Brian “Head” Welch guitarist for nu metal pioneers Korn gives his all

Look out: The Kornaissance is in full swing.  

It was only a matter of time before Bakersfield’s nu metal pioneers moshed their way into favor again as Gen-Z brings back everything, including JNCO jeans, horror movies and the ennui-infused soundtrack to it all: clear, grinding, lower-tuned bass sounds that turned the dark feels of a teenager working in the Kern County coroner’s office into 60 million records sold worldwide.  

Today, Korn, which was founded in 1993 in the cradle of the Bakersfield Sound, includes original members James “Munky” Shaffer, Reginald “Fieldy” Arvizu, Brian “Head” Welch, and vocalist Jonathan Davis, and is once again selling out small arenas and taking on side hustles.  
 
To the on-trend musicians go the spoils (and the endorsements). This week, Korn guitarist Welch appeared in a commercial for Furniture City, a gigantic furniture store in the heart of Bakersfield’s retail corridor in the city’s southwest.  

Welch is clearly having fun with his spot, and early-aughts aficionados will pick up the “MTV Cribs” vibe of his store tour, from the bedroom set he describes as “built for a king … and me” to the store’s ginormous back room filled with overstuffed living room sets and Volkswagen-sized chandeliers (“It’s, like, humongous.”).

“This reminds me of Vegas,” Welch said as he took a load off in the store’s ultra-luxe section. “But the thing I like about Furniture City is Vegas will break the bank. Furniture City will not.” 

It should come as no surprise that home is where the black heart (and nail polish) remains for Korn and Co. Last December, Google revealed that Bakersfield led the U.S. in searching for “emo,” according to the search engine’s Local Year in Search 2022. “The Bakersfield, CA area searched for emo music more than anywhere in the U.S.,” followed by a broken-heart emoji, the Google post said.

Jose Jimenez, then-manager at Jerry’s Pizza & Pub, the downtown pizza joint/punk club that has been a big player in Bakersfield’s buzzy alternative music scene for a quarter century, noted that “emo kind of died out a little bit there for a while, and now it’s back again.” He also said that members of Korn, including Welch, will on occasion pop into Jerry’s for nu metal DJ nights or to hear the latest band try to break through in the club’s basement, just as they did three decades ago.  

“They still support the scene, 100 percent,” he said.