* Music *
Sam Dunn: I'm at the Nokia Theater in Times Square in
Manhattan for the CD release of Linkin Park's brand new record.
* Music *
Sam Dunn: In the mid nineties the new style of metal
that emerged was in fact called nu-metal.
For me as a long time metal fan it didn't have any of the
hallmarks that I like about heavy metal music.
The guys didn't look like metal guys, they had short hair,
they had baggy pants and it didn't really sound like metal.
* Music *
It seemed to take a bit of hip-hop and a bit of
metal and a bit of electronica and I couldn't stand it.
* Music *
And so the journey of this episode is to
try to understand whether or not this nu-metal
even belongs in the story of Metal Evolution.
* Music *
* Intro *
* Music *
>> When nu-metal emerged in the mid nineties
it introduced a dramatically different sound and look
to heavy metal but where did nu-metal come from?
To get started I'm meeting with Anthrax guitarist Scott Ian
because the first time I heard metal mixed with hip-hop
waswhen Anthrax joined forces with Public Enemy.
So I'm hoping Scott will shed some light
on the roots of nu-metal.
Scott Ian: We grew up listening to hip-hop.
In Queens and The Bronx we were at the epicenter of that.
I was listening to rap music since the time
I was listening to rock music since the seventies.
So "Bring The Noise" was our way to work together
with one of our favorite bands on the planet.
* Music *
Scott Ian: Chuck D rapping over my guitar tone,
something I always heard in my brain.
My rhythm tone and Chuck D's voice were made for
each other and we made that happen, you know,
we were able to stretch our boundaries of heavy metal.
* Music *
Scott Ian: It was so organic we just decided let's
really (beep) put our balls on the line and say we know a lot
of the world is not ready for this yet but we don't give a
(beep) we're doing this for ourselves and most of the world
at the time came along for the ride.
Jon Weiderhorn: "Bring The Noise" was so successful
because it didn't sacrifice on either end of the spectrum.
It was extremely heavy and thrashy and you had
a really purpolsive beat so certainly Anthrax did play
a major role in bringing hip-hop and metal together
in a mainstream way within the metal community.
Rich Ward: They were the ones that said metal guys don't
have to wear black jeans and white tennis shoes,
you could wear shorts and all of a sudden find
some kind of connection with your inner inner city self.
Scott: People always say you created rap rock or rap metal,
all that (beep) that started in the nineties with Limp Bizkit
and Korn and that whole sound or whatever, nu-metal.
I'm like man I can't take credit or blame because I don't believe it.
There's so many other bands involved,
Faith No More was doing rap, hip-hop type of stuff
since the (beep) inception of Faith No More.
* Music *
Sam: You guys were always playing with that
kind of slightly funk influence in the band.
Where was that coming from?
Billy Gould: I always liked funk and R&B music myself, I mean as
a bass player it's kind of an interesting thing to play but
what we were trying to do was write things and do things that
would really kind of stand the test of time always from day one
even if people didn't see it at the time, that was always
what we tried to do and as a bass player I've always wanted
to be forward leaning hard on the downbeat,
traditionally speaking rock bassists are on the backbeat.
I always thought it more as like an extra drum
that's part of the percussion attack.
* Music *
Billy: So a lot of things what we're doing if we're
playing these kind of weird rhythmic patterns, I guess it is
funky because funk music is rhythm based but we weren't
really trying to be like a bringing funky grooves
necessarily into rock music and I mean the only band I knew at
the time that had before that was Led Zeppelin.
Adam Rafalovich: You look at a lot of the bands that had a lot
of influence upon a lot of metal artists like Led Zeppelin.
Almost all groove oriented, same sort of tempo,
look at Black Sabbath, grooves are just really accessible,
grooves feel really good.
So in a sense experimenting with different forms was the
revisiting of that and that again expands the audience,
there's more people who are going to get into it if they can
get into a rhythmic structure that appeals to them.
