If you ask Korn guitarist James "Munky" Shaffer what the one thing he regrets during his band's first ever tour, he would probably tell you smoking crack.
As part of a new retrospective interview with Metal Hammer, Munky reflects on many firsts in music, like going to see his first concert and buying his first album. When asked about his experiences during Korn's first tour:
“Our first real tour was with House Of Pain and Biohazard, and we were the opener. House Of Pain really got it, they watched us every night. I remember trying to make it to the very first show in an RV that we bought and it broke down like seven times. We were trying to make it from Huntington Beach to Atlanta, that was the first show. We made it there 30 minutes before we were due to play – we passed the venue like three times beforehand because it was such a small club. We took a wrong turn and went into a public park with all these brothers having a picnic in the park pumping NWA or something, and we were like “Oh shit!” like we’d just turned down the wrong street ha ha.
The rest of the tour it wasn’t that fun. That RV ended up burning down and we moved into vans, and I remember [bassist] Fieldy saying ‘I’m not going another mile in these fucking vans until the record company sends a bus,’ then the bus came we got to ride it home. It was crazy. I tried to smoke crack for the first time on the first tour – it was horrible. It burned me, I burned my fingers… I decided then that it wasn’t for me. It was too hard. It was expensive and difficult to find, hence the word crackhead. I don’t recommend it.”
When I first read the interview, I must admit that it didn't surprise me about someone smoking crack during a House of Pain / Biohazard tour. Then again, the band did admit to heavy crystal-meth use during the recording of their debut record, so perhaps this was their experimental phase. Anyway, the interview is really good. You can read the full thing here.
[via ThePRP]
