Korn III: Remember Who You Are - Composition and Themes

Composition and Themes

In April 2009, Davis revealed that he was planning to make the album a concept album, that was to lyrically revolve around the concept of five symbols that Davis identified as the "downfall of man". One of these symbols was organized religion, something that Davis felt were responsible for a lot of things that have gone wrong in the world today. The other symbols were drugs, power, money and time. In September 2009, Davis said that his idea for a concept album was not turning out as he had intended. He proposed that, instead, he was just going to sing however he felt at that moment. Davis also communicated the album would combine the "raw catharsis of early Korn records" with the "storytelling ".

Davis also proposed that the album would recall their early albums, using a vibe that didn't sound over-produced. He elaborated, "We're not trying to do Korn II, or Life Is Peachy II, but it's just to have that vibe back where it's not too over-produced. Just slamming people's faces, like we did back, in '94, '95, and '96." Davis concluded that the album would be simple, rather than complicated as he suggested their previous few albums were. In April 2010 Davis revealed that topics for songs were "about me living my life for others when I shouldn't, people-pleasing all of the time, stress, guilt and all kinds of emotions we live with everyday that destroy us and tear us down. I write about all of the fake people around us and how I always try to fix other people's problems. I write what I feel, and it comes out naturally. I've got a lot of shit built up inside me; that doesn't go away."

During the recording of the album Shaffer used several vintage guitars, echos, long delays, effect pedals and reverbs as well as employing fingerpicking during certain instrumental passages. Shaffer commented, "When we did the first two records, we broke the music down to a completely emotional beast. Through the years, we started to experiment with vocal harmonies and more orchestrated pieces. Recording this album, we brought that knowledge into the raw emotion of what we already knew. You hear the melodies and layers, but it still comes from a very primitive Korn." Luzier's drum parts were recorded without the use of a click track allowing the band to change tempo as a song progressed. Robinson heavily involved himself in drum recording and composition, often deliberately interrupting Luzier mid-take. Shaffer commented that this was done to make Luzier understand the obstacles Korn had to overcome. Luzier commented "The first week or so, I was having a hard time with it. I wanted to strangle the guy. He was punching cymbals, kicking stands, screaming. On a couple of tracks on the record, you can actually hear him yelling. He would come up and push my arm on a fill. It was intense." Luzier also earned the nickname "Dr. Octopus" during the recording process because many of his drum takes demanded that he cross his arms to reach different drums and cymbals. Luzier commented that his playing was different from his previous work, particularly the album's first single – "Oildale (Leave Me Alone)" – which Luzier described, saying " groove is so weird and odd for me to play, so I would come up with my own ideas but Ross would alter them. Some of them he would try to take in another direction, or if I was hitting the kick on the down, he would say, ‘What if you put all the kicks on the upbeats and hit the downbeat with the floor tom instead?’ The “Oildale” song is just that. The main groove of it is me hitting the floor tom and all the kicks are on the upbeats" Davis also remarked that I "didn't stack four or five vocal parts like I usually do. I'm singing one part for every song, which was scary. It's just me and the microphone, and you can really hear the emotion."