RESIDENTS OF West Hollywood are advised to lock up their daughters - especially if those daughters are uninhibited blondes who can really fill a bikini. KoRn bassist Fieldy is on the prowl. 
          It's around midnight on a Tuesday at the Sunset Marquis hotel's Whiskey Bar. In the discrete cool of this fully-licensed haven the glitterati can enjoy a couple of cold ones without fear of being pestered or pointed at. Here, sand-wiched in conversation between a pair of buxom young companions, the recently-divorced Fieldy is resplendent in rakishly low-slung baggies, costly jewellery and a loose-fitting T-shirt showcasing the intricate tattoos that festoon his arms. Whether tousling his long braids or pondering another beer with a stroke of his wispy beard, he cuts quite a high-rolling dash. Seated comparatively unnoticed at a corner table, fellow hotel guest Robbie Williams sips a diet Coke as he recounts a story involving bar regular Slash, a colossal line of cocaine and Verne 'Mini-Me' Troyer, the specifics of which spoilsport libel laws insist must be kept under wraps until all parties concerned are deceased. Conversation turns to KoRn, at which Williams says he's heard that the singer and the bass-player are big fans of his. When I point out that the foreboding five-stringer is in our midst, Williams looks over to where Fieldy is holding court.
          "Oh, is that him? He's quite fat, isn't he?" 
          Without wishing to appear unkind, it seems fairly safe to say that Williams isn't spelling this 'phat'. Nonetheless, Fieldy has - as KoRn themselves once put it - got the life. Money in the bank. Girls on his arm. Rolls Royce in the garage. Food in the fridge. As he leaves to hit any number of night-spots with his new friends, it seems fair to say that - contrary to what you might have been led to believe - being in KoRn is actually quite a lot of fun.

BACK AT the same hotel the next day Fieldy steps out into the punishing afternoon heat and strides across the swimming pool area. Seeming none the worse for wear for last night's festivities, he lopes past a sunbathing Geri Halliwell and offers me a complicated fist-hitting handshake - I muddle my way through it, no doubt losing some respect in the process. Though Fieldy clearly fancies himself as something of a rapper - as evidenced by last year's fledgling solo effort under the strained pun Fieldy's Dreams - he has broken the first two rules of hip-hop by arriving punctually and making some effort at being friendly. 
          Under the watchful eye of burly hangers-on and unnecessary security oafs - on hand in case of over-zealous fans, none of whom have discovered the venue for today's rare KoRn meeting - Jonathan Davis stands in a nearby patch of shade chatting on a mobile phone. Over the next half an hour, the rest of the band - guitarists James 'Munky' Shaffer and Brian 'Head' Welch, and muscle-bound drummer David Silveria - drift in one by one and nod their hellos. 
          The atmosphere is far calmer than the occasion warrants - this is, after all, the first time the band have been interviewed together for almost two years, following a near-total press blackout as they worked on their fifth album, 'Untouchables'. It's difficult to tell whether the air of tranquility is down to KoRn's quiet confidence in their rabidly-awaited new record, the bullish self-belief they have in everything they do, or just the fact that it's a beautiful day and they're not cooped up in a studio as they have been for the last 18 months. 
          Maybe it's all three.

