Jonathan Davis

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Image:Brows.jpg Jonathan Houseman Davis (born January 18, 1971) is the vocalist of the popular rock band KoЯn. He was born and raised in Bakersfield, California by a father who was also a musician and owned a local recording studio (named Fat Tracks), as well as a music store. As such, Jonathan spent much of his time around music. Jonathan's father played keyboard in Buck Owens and the Buckaroo's. He would allow Jon to play the drums occasionally on tour, sometimes in bars. Jonathan's mother was an actress/dancer and the family suffered poverty. Jonathan had asthma when he was younger and was hospitalized frequently.

Much is to be said for Jonathan's childhood. His parents divorced when he was 3 and he described it as the most traumatic event of his childhood. Jonathan's father, at the age of 12 married this "bitch" Jonathan hated. The song 'Kill You', is rumored to be about her. It is also rumored 'Kill You' is also about Muscular Dystrophy.

Once when Jonathan was at his mother's house, he broke his step-father's drumset and ran to his father's house.

Davis has a younger half-brother, Mark Chavez, who was at one point the lead singer of Adema, before he left the band.

His grandfather gave him a set of Bagpipes, and the highschool he went to Highland High had a bagpipe band. The leader of the band was relentless in getting Jonathan to join and be apart of the bagpipe band. Jonathan won many national awards for his talents on the bagpipes at a young age.

In High School Jonathan was an outcast, more of the theater group interested in music and not so much in sports. It's said in Bakersfield, "If you're not a jock your nothing". Jonathan wore makeup to school sometimes and often got harassed and beaten up. It is rumored he gained the nickname HIV to prevent jocks from beating him up to the point of causing blood to shed.

Jonathan has also suffered from Post Traumatic Stress Disorder from working in the morgue. He even wrote a song about one of the more horrific experiences. Pretty track 18 of Follow the Leader is written about a case where an infant girl was raped by her father and then thrown discarded into the bathroom and was dead upon the floor. Jonathan also has suffered from Depression.

Before he started working as a coroners assistant at the local morgue. Jonathan acted as a DJ for a short time at the age of 16. He also worked as a custodian for a short time in local county offices. In high school he began working at the Kern County Coroner's Office as part of an after school program that would help gain college credits. Jonathan's first choice of a position was at a hospital. He planned to go to San Francisco School of Mortuary Sciences, but joined KoRN instead. It was around this time that the singer was a member of the Bakersfield band, SexArt. Jonathan was in the band with Ryan Struck of Orgy. They met when Ryan was doing hair in Bakersfield and would talk about twisted things. Soon after they were in a band together. Ryan helped co-write 'Blind' and 'Faget' from similar high school experiences. First he was not credited and took them to court but the case was settled and there seems to be no bad blood between them. While at a bar in Bakersfriend Discovered by KoЯn guitarists Munky and Head, Davis was asked to audition for the band, then-named LAPD (formerly known as Creep). Davis went to an astrologist who told him he would change a lot of people's lives and would be stupid not to. LAPD was being fronted by singer Richard Morales. As Munky stated it, they traded one psycho for another psycho. Jonathan, as a joke started playing his bagpipes in the studio recording it before "Shoots and Ladders" because something just felt like it was missing. While the band originated in Bakersfield the members had all moved to Huntington Beach, CA and so did Jonathan. He lived in a corner of the garage for a while there after he was kicked out of the family home when he turned 18. Soon KoRN signed to Immortal Records nearly a year after making their first demo tape.

Their demo tape was called Neidymers Mind, named for the man who drew the cover art. The tracks included Daddy, Predictable, Blind, and Alive. Alive was later re-done and released in the Take a Look in the Mirror LP.

Jonathan states that he was sexually abused as a young child and this along with other traumatizing events in his life were reflected through his lyrics on KoЯn's self-titled debut album and through out Korn's career in general. Their first album Korn contains a track titled "Daddy," which exposes Davis' experience being sexually abused and not believed by his parents. The song ends with Davis sobbing and has been described by band members to be the saddest thing they have ever witnessed. The song has only been performed live once and the band has sworn never to play it again, out of respect for Jonathan.

