Fargo Rock City (37 page)

By the time I was a junior, I was more “media savvy,” which basically meant I now consciously made lifestyle choices that were dictated by famous people. I really got into the whole Guns N' Roses mystique, particularly Slash, and particularly trying to act like Slash at parties. This sparked my “late whiskey period,” only this time I really
was
drinking Jack Daniel's, because now I was getting Pell grants. I swore that Jack Daniel's was all I would drink for a year, and for a while that's exactly what I did. I usually
drank two 750 milliliter bottles every week (when I cleaned out my dorm room at the end of that academic year, I found empty JD bottles hidden absolutely everywhere—including four
in my sock drawer
). By now, I was pretty well established as a local writer (I was my university's contrived version of the “wacky controversial columnist”), and I tried to foster the same reputation that Slash seemed to display: “He's talented and popular—but will he live to be thirty?” That's
exactly
what I wanted people to say about me. And I'm pretty sure some of them did (although not as many as I'd like to pretend). I would drink Jack Daniel's until I was dazed and incoherent, and then I'd sit in the corner and watch people at the party whisper about who I was. Even when I was too drunk to walk, I could always tell which people recognized me from the picture that ran with my newspaper column. I loved that pathetic admiration; I loved being wasted in public; I loved the strange credibility that comes with being the most self-cancerous superstar in any given social situation. I could not dance with Mr. Brownstone, but I would swallow anything you poured in front of me.

After a while, I got bored with this shtick (or maybe I ran out of money—I honestly can't remember). Me and my little posse spent the next few months hanging out in a dorm room occupied by Mr. Pancake (who was a biology major with no relationship to Mr. Brownstone), and we'd watch the Canadian teen drama
Fifteen
while drinking Busch Light pounders (which truth be told was always the most universal staple in all our drinking diets). Our musical leanings were becoming more “collegiate” (at least temporarily), so it didn't seem like it mattered what we were drinking. I'm sure the guys in Pavement drank beer, but they didn't exactly make a point of talking about it. We saw lots of pictures where Eddie Vedder looked drunk (there's one especially memorable MTV interview where he's holding his head and surrounded by empty bottles), but it wasn't part of his message. It did not seem like Pearl Jam drank to have fun; they drank because they were sexually abused (or they were worried about people who were, or something like that).
Of course, this didn't stop us from drinking, but it did erode our supposed motivations for doing so. Now we drank because that's what we did.

Now I'm twenty-eight, so I drink in actual bars. The only bars I like are neighborhood dives where no one else goes, and these types of places don't play hair metal. They usually play Dean Martin or the Carpenters, which is usually what I want to hear anyway. Today, I mostly drink brandy and ginger ale, a concoction that has come to be known as the Witty Chuck. The Witty Chuck (and you can actually order this by name at Duffy's Tavern in Fargo and the Double Olive in Akron) is a wonderful drink for three reasons, which is ironic, because it only has two ingredients. The reasons are as follows: (1) it tastes good, (2) it has some kick, and most importantly, (3) it makes you witty. I'm serious—
it makes you witty.
Most people become stupid and belligerent when they get drunk, but not people who drink the Witty Chuck. After three elixirs, they turn into Dorothy Parker. You'll find yourself winging zingers at everyone in the bar, and they will all have to admit that you are the wittiest person alive. People will love you, and some of them will insist on buying you waffles at Denny's. Trust me on this one.

Of course, as I already mentioned, I do occasionally get wasted in my living room to get “back to my roots,” which is '80s metal and whatever alcohol I can find in my kitchen. “Drinking is my profession. Drums are just a hobby,” Dokken percussionist Mick Brown said in 1985, and some nights I can see where he's coming from. “I have to admit that I'm a pretty bad influence on a lot of people. The girls who hang around me will take a couple of days off from their jobs, and then find out they've been fired when they return to work. And they get really torn up. I just go, ‘Listen, if you can't handle it, then don't hang around me. I don't want to ruin your life just for having a good time.' I'm a party professional. I stay in on New Year's Eve because all the amateurs are out.”

