the time and it was my band. But I wanted to go and see what it was all about, and from the first note I was hooked."[44][45] Enticed by the prospect of a music career, Davis quit his job and moved to Los Angeles with his girlfriend to live with David Silveria and Brian Welch in a house in Huntington Beach.[44] Davis suggested the idea of ​​naming the band 'Corn' - the spelling would be changed straight to 'KoЯn' - in reference to the horror film Children of the Corn and a sexually explicit story from a gay friend of his.[46][47][48]

Solo career edit Davis first began working on a solo album in 2007,[49][50] forming the band Jonathan Davis and the SFA (Simply Fucking Amazings). Although he released two live albums with the band,[51][52] the studio work was not completed and the band disbanded in 2014,[50] following the death of guitarist Shane Gibson.[53][54]

In December 2017, Davis began announcing solo festival dates, as well as a planned 2018 release for his solo album,[55][56] which Davis would credit as simply Jonathan Davis.[55] He said of the album in a 2017 interview with Metal Hammer: "It's a Jonathan Davis and SFA record, but JD SFA is gone. Unfortunately, since Shane Gibson left, that band has broken up and can't be reunited. So it's just JD."[55]

In January 2018, Davis released his first solo single, "What It Is".[57] He released a music video for the song on January 26, 2018, while the single was featured on the soundtrack to the film American Devil.[58] At the time, Davis said that he was a "big fan" of science fiction films such as Blade Runner and Dune, and noted that he was a fan of Vangelis.[58] On May 25, 2018, he released his debut solo album, Black Labyrinth, through Sumerian Records.[59][60] The writing process for Black Labyrinth, which focuses on "religion, consumerism, and apathy", began in 2007.[61] Davis contributed primarily to the album's sound, playing guitar, keys, and "whatever else his hands could do before recording."[61]

On October 1, 2020, Davis released an alternate version of "What It Is"[

In the early 2000s, while on tour, Davis sought out other hobbies to satisfy his creative side and collaborated with composer Richard Gibbs to write film soundtracks.[75][76] Together, they produced and recorded the Queen of the Damned soundtrack album for the film Queen of the Damned.[75][76] In addition to Davis's own songs, the soundtrack included songs by other artists such as Static-X, Disturbed, Papa Roach, Deftones, and Tricky.[77] The album was released in 2002.[78][79]

In 2000, Davis created the fighting game Pop Scars, which pits popular music personalities against each other one-on-one.[80] These include members of Limp Bizkit, Staind, Marilyn Manson, and Korn themselves.[80][81] Each celebrity has their own personality and sports character designs sketched by comic book artist Marty Emond, while the game features traps that hinder opponents during combat.[82] Pop Scars never got past the early design stages, as Davis completed the project himself in late 2004.[83]

In 2007, Davis recorded original songs with Korn for the video game Haze.[84]

In 2011, Konami hired Davis and Korn to write a theme song for the video game Silent Hill: Downpour, which led to an online petition to end the connection.[85][86]

Several months before the release of Untouchables, in March 2002, while on tour in South America,[128] Davis unveiled a microphone stand artwork titled "The Bitch",[128] which was created and conceptualized by Swiss artist H. R. Giger.[128][129] Davis was a fan of Giger's work,[130] and the initial idea for a custom microphone stand was pitched to him by his personal assistant Jonathan Pavesi.[130] Davis then contacted Giger and was delighted when the Swiss artist accepted the commission to design the microphone stand.[131] He asked Giger to make the microphone stand more "biomechanical and very erotic", giving him complete freedom in the design.[131] In 2000, while touring Europe, Davis visited the H. R. Giger Museum in Switzerland. The more they discussed his drawings, the more time passed and the figure became thinner and thinner.[131] H. R. Giger and his assistant Roni emailed progress photographs to the United States, during which process Davis approved and asked him to make some minor changes to make it easier for him to use the stand for his live performances.[131] Giger said that Davis's only concern was that it be "fully functional and as articulate as possible."[132] Only five biomechanical microphone stands in the shape of a woman were made at a foundry in Zurich from molds that were then destroyed, adding to their historical appeal and value.[131][133] Davis received three biomechanical microphone stands, Giger retained two others for permanent display in the H. R. Giger Museum and one more for his gallery exhibitions.

Family edit Davis's childhood has had a major influence on Korn's lyrics, with the song "Daddy" sparking a rumor that he was molested by his father, Rick Davis.[139] However, Davis has said in numerous interviews that he wrote the song about a family friend who sexually abused him.[139] He said that when he was a child, he tried to approach his family about the abuse, but they did not make a big deal out of it.[139][140] Davis has been married twice. His first marriage was to his high school girlfriend, Renee Perez.[141] They married in 1998, had a son named Nathan in 1995, and divorced in 2000.[142][33] Davis married Deven Davis in 2004. The couple have two sons, Pirate and Zeppelin.[143][144] He filed for divorce in October 2016, citing irreconcilable differences.[145] In 2018, a domestic violence restraining order was issued, blocking any custody of the children or visitation of Deven, whom Jonathan claimed was a drug addict. Deven Davis died on August 17, 2018, at age 39 from a combination of heroin and prescription drug intoxication.

Alcohol and drug abuse edit Davis had an excessive addiction to methamphetamine[149][150] and alcohol during the recording of Korn and Life Is Peachy.[151] Subsequently, during the recording of Follow the Leader, Davis was under the influence of methamphetamine, cocaine, and was heavily dependent on alcohol, particularly Jack Daniel's.[152][153] In an interview with The Ringer, Davis described the making of the album as "fueled by cocaine, speed, and just constant gallons of Jack Daniel's."[152][153][c] Davis became sober from using methamphetamine and abusing alcohol when he was 28, effective August 22, 1998,[154] during the band's first fall Family Values ​​Tour.[152] But sobriety exacerbated the anxiety and depression that accompanied his substance use, exacerbated by the death of his grandfather during this time.[152] During this period, from the late 1990s to the early 2000s, Davis was placed on suicide watch.[152] In 2010, he admitted to missing his past vices, Davis saying, "I know if I did that (do drugs), I'd be dead, and I want to be with my kids. It's a deterrent."[155] In 2013, Davis entered treatment for a Xanax addiction, although he smoked marijuana until 2015.[154] In 2018, Davis told Forbes that he continues to struggle with anxiety, depression, and insomnia, but has replaced drugs and alcohol with medications such as Fluoxetine, Triazolam, Diphenhydramine, Doxylamine, and Melatonin.[154]

Political Views edit In 2006, Davis explained his political views, saying, "I'm political to the extent that it affects human life, from global warming to abortion issues to my gun rights," but expressed no interest in issues such as taxation, saying, "I don't really care. Obviously, even going out and voting doesn't really count, it's all about the vote."[166] Davis has expressed support for same-sex marriage and transgender people.[167]

Davis has expressed support for Libertarian Republican candidates Ron Paul[168][169] and Rand Paul.[169] Davis once described Barack Obama as an "Illuminati puppet"[168] and told Billboard that Obama "basically got this country into the worst place it's ever been."[170] In 2014, Davis stated that the United States was becoming a "police state."[171]