'UNTOUCHABLES' - TITLED as a" testimonial to KoRn's self-proclaimed peerless status and a reference to the lowest rung on India's rigid social ladder, the caste system - is said to have cost $4 million. Produced by Michael Beinhorn (Red Hot Chili Peppers, Soundgarden), the album was recorded in various US locations and in Vancouver, racking up huge bills for accommodation alone. "We moved to Phoenix and rented five houses for $10,000 apiece for four months," Fieldy has said of this laissez-faire accountancy. "We came to LA. rented five more houses for $10,000 apiece for four more months. We went to Canada and rented a house for $8,000. That's a week, not a month. Does that help explain it?" 
          So, was it all worth it? In a brief MTV interview at the end of last year, Davis was in no doubt that the KoRn album ready-reckoner would apply. He noted that the band's odd- numbered albums - their self-titled 1994 debut and 1998's 'Follow The Leader' - had proved their best.
          "We rush an album and we're pissed that we rushed it," he said. "And then we finally kick back and take our time and do another great one."
          While there is no doubting that KoRn have kicked back royally, the critical question is. do these men have "another great one" in them? 'Issues' - 1999's concept album chronicling Davis' struggle to keep mind, body and band together while drinking enough to drop a charging elephant - eventually hit sales around the three million mark. Respectable enough. Yet 'Issues' was widely-regarded as being just a pretty good record - faint praise by KoRn's standards, especially given the rapturous reception afforded 'Follow The Leader' a year earlier. Commercially, 'Issues' was only marginally less successful than its predecessor, but musical expectations were, perhaps, unrealistically high.
          Even these were, however, small potatoes when compared to the pressure brought to bear on 'Untouchables'. While the release date has been repeatedly delayed - the initial plan was for it to be on the racks sometime in early 2001 - the album first surfaced on the internet earlier this year with a provisional running order of working titles. Though the band's record company are not at liberty to disclose the final track-listing until May 15, a spokesman confirmed that the 'net versions of the songs were the real deal'.
          Among these working titles, 'When Balls Touch' was coined when someone told Davis that he and a chum had "double-teamed a chick", prompting the singer to ask, well, whether their balls had touched. 'No Horn', meanwhile, was put together when Michael Beinhorn was absent. These tracks will appear respectively on the album as 'Corners Of My Mind' - or, says Davis, 'One More Time' - and 'In Place'. Probably. As for the overall great-ness or otherwise of 'Untouchables', it is time to get some answers direct from the source. KoRn's formidable rhythm section awaits...

WHILE REGINALD 'Fieldy' Arvizu was promoting 'Follow The Leader', he had this to say about his relationship with the press: "I don't like to talk much but this is our job. I don't like to do interviews but when I do them, I do them. I answer the questions because the fans want to know, but I couldn't give a f**k about the journalist."
          What a charmer. Fortunately, today he seems more placid than the rock 'n' roll gangster image he has cultivated over the years. Chowing down on a large plate of whiskey-marinated fried chicken ("This is f**king good! ") in a lavish suite, he offers beef jerky and peanut M&Ms before we get underway.
          David Silveria lies face down on a bed in the next room, claiming to be lazy rather than brutally hung-over. Asked how the hand injury which forced him to abandon the tail end of the band's last tour is holding up, the toned percussionist says everything is fine.
          "I pinched a nerve up in my shoulder actually. It'll never go back to the strength I had, so I just have to play a little lighter and do a lot of stretching." With minimal coercion, he gets up and ambles over to join us in the lounge area where Fieldy is relaxing on a sofa. 
          "I'd be a lot more relaxed if we were out by the pool having a cocktail," the chunky bassist says with a chuckle. "We spent a year and a half on the album and now it's done - that's probably why we seem relaxed. And now it's time to tour. Being on the road is the best, man, because you get treated like a princess."
          Though Fieldy seems in playful form, a throwaway enquiry as to whether he is entirely satisfied with the new album sees his mood darken immediately.
          "No, I don't really like it: he sarcastically pouts. " Every artist who puts an album out is happy with it. How long have you been interviewing for? You ask people that honestly?" 
          "Has anyone ever said they don't like the record?," asks Silveria. 
          Some people are never totally happy... 
          "Of course our next record is going to be better: Fieldy concedes, leisurely reaching into his roomy trousers to rearrange his balls. "But it doesn't mean I'm not 100% happy with what we did. That's like looking back on the past and saying, 'I hate 'Life Is Peachy'. I loved it at the time. We're happy. I think people are going to f**king love it. It doesn't get any heavier than this right now."
          However, no sooner has he been pacified then Fieldy's hackles rise again, this time at an innocuous question about the prevailing mood during recording.
          "The vibe was like... there had to be a vibe, that's why we moved so many times. We kept moving writing locations because the vibe wasn't there any more. I was like, 'What the f**k are you talking about? I'll do it right here in this hotel room!'."
          So why did it take so long? 
          "We just tried everything. We moved out to Arizona, f**ked around for awhile," Silveria explains. 
          "We pulled some Aerosmith shit, rock star shit" adds Fieldy. "It was fun to go to Phoenix, though." 
          Perhaps too much fun for the KoRn boys to handle - as Beinhorn insisted they move away from the various distractions on offer in the Grand Canyon State. 
          "We partied in Phoenix every single night," admits Silveria. 
          "If you send us to a place where the bars close at one..." Fieldy shrugs. "I didn't stay home once. Every day I came in to write hung-over and I'd throw up before every single day. Sometimes you're at your most creative when you're wrecked and hurting - you want to take your mind off everything just because you're so f**king hung-over."

