In a new interview with Midwest Beatdown , Korn drummer Ray Luzier spoke about the fact that the band's new album, Requiem , consists of only nine songs, with only one of them being longer than four minutes.
“We produced about 16, 17 songs or something like that,” he said. “And there are a lot of records where you think a song is filler , but that doesn’t necessarily mean the next guy thinks it’s filler ; they might like the songs that aren’t singles better than the singles, so everyone has opinions.”
He explained that Korn recorded a lot for the album. “Some that didn’t make it onto the album, I was literally like, ‘Wait. How could this not happen? This is an amazing song.’ But when you listen to Requiem as a whole, I truly believe this is the best possible material we could have chosen at this point,” he said.
“It’s like giving birth – they’re your babies, your music, and you want everyone to hear and receive them as well as they can,” she concluded.
“We had a lot of fun recording this album because of the pandemic,” Ray continued. “There was no rush. We just said, ‘Hey, let’s meet in Bakersfield,’ at our studio in California; Head [guitarist Brian Welch ] and I live in Nashville. And we’d fly there and do it little by little. There was no, ‘Oh, let’s rush this, we have to go on tour.’ It was like, ‘Hey, let’s just make good songs,’ listen to them and eliminate the bad ones.”
Requiem was released on February 4th. The band celebrated the LP's arrival with a special album launch event called "Requiem Mass," where the band performed an intimate set for 300 attendees.
The album was produced by Chris Collier and Korn.
Furthermore, Requiem debuted at number one on Billboard's Hard Rock Albums chart. The band sold 23,000 equivalent album units in the first week of February, according to Billboard.
Of that total, 20,000 units are from album sales. Requiem also reached number two on the Top Rock Albums and Top Alternative Albums charts. On the Billboard 200 across all formats, it peaked at number 14.
The album's first single, "Start The Healing," is currently number two on the Mainstream Rock Airplay chart.
