Korn frontman Jonathan Davis recently came out and made a fairly bold claim that Sepultura's Roots was a blatant Korn ripoff. He said that then-producer Ross Robinson basically gave Sepultura the Korn sound, and that Davis was pretty pissed off at the time.
Now, in an interview with Jack Antonio, Sepultura's Igor Cavalera says the record was absolutely heavily influenced by Korn and Deftones. Cavalera also sort of backtracks on the statement as well, saying the record was a "combination of elements."
"I think they did [influence us]. Not only them, but them with Deftones at the time, they had a particular sound that was quite interesting for us, and that's also one of the reasons that Ross [Robinson, producer] came into the picture — 'cause he could capture that raw sound at that time, and that was really cool. Those bands, they influenced us at the time of 'Roots', but I think there was a lot more going on than just that. So I think it's all part of a whole combination of elements."
Roots came out in 1996. Wasn't everything largely nü-metal just a ripoff of everything else anyway? Not that it matters – we're talking about 20 years ago at this point. It's also interesting that he cites Deftones as an influence, considering Deftones' debut album came out six months prior to Roots.