* Music *
>> When it comes to mixing groove and heaviness
no band struck this balance better in the nineties than
Rage Against The Machine, which featured the
innovative approach of Rage guitarist Tom Morello.
Sam: When Rage was just starting out,
where did the inspiration come from to have
that groove rhythmic element in the music?
Tom Morello: Yeah. What made that early batch
of Rage songs was definitely the chemistry of the
four musicians and we brought out of each other.
My contribution to that was my love of those huge
seventies hard rock riffs through the filter of
my love of punk rock and hip-hop.
So I started to compile these riffs and grooves in
Rage Against The Machine as the guitar player,
I was the DJ in the band. That got me thinking about
the instrument in an entirely different way.
* Music *
Tom Morello: While I still loved Randy Rhoads,
and Eddie Van Halen and Yngwie Malmsteen and all that,
I thought there's enough of that happening already,
I started concentrating on the eccentricities of my
playing and all of a sudden we started to hear
something that we hadn't heard before.
* Music *
Deena Weinstein: Rage was actually out there as a
unique band that was on top of the charts.
They mixed things up quite beautifully and distinctively.
Pantera is not a bad bridge to nu-metal either and
people who like Pantera didn't have much
of a difficulty getting over to nu-metal.
* Music *
>> Pantera was one of the most important
metal bands of the nineties and yet they
were virtually impossible to categorize.
Some call them thrash, others call them groove metal.
But one thing's for sure they introduced a style of riffing
that added a new rhythmic dynamic to metal music.
* Music *
Phil Anselmo: The late eighties writing heavy metal songs,
a lot of bands would save the money riff for the end
or for the middle or whatever but we saw
that the money riff moved people so it's like
why not make the whole damn song the money riff.
* Music *
Phil: You know, any riff that moved the people,
it was like too infectious not to jump into that
frockus with the people once we started playing.
Brandon Geist: I think what makes Pantera so great
is that they had hooks, they had groovy instantly
humble riffs so it was finding this fine line between
extremity and hookiness and accessibility that very few
bands can manage to do and Pantera were all about like we
are fans just as much as you guys are fans you know.
That was their whole thing, they were always partying with fans.
Terry Date: The feel of their records was based around the
riff and they played with a groove that none of the
metal bands were playing with, you know they played, you know
it's like texas swing meets thrash metal, so there's a lot
of emphasis on how the crowd would react.
Phil: The proof's in the pudding you know, we gigged so
much and it was all about attitude and the bond with the
audience, you know, and that's what was special about us.
* Music *
>> By the early nineties combining groove and heaviness
in metal music was well established but still
these bands were not called nu-metal.
So the question still remains, when was the nu-metal sub-genre
actually born and who was the first true nu-metal band?
* Music *
>> Bands like Faith No More, Rage Against The Machine
and Pantera pioneered a groove based sound
in metal music back in the early nineties but the first band
credited with actually creating the nu-metal style was Korn
* Music *
>> So I'm meeting with Korn vocalist Jonathan Davis
to explore the bands background and how it shaped their music.
Sam: I wanted to start by asking you, how would you
describe Bakersfield the time when you were growing up and how
you think that kind of fed into the music you went on to make?
Jonathan Davis: It really had a big impact on me
the town itself because it's kind of barren in parts,
a lot of oil fields, farms, you were either into
dirt bike riding or music that was basically it.
At the time it was considered Nashville West, there was a lot
of country music going on, Buck Owens, Hee Haw, that kind of
stuff but the band that got me into like metal music was
Pantera because those grooves were undeniable, they just made
you just want to move do something, make you get out of
your seat and rock out but I think the biggest band was like
Faith No More, they showed us you can do something
different in heavy music that wasn't traditional metal.
* Music *
Sam: With regards to your vocal approach,
you're very different than a lot of other vocalists.
Jonathan Davis: I just was coming out with
what was coming out of my heart 100 percent
I just opened my mouth and sang,
I wasn't trying to emulate anybody,
I wasn't trying to do anything, I was just come and figure
myself out really and I kind of fell into my own style,
it's just from all the different kinds of
music I listen to all meshed into one.