This kind of behavior was clearly not too responsible of Mick (and it probably cost him a few girlfriends), just as it's probably
not too sensible for me to get loaded while I listen to
Tooth and Nail
all by myself. But I can't deny my heart: I like to drink, and I like to rock. You think I'm an idiot? Fine. You don't have to come over.

A reunited (and substantially grizzled) Mötley Crüe perform “Shout at the Devil '97” at the American Music Awards.

The release (and subsequent success) of Bush's
Sixteen Stone
in 1994 represented the first crack in Seattle's grunge empire, unquestionably the most important musical force since punk. Though the album itself was generally quite good—“Machinehead” was one of the most metal-esque tunes of that year—
Sixteen Stone
set a dangerous precedent: If a bunch of handsome art students from Britain could go hyper-platinum as a post-Cobain clone, the state of Sasquatch rock was at maximum saturation. The formula had been set in concrete; parody was soon on the horizon. Bush was a good band who just happened to signal the beginning of the end; ultimately, they would became the grunge Warrant.

Seemingly seconds after grunge began to falter, the possibility of a “metal revival” started to surface on the lips of all those rock pundits who exist solely to start musical revivals they'll eventually bemoan. At first, it was total kitsch; the only bands who talked about '80s hard rock in interviews were joke bands who realized that mentioning Winger made reporters giggle. It evolved into rediscovery; fifth-graders found their parents' Def Leppard and Metallica cassettes the same way I found my brother's CCR 8-tracks. Suddenly,
Appetite for Destruction
and
5150
were classic rock. By 1996, ironic pop stars were still mentioning glam rockers
in interviews, but now it was harder to tell if they were joking. Dave Grohl would claim that Dio-era Sabbath was awesome (he has a particular appreciation for “The Mob Rules”), and everyone would smirk—but then the Foo Fighters would release a song that sounded like Ozzy solo material (if you don't believe me, listen to their contribution on that ridiculous
X-Files
soundtrack).

Pretty soon, you couldn't swing a dead cat without hitting somebody who was blathering on about the “new metal” movement. The most obvious example came with the advent of Ozzfest, an economic juggernaut that proved to be the most successful tour of 1997 (pound for pound and dollar for dollar, it squashed the media-exulted Lilith Fair festival). The first Ozzfest tour had a couple of major draws: It featured Marilyn Manson at the peak of his Q rating, and it delivered a reunion of the original Black Sabbath lineup (sort of … actually, drummer Bill Ward was too “exhausted” to perform, so they recruited that ponytail guy from Faith No More and they only played about four songs per night, but then again, how much can you really expect from three fifty-year-old Brits who spent half their life eating acid and pretending to worship the devil?).

Still, Ozzfest wasn't the same (at least not to me). To an '80s metal kid, Ozzfest didn't seem like heavy metal. Oh, these bands were certainly heavy, but they weren't any more fun than the morose alt rockers who sang about how they were creeps and losers who hailed from Olympia (where everyone evidently fucks the same). Bands like Coal Chamber, Powerman 5000, and Fear Factory aspire to be Gen X versions of Black Sab, but they fail miserably; they mostly seem like Soundgarden, but without the brains or the melody. Poison may have been a dumb, loud pop band, but that's light-years better than being a dumb, loud grunge band. On both the 1997 and '98 Ozzfest bills, there was a definite
type
of fledgling hard rock act—they all wanted to somehow combine the sonic sludge of late '80s metal with the dour disaffection of early '90s industrial AmRep rock. It consciously offered the worst of both worlds.

Slightly more promising—and the operative word here is
slightly
—are the hip-hop–obsessed metal groups that merge funk rock guitars with desperate rap vocals. Packs of these mongrel groups popped up everywhere in late '98, and the lead dingo was Korn. The lovable jackasses in Korn absolutely fascinate me: They are the first band that I can honestly say I don't “get.” I understand why they're popular, and I've seen them live twice (and enjoyed them once). But Korn was the band that made me realize I was no longer a target market for hard-rock bands.