I ask whether it's true that Fieldy had girls sign a disclaimer so that if they got injured at any of his parties in Phoenix they couldn't sue him, and whether that disclaimer also gave him the right to film them. At this, both of them fall about in schoolboy-ish hysterics. 
Fieldy: "How do you get this information, man?! Yeah, we had a disclaimer with little maps of how to get to the house on it. They had to sign a disclaimer because if someone gets hurt..." 
Silveria: "We were videotaping too." 
Fieldy: "We were doing a documentary of the whole thing, cameras going..."
Silveria: "And if someone fell off the pole and got hurt..." 

The pole? 
Fieldy: "The stripper's pole."
 
Was that already there? 
Fieldy: "No, I got it put in the lounge. This one girl came in and she was on the pole, she flew off and hit the fireplace and split her eye open. That was when I was like, 'We've got to get a disclaimer'. When you've got a strip pole in your living room people are going to hurt themselves - half of them aren't even strippers, they just want to be because they're all drunk. This one girl climbed to the top, tried to hold on and fell - bam! - hit the top of her head! Dumb bitches!"

STILL ON the subject of girls, I mention that I spotted the ladies man disappearing off with a couple of top-heavy acquaintances the previous night, and that just before Christmas I spotted him in The Viper Room with an entirely different ensemble of similarly proportioned women. He smiles, seemingly far happier talking about his "pimping" leisure time than answering questions about KoRn which he will face repeatedly until the 'Untouchables' tour ends in, Silveria guesses, about 18 months. 
"I probably do a little more partying than everyone else in the band. I'm out in the clubs from Monday... the only day I take off is Sunday, and I don't take that off really, I just party at my house." 
          Would that be your main hobby? 
          "Yeah, it sounds lame, but I party... like that guy Andrew W. K., he just wrote a whole album about what I do! All the song titles are like 'Party Hard', 'Party 'Til You Drop', 'Never Stop Partying'. It's so funny. He hits himself in the face with a whiskey bottle every night or something. I've got to hang out with that guy. I want to bring 'Party Hard' on tour." 
          Are you a Robbie Williams fan? "Who, me? Who told you that?" Robbie Williams. 
"I thought he was a KoRn fan! I don't even know his songs, but I bet if I hung out with 
him for a night I'd be a fan of his, just partying with him. He's here? Then we're going to have to take him out, show him what it's all about." Fieldy rises from the sofa and settles back into his chicken. As I leave he offers the same fist-knocking handshake, only this time it ends with him flicking a peace sign. I ask him whether he plans any more solo projects. He doesn't know, but as I leave he gives me some Fieldy's Dreams stickers. 
True to his 24/7 good-time manifesto, later that evening Fieldy's high-decibel merrymaking - not to mention his various 'homies' blocking the hotel corridors - will prompt his fellow residents - 'Usual Suspects' star Gabriel Byrne among them - to make their displeasure felt in no uncertain terms. Hotel staff eventually bring Fieldy's party to an end sometime around four in the morning, though doubtless he will be back to party another day.

JUST AS Munky and Head are a formidable double-team when armed with their signature seven-string Ibanez K7 guitars, in conversation they tend to finish each others sentences when they're not cracking up at their own jokes.
          Munky answers the door to his hotel room with a firm handshake, a broad smile and a deliberately goofy, "Hi, I'm Munky from KoRn." Head edges out of the bathroom brushing his teeth and grinning. Both have let their hair grow since the last time they were in the public eye - Munky's intermittently-bleached dreadlocks reach between his shoulders. Head, meanwhile, sports a unique devil-may-care wavy "do" and has grown a goatee that looks pretty sharp.
 