Sam: So were your lyrical influences primarily
coming from a personal place then?
Jonathan Davis: Yah coming just straight from a
personal stand point, stuff I had to get out.
* Music *
Monte Connor: It's another thing that just really
attracted kids to Korn was the realness of it, they never heard
like a grown man just crying on a record and putting his emotion
out there like that, it was like, it was unbelievable.
* Music *
Adam Rafalovich: Jonathan Davis, he had this interesting
way kind of like whispering, you know he would
bring his voice down really really low.
* Music *
Adam: Making you think he's like in a mental institution,
that you're seeing inside of his own head when he would
offer these really whispery little discussions and
then to actually explode would take those songs
to a whole other emotional level.
* Music *
Scott Greer: Now he was just making music and creating
these songs and these lyrics as therapy for himself
and so other people you know felt that sort of connection
to the music and so the band connected
on a mainstream level because it was unique music
but it was also very personal.
* Music *
Sam: Is there anything else Korn did that was
new and exciting for metal with that first record?
Monte: Korn and bands and band of their ilk basically
took guitars and they down tuned them to previously unheard of
levels and um, you know that's what gives it the heavy sound,
that's what gives it this thick heavy groovy kind of sound.
So you know the down tuning to me would be the number one
characteristic of what makes a band nu-metal.
Rich Ward: All of us were d-tuning at that point,
the difference was the introduction of
the seven string which I call the mud tone.
It basically said that Van Halen and Randy Rhoads were dead,
that the idea of that top end bright aggressive thing
was over and it was the introduction to this
Ross Robinson production technique, no top end,
all about the low end, all about the bump.
Ross Robinson: (imitates sound) The way the low end hits,
you know, it moves something else in your gut that
straight metal doesn't really have the ability to do.
* Music *
Fieldy: Nobody was doing like lower music like that and
we wanted something heavier and lower so I got a
five string bass because it has a lower string on it.
Like the music would be heavier you know lower string
but it was really weird because I don't think Korn
has a bass player because it's not really bass,
it's a percussion style instrument in the band.
I did a lot of like just click sounds of rhythms and I think
that's where I guess I ended up developing the style.
* Music *
>> Korn broadened the scope of metal music by experimenting
with sounds and instrumentation that had never been heard
in the genre but they weren't the only California band
that stretched the boundaries of metal in the mid nineties.
* Music *
Sam: So Sacramento was it a place where heavy music
was popular but also hip-hop and other styles?
Chino Moreno: Yah. I mean it was very,
it was a melting pot of all kinds of sound you know,
we grew up kind of in a, I guess you would call it
the hood whatever and our early roots I think musically
come from a lot of different places from disco to you
know being in the beginning of new wave music.
There's so much great music in all these genres,
why not just you know utilize the best of whatever you like
and put it and hopefully be able to do it so it's not
so contrived you know because to us it was was natural.
* Music *
Chino Moreno: Like we always looked at making riffs that
you could nod your head to, had beat and pulse to it and
that's from listening I think to early rap music but we didn't
think about bringing in turntables into the band to add
a hip-hop element to it, it wasn't that at all.
It was more for soundscapes I think.
* Music *
Adam: The turntable can introduce sounds and
an approach to sound that the classic instruments
won't necessarily be able to do, but at the same time
there are always those fans of metal music
who would probably take an axe to a turntable.
Jon Weiderhorn: The turntable is a tricky
instrument when it comes to heavy metal.
The Deftones were able to use the turntable
as a real instrument however I think gave
a new atmosphere to some of their songs.
* Music *
>> Deftones and Korn created a sound that helped shatter some
of the orthodox of heavy metal music but still nu-metal wasn't
considered a new sub-genre until Brazilian thrash metal
legends Sepultura released their ground breaking album "Roots"
* Music *
Sam: Can you describe where you guys were at
when you made that record?
