Without KORN, I Don’t Think You Get The Deathcore Bands That You Have Today

Korn has gone from being nü-metal pariahs in the 2010s to be rightfully praised in recent years. One such praise comes from All That Remains vocalist Phil Labonte during an interview with Joshua Toomey, and it’s… totally correct.

In the interview, Labonte cites Korn as one of the big drivers behind modern deathcore bands and their penchant for slower, beefier breakdowns. And sure, Korn isn’t the only one – bands like Earth Crisis, Meruader, and Antagony deserve credit as well; maybe even a little Suffocation – but they definitely should be in the conversation.

“…One of the weird things, was in the 90s when Korn came out, like, they had a massive impact. Clearly. I mean, that’s obvious, but I don’t know if people today understand exactly how impactful Korn was back then. Like when they hit, metal bands that were riff-heavy metal bands, they were like, ‘Well, that’s a new kind of heavy.’

“And it was something that people wanted to emulate. And without Korn, I don’t think you get deathcore bands that you have today. Like, I think that they had a really, really strong influence on what heavy music; what it meant to make heavy music and what was heavy, right. Like the breakdown and downbeat stuff. There was some of that stuff in death metal before Korn and in metal before Korn. But Korn really brought that kind of out.

“And I don’t even know that you would have metalcore breakdowns that you do without bands like Korn. I’m not sure, maybe you do. But I’m not sure. But one of the things that did happen is, when I was in a band that was playing death metal and they were like, ‘We want to start doing that kind of stuff.’

“And so I was like, ‘No. I don’t want to.’ I was like, ‘I want to play metal, like regular, like thrashy’… Because even still if you listen to All That Remains, All That Remains isn’t a breakdown band, we’re a riff band. And that’s kind of the way that I’ve always been. I like heavy riffs and I do like breakdowns. But our breakdowns are not the super, super chuggy — and we don’t rely on the breakdowns.”