          "Thanks," he nods at the compliment.
          "The beard looks good on you. I wish I could grow one: sighs Munky, pointing at the faintly apologetic facial hair that dusts his upper lip and portions of his chin.
          "I'm going to have a beer for that: announces Head, reaching into the mini-bar. 
          "Is that a Corona in a can? F**k yeah!," says Munky. 
          But one swig and Head's face screws up in distaste. "Do you want this?," he asks. 
          When you put it like that. not really.

UNEXPECTEDLY, AFTER the laid-back Californian drawl of Silveria and Fieldy, both Head and Munky talk with a twangy accent stereotypically associated with wearing dungarees, liking monster trucks and not being fussy about having sex with members of your immediate family.
          "It's a Bakersfield accent. We're from Bakersfield, DUDE!" exclaims Munky. 
          "What accent do I got?" asks Head. "I got these braces in. Am I talking f**ked-up right now?"
          What's wrong with your teeth? 
          "I'm just trying to close this little gap over here, you can't see it through this," he explains reaching into his mouth and pulling out a thin transparent gumshield. "I got punched in the mouth." 
          "...By me when I was f**king shit-faced: adds Munky. 
          "Yeah, he was trying to f**k me. I said, 'No', and he punched me." 
          What really happened? 
          "I got punched in the mouth! I've got a crooked tooth so I'm trying to straighten it. Enough about my teeth!" 
          Do you have any plans to get your tattoo fixed? 
          "Fixed? Oh, the Fred Durst one. Yeah." 
          Head gets to his feet and hitches up the back of his shirt, revealing what is meant to say 'KORN' scrawled across his lower back. Inked by tattooist Fred Durst - who would famously later launch Limp Bizkit's career by giving a demo to an impressed Fieldy when the band visited Jacksonville in 1995 - it could say 'KORN', 'HORN' or even 'NORN'. 
          Munky is having none of it. 
          "You should keep it forever! " he tells his band mate. 
          "Yeah, I'll keep it," says Head, sincerely. It's not that bad, but it could be better." 
          "Everyone's tattoos could be better," says Munky, himself sporting a recent addition to his modest collection - 'Carmella', the name of his nine-and-a-half month old daughter, is etched across his upper right forearm. 
          Munky is still with his wife Stephanie. He and Silveria are the only band members whose marriages remain intact. Davis, Fieldy and Head have all split up with their first wives. Indeed, Head can remember that the 'Issues' tour ended after playing some European festivals in early June 2000 mainly because that's when his divorce from Rebekah Welch came through. It is not a subject he is keen to discuss, so we talk about the high-priced toys such millionaire rock stars as these get to mess around with. Munky's immensely powerful luxury speedboat, for example. 

How's the speedboat. Munky? 
Munky: "Good. Do you want to buy it?" 

No. 
Munky: "Okay, I'll keep it. It's fun, one of those toys you get when you've got a bit of money but now I'm over it."

How much do you want for it? 
Munky: "125,000 U5 dollars."

How much did you pay for it? 
Munky: "Er, 125,000...I'll take 100,000... 200,000 'quid'!" 

You've got the exchange rate the wrong way round there. 
Munky: "Alright, 50,000 quid." 

Will you take a cheque?
Munky. "No." 

Alright, then. How about you, Head? Are water sports your thing?
Head: "Yeah, I surfed long boards for a while. I sucked. Everybody always wanted to fight me because I'd get in their way." 
Munky (yelling): "'F**king kook!'." 
Head: "That's what they yell at you - 'F**king kook!'. It was fun."