Max Cavalera: Well one thing Sepultura always said
to ourselves, a commitment, was to never repeat
the same album, no matter what happens.
We're never gonna do the same album again and we already did a
lot of the fast stuff so we thought what else can we do you
know to develop our sound so we started messing around with
rhythms and it was awesome and we're like wow this is
really cool, let's keep this going.
* Music *
Max Cavalera: We felt those grooves, you know like
metal has a groove man that's a great groove, when you do it
right it's killer, it's really contagious and Roots opening
track, the song "Roots Bloody Roots" really total killer
groove song, it's made for festivals.
It's made for 50,000 people jumping up and down,
that's what I still love to play today.
It's one of my favorite songs to play live.
* Music *
Max Cavalera: So in your music you actually do what you
believe you know, we believe in "Roots" you know, the band
totally believe on it so we just went on further.
Monte Connor: Max was basically the guy that spear headed
the movement taking Sepultura in a new metal direction so
the album "Roots" definitely help establish the genre
right along with Korn and Deftones.
Dez Fafara: When we heard them do that we said ok if Sepultura
is gonna come from their roots, you know excuse the pun,
from their roots from doing an album like "Roots" we all said
okay nu-metal is gonna blow up.
That's why you had so many nu-metal bands
coming out of that time.
I mean it blew up so quick that none of us expected it, we all
had our head down and horns out and just kind of driving through
the wind and the American kids were ready to eat that up.
* Music *
Scott Greer: Nu-metal was engaging multiple audiences
those bands were engaging the metal fans, they were engaging
the goth fans, you know and there were some rap fans
brought into the fold so that musical makeup broadened their
appeal and they tapped into all those different fan bases.
* Music *
>> By the late nineties nu-metal was recognized
as a unique underground movement that resonated with heavy
metalers as well as fans of hip-hop and goth music but how
would nu-metal transform from a grass roots sub-genre to a
mainstream movement that swept across America
andthe rest of the world.
* Music *
Sam: With the arrival of Limp Bizkit in the late nineties,
the sound of nu-metal started to shift and
bands were now getting heavy rotation on MTV, but not
everyone in the metal community was on board with this,
a lot of fans like myself really didn't like what
Limp Bizkit was doing with the sound of the music.
But given that they had this massive mainstream impact
I'm meeting with Fred Durst because I wanna know about
the ambitions of the band and how they got their start.
Fred Durst: You know I was homeless for a few years and
sort of lost and just skateboarding and making crappy
rap demos and I just didn't think anything was ever gonna
happen for me but I remember hearing that Korn were coming to
town and I said this is my shot, this is my shot.
I got to give these guys my tape, after the show they just
walked out into the crowd and stood there and we started
drinking some beer and hanging and I said we can come back to
my house, you know I do tattoos, I'll give you a free tattoo and
for some reason they were down with going.
Jonathan Davis: You know we were playing this place called
Milk Bar in Jacksonville and I guess those guys frequented
that place, that was their bar, that was their club to hang.
I remember I was playing and I got off stage and
I met Fred and he said he was a tattoo artist.
Fred Durst: So I tattoo on "Head", Brian Welch's lower back
and they bust my balls to this day because you know it says
Korn but they said it says Horn.
Jonathan Davis: He wasn't a great tattoo artist, he kind of
like swindled his way into tattooing, so yah his back says
Horn instead of Korn, you know we always tease him about it.
Fred Durst: It definitely doesn't say Horn because there's
one little piece in there that makes it a K and not an H
and so I gave them a tape.
* Music *
Fred: You know I didn't realize how serious it
was gonna be but Fieldy responded, he responded and he
said man I'm gonna let some people hear this and then I get
a call from Ross Robinson and you know to me it was like whoa
Ross produced Korn's record, like this is unbelievable.
Sam Dunn: What was different about that Limp Bizkit sound?
Ross Robinson: Well actually I kind of felt there was like a
suicidal punk rock thing to it.