2001 marked a significant point in Davis' life when he was approached to write and record the music for the movie, The Queen of the Damned, (a sequel to Interview with the Vampire) the story by novelist Anne Rice about a vampire turned rock star. Davis wrote the film's rock songs and score with former Oingo Boingo member, Richard Gibbs. Due to contractual differences, Davis was unable to appear on the film's official soundtrack and his voice was only kept in the theatrical versions of the songs. Originally the artist who did the Rock Star soundtrack was slated to do the Queen of the Damned soundtrack. Meanwhile, Jonathan had a better idea and asked his friends to fill in the spots. Among those include Chester Bennington of Linkin Park, Wayne Static of Static-X, Marilyn Manson, Jay Gordon of Orgy, and David Draiman of Disturbed. He also made a cameo appearance in the film as a ticket scalper. The cameo would mark the beginning of Davis' appearance in movies. It should also be significantly noted that Jonathan co-wrote the score with Richard Gibbs.

It was also around this time that Davis befriended artist, H.R. Giger and asked him to design a microphone stand. Jonathan went to H.R. Giger's house to come up with a design for his mic stand. Jonathan's initial request was just "a big ball of sex". H.R. Giger wanted to be more conservative knowing that a massive ammount of children would be in the audience and didn't want anything too offensive. Jonathan wanted to have a mic stand that is uniquely his, like Aerosmith's bandannas. No one really had much of a custom mic stand. There were only 5 made before the mold was broken. Jonathan owns 3 of them.

Jonathan Davis continued to branch out in different areas as he began working on his own video game entitled Pop Scars. The idea was later scrapped due to development delays. Davis also opened a traveling museum full of the singer's collection of serial killer memorabilia as well as rare KoЯn items. Called The End, it was featured on the 2003 Ozzfest Tour at which KoЯn headlined, second only to Ozzy himself. Davis also appeared in a cameo role as a crack dealer in the film Seeing Other People and wrote the theme to UPN's new version of The Twilight Zone.

Jonathan married sometime around 1997 to his high school sweetheart, Renee Pierez. They had a fairy-tale themed wedding where Jonathan was a knight and Renee was a fairy. It was Renee's idea. Renee would sometimes call him Hiver, because it is a French word she learned in school that sounded like his nickname HIV. They had a child together in 1996, naming him Nathanial Houseman Davis. Jonathan was rumoured to participate in many sexual acts on tour, and with the fight of him sleeping with his current wife caused them to get a divorce around December of 2001.

Around this time Jonathan also quit many of the drugs he was doing. He had many problems with alcholism and methamphetamine.

In late 2004, Jonathan Davis married a porn star Deven Davis. In March of 2005 they had their first child together, nicknamed Pirate. The couple have plans on producing and directing their own porn film. An interesting sidenote about the birthdates of Jonathan, and his sons. They were all born on Wednesdays, and on the 18th of the months. Jonathan and Nathan were born around 2:30 am.

Davis currently resides in Southern California with his wife and two sons.

Jonathan is noted for wearing Adidas suits which were given to them from the sponsor and they have a song A.D.I.D.A.S., they have also been endorsed by Puma, and Pony which has had sucess to a lesser degree.

Jonathan Davis has given up his serial killer memorabilia collection, saying that he doesn't want to glorify the crimes out of respect for the victims, also, he doesn't want them to have a negative effect on his children. He has however kept the VW Bug used by Ted Bundy.

Jonathan Davis used to hold chats at their offical chat room the KoRN KoRNer, a graphical avatar chat held online. Sometimes Jonathan would even show up to just hang out.

Jonathan has been sober for over seven years now. He gave up his addictions to alcohol and drugs 'cold turkey'. He has recently said that the person he was during the recordings of the first two KoЯn albums no longer exists. Fans will instantly recognize the lyric from the Issues track "Dead" -- "All I want in life is to be happy" -- as quoted in the liner notes of KoЯn's latest album, See You On The Other Side. Jonathan said that his sons have brought him happiness, and that he no longer feels dark and depressed.

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