YES, HEAD and Munky are certainly entertaining company. However, when it comes to discussing 'Untouchables' these architects of one of the most brutally distinctive guitar sounds in metal offer few dues into the inner workings of KoRn.
           "Well, I thought my playing was f**king amazing: says Head, sending the pair of them !into loud hoots of laughter.
          Munky takes a stab at getting down to brass tacks. 
          "We just tried some new shit. With every KoRn record the fans know they're going to get something a little different and we are really proud of this album."
There is further talk of the "clarity" on the record being "really, really phenomenal" and the "growing KoRn sound" before Head interjects. "You've got to give the album a few listens. Don't take it back after the first time! "
          "Please! " implores Munky. 
          Feeling he has adequately explored this avenue of discussion, Head excuses himself to go to the toilet. After a few minutes pass, it becomes dear he is going to be in there for some time. Munky is more softly-spoken without his downtuned partner-in-crime. He talks about how, like Fieldy, he'd like to do a solo album one day -"just a bunch of noise, a year- book of creative garbage" - but would be comfortable playing with KoRn "forever".

Did you ever go to any of Fieldy's disclaimer parties in Phoenix? 
Munky (laughing): "I don't know what you're talking about! No comment. It was fun, we had a good time." 
Head (barking through closed bathroom door) "Hey! Is Kerrang! still there? I'm taking a shit!" 
Munky: "Want some help?"
Head: "Yeah!" 

That's some accent. If all the band are from Bakersfield, why don't they all talk like that?
Munky: "I don't know. Do I speak like that too?" 

Yes. 
Munky: "F**k." 

JONATHAN DAVIS has no accent more discernible than West Coast. His speaking voice is a couple of notches above whisper and he sometimes runs his words together when he can't immediately phrase exactly what he wants to say. 
          Strangely for such a charismatic performer, he has very little physical presence or any larger-than-life quality as he pulls up a chair in the room next door to his more ebullient bandmates. He is at once both frail and visibly overweight, the extra pounds sitting awkwardly on his thin frame.
           Looking every single one of his 31 years, Davis has spent the morning with a new doctor in an attempt to ease his asthma and prepare him physically for the punishing tour schedule that lies ahead - a schedule he promises will take in the UK, though he doesn't know exactly when. Davis says he feels good and is keeping busy, his six year-old son Nathan is well and he remains on agreeable terms with the boy's mother, his ex-wife Renee, because "we just want to make sure he grows up healthy. Us fighting and bickering and shit's not going to do that."
          I ask Jonathan whether he is still dating former porn actress Deven - co-star of the 'Perfect Pink' series, of which number four, 'Wired Pink Gang Bang', is widely acknowledged as the high point. His lightly anguished features immediately soften into a warm smile.
          "I love her, she's my baby girl. It's hard to find the right person but I think I have... and she's just as perverted as l am!" 
          After coming off the road from 'Issues', Davis and Deven immediately flew to Cabo San Lucas - an opulent holiday playground of the wealthy situated at the southernmost tip of Mexico's Baja peninsula, where Van Halen's former frontman Sammy Hagar has his own club. The couple went there, says the frontman, to "kick it. We just f**ked and ate".
          Five months later, in November 2000, KoRn reconvened to begin writing 'Untouchables' in Long Beach, little-suspecting it would be a year-and-a-half before they would finish the job. Davis refers to the recording process matter-of-factly, outlining the nuts-and-bolts in fairly basic terms.
          "We went to Arizona and wrote for three months, then we'd get all the music done and I'd do my vocals over it. Getting this album done was a big accomplishment. We worked really f**king hard on it and I'm very excited."
          Remembering his manners, Davis politely asks whether I'd like a drink before we begin talking in earnest. Remarkably, he fetches me a bottle of water himself rather than just pointing in the general direction of the cooler. He removes his glasses, rubs his eyes and begins fiddling with his hair. He is ready to begin fielding questions...

So, did 'Untouchables' really cost $4 million? 
"Allegedly. It was a lot." 

Did you feel you got value for money? 
"Yeah. The whole album probably cost us around $700,000. The rest of the money that went out was to our crew and paying our bills because we were off the road for so long. We don't want our crew to go off and get other jobs so they can't come back to us, so we had to pay high salaries for two years almost, 
which is a lot of money. That's why they say it cost that much, but it was just keeping our people on retainers and we put that on the record budget."