* Music *
Ross: Fred was singing about things like being
pissed off at his neighbor and wanting to pee in their yard and
you know just really adolescent things you know that made you
want to like wreck something but obviously he went like complete
rap so it was like an extra thing for metal basically.
Fred: Heavy metal and hip-hop the two worlds
colliding together, I always kind of wanted it to happen.
Even growing up I would take rock records and a
four-track cassette recorder, recording a rock record on
one track and then going and rapping over it.
So when it came to Limp Bizkit I absolutely went on a mission to
make music that was a mixture of those.
* Music *
Adam Rafalovich: According to Limp Bizkit nu-metal was
going to be hard riffing, very groove oriented and it
was gonna have very strict, very specific hip-hop delivery.
Other bands had elements of hip-hop making them
nu-metal bands but Limp Bizkit were basically admitting
that nu-metal was about hip-hop,
that was what appealed to that mass audience.
Wes Borland: The hip-hop and rap combined with you know the metal
stuff, it was like let's take all these things that sound
violent and combine them all together because that just does
something to you, it makes you want to move, it makes you want
to dance in a way that metal wasn't making happen before.
So we were constantly experimenting.
* Music *
Sam Dunn: What was your philosophy making
turntables work in Limp Bizkit?
DJ Lethal: When they asked me to join the band I was like,
man I don't wanna just do regular DJ scratches
that everybody is doing you know, my stuff had to be
musical and definitely Tom Morello was an inspiration
as far as how he tries to make other sounds with his guitar,
I wanted to do more rock guitar things on the turntable.
So I ran my turntable through a Marshall stack and I was like,
that's it! That's it right there.
The bottom line was let's have fun with it because
you know a lot of metal bands were just you know,
so serious and they're always like that and they gotta be so
dark and we're like we can be hard and play hardcore
and play riffs and like have fun too.
Fred: Somebody needed to come in and start the (beep) party.
* Music *
>> By 1998 Limp Bizkit and the nu-metal movement
was hitting the mainstream and the driving force
was the Family Values tour.
The first tour to be officially marketed as a nu-metal festival.
Featuring headliners Limp Bizkit and Korn, Family Values played
to nearly a quarter of a million fans and nu-metal was now
overtaking glam and grunge as metal's biggest sub-genre.
Wes Borland: This was a very excessive time, it was like the
eighties came back for a little while in the late nineties.
Like people are tired of seeing small shows, they want to see
big shows now, they want to see big stage sets, big lights and
Family Values being a huge production made an impact,
it made a statement, this is what's happening now, you know
it made us stand out as nu-metal bands on a nu-metal tour.
Fred: It just kept building and building and pretty
soon it was like we were on our own, we could go out and
headline as Limp Bizkit.
Family Values was definitely the match that started that fire.
* Music *
Sam Dunn: To what extent was Limp Bizkit's approach
more commercial than Deftones or Korn?
Jon Weiderhorn: I think at first Limp Bizkit's sound and approach
wasn't any more commercial than Korn's, at least on
"Three Dollar Bill, Yall$" but when they built a net to
"Significant Other" they really made the cash grab.
You have a single like "Nookie" which for some reason blew into
the stratosphere and was huger than huge and in the mainstream
eye that was a sign that nu-metal had gone supernova.
* Music *
Wes Borland: Things were so out of control by that point,
the audiences just ate it up, they couldn't get enough.
I mean it was ridiculous.
Fred: I just remember thinking, oh my God you know I'm
a rock star now and I'm meeting musicians that I've always
admired and Hugh Hefner keeps calling me to come to his house
and I'm hanging out with all of these playmates and this is
crazy, you know I'm gonna eat it up while I can.
I was just living you know, I wasn't thinking too far ahead.
What's going on?
We're just shooting a video.
We're shooting a video.
We're not having it.
Get in the car.
Hey.
Hey!!
(Police Sirens)
Crowd: Woodstock '99!
VH-1 Reporter: This is Woodstock '99 baby whoa!