Most rock groups dream of being bigger than the Beatles. Korn does not share that dream. In fact, they don't even think about the Beatles. At all. Ever.

“I've never owned a Beatles record. I've never even listened to one,” insists Fieldy, the mono-named Korn bassist. “The Rolling Stones, Led Zeppelin—those bands haven't influenced us in any way. Nobody in the band ever listened to that stuff. Our musical history starts with the Red Hot Chili Peppers and early Faith No More. As a band, that's where we begin.”

For rock purists (or even for anyone who casually enjoys FM radio), that kind of inflammatory statement is enough to qualify Korn as a heretical joke. They have an unabashed disrespect for the history of rock, and the band appeals to an audience almost entirely composed of aggressive, confused males. Yet there is something that can be said about Korn that can't honestly be applied to almost every other rock group that has ever existed: Korn is legitimately new. The band leads a wholly original pop generation; for perhaps the first time, rock music has completely disconnected itself from its roots. As of late, Korn vocalist Jonathan Davis has taken to mentioning how buying
Shout at the Devil
changed his life (and for many of the same reasons it changed mine), but it's impossible to hear any of Vince Neil's influence on Davis's singing style. Korn is neither an extension of—nor a reaction to—classic rock; the band does not support or mock tradition. Quite frankly, Korn has no relationship whatsoever to the people who invented their art form.

It's almost as if Korn embodies everything old people hate
about kids. They fuse the three most obnoxious elements of modern music: the down-tuned throb of metal, the mind-numbing rhythm of rap, and the inaudible howl of hard-core thrash. The goofballs in Korn wear baggy pants and stupid retro sneakers, but they're obsessed with new technology and hold a perverse adoration for consumerism. In fact, when I talked to Fieldy in autumn of 1998, he actually conducted the interview on a cell phone from a shopping mall in Irvine, California.

“I think like a fourteen-year-old. Our whole band thinks like fourteen-year-olds,” he said, without one milligram of irony. “You have to.”

In 1987, Korn would have probably been classified as a straight-up rap band (probably as an unfunny version of the Beastie Boys). Davis doesn't really sing (in fact, half the time he seems to be whispering), and there are no guitar solos or signs of musicianship. Korn's main pupils, the Jacksonville-based band Limp Bizkit, are even more connected to hip-hop and have managed to become just as popular; Bizkit vocalist Fred Durst admits he'd actually prefer to be a straightforward hip-hop group, but it's impossible for white guys with metal overtones to get credibility in a predominantly black industry.
^A
The band 311 is kind of in the same boat, only with more Chili Pepper funkiness, more pot, less street cred, stupider lyrics, and a preppy “boy band” cuteness that rivals N' Sync.

It should be noted that all these acts are fiercely unwilling to adopt the label of “heavy metal.” They are a hybrid of hard rock and rap, but they only choose to recognize the latter. When Korn created and headlined their highly successful “Family Values” tour, the second biggest act on the bill was Ice Cube. Consequently, a group like Korn truly does represent its audience; the current teen populace sees “glam metal” as an archaic load of shit
that belongs to a wholly different generation of imbeciles, but they like the look and lexicon of hip-hop. The only obvious influence they take from the metal era is the emphasis on fashion—and that applies to both clothing and lifestyle. Korn is very conscious about how they appear, and their audience pays attention.

“I remember the first time we toured as headliners, and I looked out the window of the bus. Every kid was wearing Adidas,” Fieldy said. “It was an entire crowd of kids who dressed the way we do. We called Adidas and told them they owed us money. I mean, we probably helped them sell an extra million pairs of shoes, because every real Korn fan wears Adidas. It's fucking unfair. They should have at least given us fifty thousand dollars.”