Guitarist James "Munky" Shaffer is looking back on his tenure with hard rock icons Korn, as well as some of his "darkest" times in a new wide-ranging discussion.
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Speaking with Metal Hammer, Munky admits "sometimes I can’t believe we’re still alive," when remembering the excesses that led him to seek sobriety in the late aughts.
"Around the time of my father’s death, I had severely slipped into bad drug use and alcoholism," Shaffer admits. "I had lost both my parents now... and I didn't want to face it. I had a beautiful house by the beach, and I basically barricaded myself in, with all the windows blacked out, and turned the music up really loud in every room. It was a very quiet neighborhood until I moved in, so my neighbors must have been like, ‘This motherf***er, we can’t take this anymore…'"
Munky continues, "one day this policeman knocked on my door... as the sun was rising. He asked if I had any guns in the house, and I responded, 'If I do have any guns, you will be the first to know,' and slammed the door in his face. About 15 minutes later, I had a SWAT team outside my house." Shaffer adds, "They got me out and arrested me, and they knew I was not okay; they could obviously see, like, ‘Okay, not only is he high, and drunk, but he’s mentally unstable.’ I woke up handcuffed to a hospital bed in a psychiatric ward, on hold for 72 hours. And that was the moment where I was like, ‘I can’t go on like this…'"
Now 51-years-old, sober, and lucid, Munky feels that "in the ’90s, our attitude was, ‘F*** tomorrow, we're living today!’” he says. “Sometimes I can’t believe we’re alive. If my neighbors hadn’t called the cops on me that day, or maybe if I’d been living out on my own in acres of land instead of by the beach, I’d probably be dead.”
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Still going strong since their inception in 1993, Korn is getting set to hit the road in 2022 for a 19-date arena tour in support of their upcoming album, Requiem, scheduled to hit shelves and streaming services on February 4. The trek will feature special guests Chevelle and Code Orange and kicks off on March 4 in Springfield, MO. Click here for dates.
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