(Crowd cheering)
VH-1 Reporter: We're in Rome, NY not far from
the original Woodstock site but of course things are a little
different in 1999 than they were in 1969.
>> In July 1999 nearly a half a million music fans
descended on the small town of Rome in upstate New York
tocommemorate the 30th anniversary of Woodstock.
Among the dozens of performers over the three-day festival were
Rage Against The Machine, Korn and Limp Bizkit.
Sam: What are your memories of that show and what do you
think it did for this movement of heavy music?
Fred Durst: Well they were really pushing this movement,
hard, it was like this break out metal festival with a few other
artists sprinkled in and I remember getting there
and just going, oh my God look at this place,
this is Woodstock what an honor, how amazing.
I mean it was definitely the highlight of rap metal music.
* Music *
Jonathan Davis: Come on Woodstock!
For us too It was crazy, I think it was the greatest show
we ever played or are ever gonna play.
It was amazing to play in front of 400,000 plus people and
they all get it and be right there with us
and feel what we're doing.
It was amazing to see people jumping to the music and because
there were so many people, seeing how the sound travels,
seeing the waves of people jumping, it was just ridiculous.
* Music *
Fieldy: Woodstock '99 was unforgettable, that was a
pretty big moment, that was the biggest moment in our career.
It was so intense, never done anything like that before,
still haven't.
* Music *
Jonathan Davis: We rocked that place that first night and
everybody had fun but the second night Limp Bizkit
(beep) it up for everyone, they really did.
Announcer: You want the worst, well you got the worst,
the one, the only, Limp Bizkit.
Wes Borland: I mean it was wildfire, there was people
everywhere and when we finally went up to play
it was like middle of the day and we had like the
best slot to where the energy would be super high,
so we just got up and we played our show.
Fred Durst: We walked on stage and it was that wave of people
bouncing as far as you could see, hundreds of thousands of
people and it was the most amazing adrenaline pumping
moment that I ever experienced and I was so amped
and ready to rock and we just did what we do.
* Music *
Fred Durst: But I guess things started to go bad during
you know our song "Break Stuff".
* Music *
Fred Durst: You know it is what it is, it was just me
doing my thing because during our performance
I saw people surfing on plywood.
That's some tight (beep) right there, that crowd surfing on the plywood.
I was like, that's (beep) amazing, how cool is that,
I'm gonna go do it, so I jumped down off the stage and I go out
in the crowd and I'm telling them to bring the plywood over
here and they're surfing it over and I get up on it and
I just start rocking on the plywood you know
I'm partying with you guys, you know, I wanna be out here
in the crowd with you, this is amazing.
I had no idea there was anything negative going on at all.
You got your problems, you got a problem with me,
you got a problem with yourself, it's time to take
all that negative energy and put it the (beep) out.
I don't think they understood that I meant okay let's get rid
of all that negativity so we can bring positive in.
That means start jumping, you know jumping and singing, it
doesn't mean start raping and burning the place down,
that's definitely not what I meant.
* Music *
Fred: I remember getting off the stage and having
some policeman with my manager come around me and say,
"Fred I think you kind of incited a riot", they started
ripping down the buildings and the scaffolding and that's the
plywood you were surfing on, that wasn't from walkways going
to the restroom, they were tearing down things and there
was people getting hurt and I go I didn't see any of that,
everybody I saw was having an amazing time.
Jonathan Davis: Fred with his like, c'mon let's break stuff in
that song, him doing that, it just sent it over the top and
that's when all that stuff happened.
There was people hurt, people got beat up, hit,
all this craziness, he instigated the whole damn thing,
I was right there watching it.
Jon Weiderhorn: It wasn't a fun Woodstock type love fest,
it really turned violent, it turned ugly, it was really a
dark moment in music and instead of stopping the show
Fred Durst stoked the flames.
News Anchor: Three days of music peace and love ended with arson
and rioting early today at Woodstock '99.
>> Whatever the reasons concertgoers began destroying
property, starting fires and rioting.
