Korn kasting: Rappers play the rocker roles

In the music video for the hard-rock band Korn’s latest single, “Twisted Transistor,” now in rotation on MTV, band mates thrash hotel rooms, party with strippers, throw temper tantrums and see their tour bus stopped and searched by cops -- an altogether cliched take on rock-star decadence, right down to their climactic performance before mosh-hungry fans.

Except that in this case, the guys engaging in those antics in the video are hip-hop stars Snoop Dogg, Xzibit, David Banner and Lil Jon rather than members of the Grammy-winning band.

“How are we gonna get our video played on music video channels?” Korn’s frontman Jonathan Davis remembered wondering before shooting began on the video. “All they play is hip-hop. Something clicked in my head. We probably have to get hip-hop people to play us!”

The band’s management agency, the Firm, corralled fellow clients Snoop and Banner and then hired Dave Meyers (director of clips for Jay-Z and Missy Elliott among others), who came up with the improvisational “Spinal Tap” plot line.

“The original idea was just to put a Korn song into the urban world of rap,” Meyers said. “But having the rappers come into the world of rock seemed smarter. Suddenly you have a fictitious band and the rappers didn’t bring any ego into it because they were all playing a role.”

Crunk hit-maker Lil Jon was hired to portray Davis owing to their obvious physical similarities -- dreadlocked hair and an aversion to appearing in public without wraparound sunglasses. Snoop slipped into guitarist James “Munky” Shaffer’s trademark boiler suit (while adopting the petulant perma-sneer of rock-star entitlement). And Xzibit learned to play the electric bass like Korn’s Fieldy.

Filming took place in Los Angeles over three days in early October. Even if substituting African American hip-hop stars for white rockers is at the core of the seven-minute video’s visceral oomph and sly humor race was never an issue on the set, the participants said.

“No matter how big we are in our separate genres,” said Banner, “it’s great when you have the opportunity to swap fans.”