Where were the lyrics coming from? 
"More from what was going on that day, really. Lyrically all the way through I'm at a place where I'm tired of hating and I'm tired of people taking advantage and tired of people looking down on other people because they're different. It's just feelings I had at the time and that's what's coming through on this album. I think it's a more mature album. Previous albums when I was a kid and drunk all the time those were problems with alcohol and my childhood. Now I think I've grown up more."

Are you happy in yourself at the moment? 
"Yeah. I mean, I have my problems of course, but yeah, I'm happy."

For all Fieldy's talk of ultimate heaviness and so forth, it is Jonathan's admission of contentment that provides the key to getting a handle on 'Untouchables'. After all, the singer's opening words on 'Issues' were' All I want in life is to be happy' , and now he says he is. His miserable childhood may be part of what makes him such a poster-boy for the disaffect- ed, but musically those demons were largely faced down on KoRn's first album back in 1994. Davis no longer touches drugs and the self- destructive drinking, too, is a thing of the past.
          "I used to drink a bottle of Jäegermeister a day," he says with a wry smile. "When I cut that out I was drinking 30 Jack and cokes. It was pretty f**king bad. I think was trying to deal with the cliché of being a rock star - I didn't have any responsibilities, I was young, I was just f**king partying. It ended up making me suck. You just don't have it anymore because of the booze so I'm glad I came to that point in life where I realised I had to stop. The music is better, I feel better... I mean, I had a hangover for six years."
          Presumably, then, Davis was not present at Fieldy's now-legendary and legally watertight parties in Phoenix.
          "You heard about that? Fieldy is the super-partier and the guy's... whatever... Was it hard for me with them drinking? No, they entertain the shit out of me. I'm not an angry f**king dry drunk." 
          Similarly, Davis did not rock the boat with Deven by picking up any of Fieldy's spare "bitches". His relationship with his girlfriend is built on solid foundations, though Jonathan is reluctant to put a ring on her finger - a finger which has, incidentally, been inside many of his favorite porn actresses. 
          "Marriage always f**ks everything up. I don't think you need a piece of paper in front of a priest to say you love each other. We're practically married now, she lives with me so why change it? I was with my first wife for eight years before we got married, and then it lasted five months. That left a bad taste."
          Does going out with a porn star mess with your head a bit? 
          "Not at all. She only did two or three movies and they were all girl/girl. She doesn't get dicks in her ass and come home like, 'Hi honey". I couldn't deal with that. Now she's a spokesmodel for Jill Kelly entertainment, which is another porn company. She goes on signings, she dances and I have no problem with that. She just interviews the girls before they get f**ked... and after. It's a cool job."
          Do you get a lot of free porn?
          "Oh, I've got it falling out of my ass."

WORKING ON the album by day, Davis found himself with time on his hands when night fell -the cue for the others to get ripped and watch drunk girls do themselves a mischief on 'the pole'. Instead, he concentrated on song-writing -his early love of Duran Duran is evident in the brooding keyboards of 'Untouchables" gentler moments -as well as co-scoring tepid vampire yarn 'Queen Of The Damned' with composer Richard Gibbs ("It's not the greatest movie in the world but the music's f**king awesome") and working on his voice.
          "I've studied a lot with my vocal coach because I really wanted to sing this time," he explains. "Of course I'm pissed off and stuff but there's so many things I can do about it. Screaming's been so f**king done. Back in the metal days you had Rob Halford and Bruce Dickinson. those f**kers were singing. The guy from Queensryche, f**king Freddie Mercury, you know? I miss that, so I'm working really hard on doing it and I've started to get more melodic."
          It is not only the KoRn sound that has evolved-fashion-watchers should note that changes have been made in the wardrobe department too. Puma have been jettisoned ("They didn't give a f* *k about us") and Pony are now the band's leisurewear of choice. Today Davis wears a custom-made pair of blue trainers- not available in any shops - with his squiggle of a signature on the heel in white. Pony will also be making his kilts, their chevron logo emblazoned down the side.
          "We're all about Pony now: Jonathan. confirms.