>> Scatted bonfires raged out of control for several hours as
vending stalls were looted and light towers toppled.
>> Was Woodstock's '99 firery end enough
to shroud the event in regret?
Fred Durst: All I can say is that when we were on stage our
experience was that it was the greatest concert of all time and
I had no idea that the finger would be pointed at me as a
guy staring a riot but I guess you know to this day,
it's gonna be something that Limp Bizkit (beep) up.
Tom Morello: His music kind of started with the idea
of making powerful music that had a message
that was about integrity and unity and
this kind of solidarity between band and crowd and then it
became you know a bunch of thugs raping women in the pit
and then burning the festival to the ground.
We popularized this genre, which now is totally just run amuck.
I just thought man this is, what have we done.
Monte Connor: When I think of Woodstock I think of that
incident with Limp Bizkit and the stuff that happened there
was kind of like the way Altamont was you know like you
had the original Woodstock being this amazing music festival and
Altamont being the point where like you know, the sixties
culture jumped the shark. Maybe that was the
turning point where things had gotten out of hand.
Tom Morello: That music became sort of excess in spectacle
and disrespect to audience and peers in a way that you
saw most awful heights of the hair metal bands.
Fred: This character Fred Durst thing, this monster that
was created, you know it sort of backfired on me,
there was always negativity thrown at Limp Bizkit,
nobody really wanted us here in the first place.
You know nobody really wanted rap in the first place and
nobody really wanted metal in the normal world.
So rap metal, oh (beep), now the metal guys don't want it and the
rappers don't want the metal so I just think that it was,
I'm just that guy I guess, yah maybe I'm that guy.
>> Despite the fallout and backlash after Woodstock '99
the nu-metal movement didn't die and in fact
it continued to grow and it was so pervasive that even one of
metal's biggest bands embraced the nu-metal sound.
* Music *
Sam Dunn: Tell me about "Diabolus in Musica", what kind
of direction were you guys going in on that record?
Kerry King: That's the one record that I really paid not
enough attention to because I was really bitter
about the kind of music that was popular.
I thought it was very frat boy stuff and
maybe that's why it was popular, I don't know.
So "Diabolus" didn't get as much attention from me
because you know we didn't stay in focus.
* Music *
Kevin Estrada: Slayer were very influenced at
one point by the power of nu-metal,
the Diabolica album was very nu-metal, had very nu-metal
elements throughout, Kerry's riffs changed, you know the
solos weren't as chaotic so it was a little worrisome seeing
that Slayer gave in to that you know, of all bands Slayer,
the kings of thrash metal were starting to sound nu-metal.
* Music *
Kevin: You know they're playing tours with the
Deftones and they're playing tours with Korn and they're
playing to that crowd and I think that had a lot
to do with it, they wanted to connect with their audience.
Phil Anselmo: It's kneeling to what was popular you know,
remember when Kiss went disco when we were kids.
Trying to stay up with the times.
Kerry King: Looking back we were just saying all right how do we
make Slayer fit into today's society but that's probably my
least favorite record of our history, that's our "Turbo"
(Laughs).
* Music *
>> After "Diabolus in Musica", Slayer returned
to their thrash metal sound in the early 2000's and it
seemed that the nu-metal movement was starting to die off
but then a second wave of bands emerged that were
labeled nu-metal but broadened the sound
of a sub-genre and heavy metal as a whole.
* Music *
Sam: What was the music and rock and metal climate like at that time?
David Draiman: It was a very unique time because we got
lumped into the category of nu-metal but we never really had
any association with that stylistically, we never rapped,
we never had a DJ or a turntable or anything like that.
Bands like the Deftones and Korn
had their hip-hop and rap influences.
For me it was much more reggae.
* Music *
Dan Donegan: I never really worried about what the
categories were, we're metal, we're not metal, we're not metal
enough, you know we're rock whatever, it doesn't really
phase me, obviously we came up at a time where this whole
nu-metal genre came up and it was great for us,
we were able to ride the wave of that because
so many bands were getting snatched up at the time.
* Music *
Jacoby Shaddix: The public had like had enough of
Limp Bizkit, had enough of (beep) Korn and it was just
like the whole wave of new bands came through that kicked down
the door for us so it wasn't that hard for us to just
stampede through and sell (beep) six million records, you know.
Nic Adler: The music industry at that time was very hungry,
I mean the best sales in the history of the music business
were during that time, people were looking for bands that were
that nu-metal style but young new and fresh.
* Music *
>> The second wave of nu-metal bands not only
expanded the sound of the genre, they also pushed nu-metal to
even higher levels of commercial success and the band that took
nu-metal to it's commercial peak was Linkin Park.
* Music *
Sam Dunn: As you know I mean the next
big band was Linkin Park, what was your impression
of what those guys were doing?
Jonathan Davis: They did this really cool thing where they
incorporated melody and singing with a rapper, so you had the
best of both worlds and they didn't go too heavy or spooky,
it's stuff that I guess "normal folk" could palette.
* Music *
Adam Rafalovich: With Linkin Park there wasn't the
same degree of overt harshness in the approach,
it was a little bit softer, a little bit, it seemed like a
little more of a gentle metal and for that reason you know,
it had incredible commercial viability.
Nic Adler: When they turned it on and they were ready to go,
I don't recall a band taking off faster than Linkin Park.
It was ten days from being this band that I knew as a band that
played The Roxy to seeing them on MTV and being number one.
* Music *
>> Despite the massive success of Linkin Park and the
second wave of nu-metal bands, much like glam metal back
in the eighties, nu-metal's lasting legacy seems to be the
way it deeply divided the metal community and given that
I wasn't a fan of this style, I'm still struggling
to understand why nu-metal became so popular.
Sam Dunn: Linkin Park fans, can you tell me why you like them?
Fan: Why we like Linkin Park?
Sam Dunn: Why you like Linkin Park?
Because they're the best, we love the rock and
the hip-hop mixed in. They're original.
They're very original, every album sounds completely different.
What I like about them is that they've always try
to stay away from the conventional type of music.
They don't fit into any genre, they are their own genre.
They're Linkin Park.
Sam Dunn: How come I didn't like it?
Fan: Laughs, I don't know.
Sam Dunn: Wrong crowd, wrong crowd.
Fan: Everyone has their own opinions.
Sam Dunn: Looking back over all this music that you have been a
part of, what does that term nu-metal mean to you now?
Fred Durst: Well I don't know how many people still use
the term but I'm extremely proud to be part of
the nu-metal movement and I'm proud of everything
that we have accomplished and everything we've (beep) up.
Jonathan Davis: I felt proud that we helped
innovate a movement, very proud.
Who cares whatever they call it I guess now, all I know is we're
still here and we're still doing what we're doing
and they're gonna call us the nu-metal godfathers for
the rest of our damn lives. So I guess I'm gonna deal with it.
Monte Connor: It's a dirty word today but not to the extent of
hair metal, you know like people will turn their nose up at it
and make jokes and stuff but I think nu-metal definitely still
has some kind of cache to it and it is still alive,
I mean any of those bands they're just so part of the
fabric of metal at this point they're not called nu-metal.
Jon Weiderhorn: I think the term nu-metal has been kind of
poisoned and it's a kind of a shame because the types of sound
that were being presented to audiences enabled them to open
their minds and say metal doesn't have to be rooted in
this sort of Black Sabbath, Metallica arc of acceptability,
you know maybe metal doesn't have to be one thing.
* Music *
>> Before I set out to explore nu-metal,
I questioned whether it even belonged in the story of heavy
metal, but I've discovered although the term nu-metal may
be dead, many of the bands continue to thrive and have
brought some real innovation to metal music and so ultimately
I've realized that nu-metal has made a much bigger contribution
to the evolution of heavy metal than I ever imagined.
* Music *
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