AND SO to Davis's earlier assertion that the odd-numbered KoRn albums are the great ones. 'Untouchables" opening single, 'Here To Stay', is the closest to textbook KoRn here, an introduction to ease fans into a record that is more than an exercise in sheer hard volume. The video, too, is a familiarly dark piece of KoRn imagery: a grim comment on the accessibility of sex and violence on television directed by the Hughes brothers ('From Hell'), it shows a 1O-year old boy bombarded by unsettling 
visuals interspersed with the band rocking out in grainy black and white. It also marks the first appearance of Jonathan's new microphone stand, a baroque silver woman - derided by I Fieldy as "gay" - designed by HR Giger, the Swiss artist responsible for the look of 'Alien'.
          True, then, 'Untouchables' sits well in the tradition established by albums number one and three, though the lyrics are not nearly so intensely personal, tending towards more general dissatisfaction than focused hostility. As you'd expect, there are swathes of savagery and anguish, but they're counterbalanced by a realisation that sometimes less can be more. The stripped-down creeping menace of leave This Place', a proving ground for Jonathan's trained singing voice. The angry young men are neither particularly angry nor young anymore - Silveria is the baby of the band at 29, Fieldy the elder statesman at 32 -and as Davis finds some peace of mind as he slides into adult- hood, the naked rage just isn't there anymore. KoRn have stayed true to themselves - a principle they have built a career on - and in doing so have produced their most interesting and consistent album to date. Persevere with it as Head advised, and you'll find it's their best too. 
          Anyway, back into Jonathan Davis' head... 

Are you feeling loved at the moment? 
"Yeah, by my woman. I'm getting love from my fans and family. I'm not so depressed any more. The medicine, Prozac, is working too." 

It works, then? 
"Yeah, I get depressed about things going on, but I don't so much dwell. I came to the point where it was time for me to stop f**king hating so bad. Hating's a bad thing and it does bad things to your body."

Isn't hate what fuels KoRn? 
"Yeah, it fuels it but I can't let it overtake my life any more. I always choose to write about... you know, basically what I'm saying is I'm a f**king normal guy. I'm human, I'm not the Kurt Cobain... depressed... f**king woe-is-me any more. I'm human, I have f**king problems."

As everyone does... 
"As everyone does, and I write about them." 

What scares you? 
"Everything scares me... life!" he says melodramatically. "A fear of death too, 
there's all kinds of things. I think a lot of people are like that, you've just got to be man enough to admit it. I don't like things of an unknown nature... but I'm not afraid of 
the dark or anything! " 

Are you a Robbie Williams fan? 
"I haven't heard much of his music. " he says with a little cackle, "but I love that video where he's pulling his skin off and shit." 

THANKING ME for my time, Jonathan Davis gets up to make the short drive back to the San Fernando Valley where he lives with Deven. His opulent residence -which he 
describes as more of a "compound" - was I bought from fading TV star Patrick Duffy, most I famous for the role of dastardly oilman JR Ewing's put-upon younger brother Bobby Ewing in Dallas.
          "It's awesome! I changed it up a lot because it was really 'country'," he says. "There was a bar from Dallas in there, which I kept of course, but I made the house more mine. I've had it all painted so the big living room looks like the bowels of an old rusty ,ship. The rest is aged, kind of Mexican-style.
          "There's all kinds of crazy shit in there. I have a big Pinhead figure from 'Hellraiser' - there's only two in the world - devil masks, all kinds of dolls. I have Peter Pan Syndrome - I'm just a big f**king kid!" 
          Poised to release an album that will sell by' the million, this "big f**king kid" leaves Fieldy ; and his buddies to chug Budweiser and hit on ~ hard-bodied admirers long into the night. It's a t scenario that will doubtlessly be played out on ~ a daily basis during KoRn's forthcoming world '.. tour, but Davis is ready to sit back and let  others do such celebrating on his behalf. He is in love, he is sober, and, yes, he is happy. Life, I at last, is peachy.

KoRn's 'Untouchables' is out on June 10 through Epic.