Korn has regrouped and is ready to vent

This is not yet a moment of great anguish or furious, toxic rage. Jonathan Davis is still working himself up to that, beginning another eight-hour day of pacing behind a microphone, hands in his pockets, a cup of decaf at his feet. He’s in a Hollywood rehearsal studio with Korn, slowly getting in the mood as his comrades piece together their songs of bad dreams and adolescent trauma, layer by layer of churning, grinding riffs and epic tribal beats.

It’s a good room for this kind of work, with chandeliers hanging from the ceiling and a burgundy carpet stained from chewing gum and the foot-traffic of decades of rock bands large and hopelessly obscure. The audience is small this afternoon, just a few crew members and guests, watching as these hard-rock misfits work to reinvent themselves for a new tour that is only weeks away.

Davis looks relaxed onstage, his dreadlocks gathered into a tangled bun. But with a newborn at home, and his dream house under construction above Malibu, he quietly checks and rechecks his cellphone for text messages. Then he steps back onto that razor-sharp edge between surreal anger and outright dementia as he grabs the microphone again, easing into a typically unsettling new tune called “Love Song,” biting into words both vulnerable and macabre: “Love song for the dear departed / Headstone for the brokenhearted ... “

The sound is dark, agonized, a song of groans and whispered pain and electric guitars, with Davis forever portraying the enraged outsider.

“I have a lot of happy things in my life: my family, my wife,” Davis, 33, explains later. “My art is this. Some people paint, some people write. This is the way I deal with my aggressions. In between each album are two years of pent-up [stuff] that [angers] me that I write about.”

“Love Song” also is obsessed with mortality, desperation and abandonment -- words that might have described the state of Korn only a year ago, when guitarist Brian “Head” Welch abruptly quit after converting to Christianity. In a band that has each member seemingly playing a key role, from drummer David Silveria’s primal beats to the creep-show lyrics Davis writes, the exit of Welch was inexplicable and genuinely traumatic.

Welch left, declaring himself born again and free from the alcoholism and drug addiction that in recent years had turned him into a depressed recluse within the band. He also outlined moral objections to Korn’s music and videos in a resignation that came by e-mail.

“The way he left and everything, the way he shut everybody out and wouldn’t talk to anybody -- I haven’t talked to him yet,” says Davis, 35, himself eight years sober. “He’s saying a lot of things about what he’s doing it for that are not true, and saying a lot of hypocritical [stuff]. I just wish him the best. There’s a part of me inside that still loves him.”

The loss of its guitarist created a new challenge as Korn prepared to record a new album last year. Beginning with its 1994 debut, each of the band’s first six albums have sold a million or more copies in the U.S., but sales had slipped enough in recent years that some were suggesting that an inevitable decline in popularity had begun.

Instead, the Dec. 6 release of “See You on the Other Side” marked a promising comeback for Korn, entering Billboard’s pop album chart at No. 3, with U.S. sales so far at 737,000, according to Nielsen SoundScan. The album returns to the subversive melodies within Korn’s seething hard rock that have always been part of the band’s most popular songs (“Freak on a Leash,” “Got the Life”).

For “Other Side,” Davis says the band was eager to find new input beyond the usual cadre of hard-rock producers, and dabbled with several possible collaborators, including Linda Perry (Pink, Christina Aguilera) and Glen Ballard (Alanis Morissette, No Doubt). They settled on Atticus Ross (Nine Inch Nails) and, most surprisingly, the Matrix -- best known for producing hits for such pop acts as Britney Spears and Avril Lavigne.

“Both were very exciting and very different,” says bassist Reginald “Fieldy” Arvizu. “When they came in, it was almost like we had these new band members with us. You know, you can get a producer come in, and you’re like ‘You want me to do what?’ We never had to do that with these guys.”

The burden was probably greatest for guitarist James “Munky” Shaffer, who had to fill the empty spaces left by Welch. Like the other band members, Shaffer and Welch grew up in Bakersfield and sought rock stardom in Los Angeles. Eventually they shared a low-rent Burbank apartment as Korn became a 12-year partnership on matching seven-string guitars.

In Korn, Welch often wrote the guitar melodies to contrast with Shaffer’s thundering riffs. “With Brian leaving, I felt that I really needed to prove that I could do this, to at least write a record without him,” Shaffer, 35, says. “I started to really panic in the beginning: How am I going to do this?”

Davis also saw the pressure on Shaffer. “He was freaking out for the first two weeks. It took a couple of weeks when he finally said, ‘I’m going to think about the now ... and play what’s in my heart.’ And that’s exactly what he did.”

The result was a largely positive response from fans and radio, beginning with the single “Twisted Transistor.” Some of it may not have been possible with Welch still in the band. “I miss him, too, on a personal note,” Shaffer says. “He was a very funny guy, and he was fun to hang out with. But without him leaving, I never would have been able to push myself that extra mile to achieve another successful album after 12 years.”

Hometown boys

The streets of Bakersfield were home once. It is where all the members of Korn attended high school, where Davis began his early career as a mortician’s assistant, and where they would eventually record their first album as Korn in a studio owned by country legend Buck Owens.

“We come from such a small place,” Shaffer says. “When we moved from Bakersfield to Los Angeles, I think a lot of people had doubt in their mind that we were ever going to make it. We didn’t want to have to come back. We’d seen other musicians move to L.A. and moved back, and failed. It was really sad. Failure was not an option for Korn.”

Failure was hardly the issue as the band recently opened its 2006 tour (it reaches Long Beach on Thursday). Hanging above the doors of Rabobank Arena in downtown Bakersfield was a banner: “Welcome home Korn -- World Tour Begins Here.” Shaffer stood outside with his band mates, wearing a beaming movie-star grin behind his rock-star shades.

About 200 fans had gathered outside the arena to watch Mayor Harvey Hall unveil a plaque recognizing the most successful rock band to emerge from the city, each of their faces etched into the bronze. Shaffer stepped to the microphone and spoke of being a 12-year-old waiting to see Ted Nugent perform in a loincloth at the nearby Civic Auditorium, and dreaming of his own grown-up rock stardom.

“This is a special day for us,” Davis told the crowd. “It kind of makes us teary-eyed a little bit to finally get some love from Bakersfield.”

After the ceremony, relaxing in his dressing room the singer says, “I honestly grew up hating this town. Now that I’m older and have been back, I do like it.... To finally be recognized like that made it all worth it.”

Not everything is forgiven, particularly his memories of high school, where he suffered as a gloomy outcast taunted by students appalled by his black trench coats and eyeliner. Davis has turned down requests for donations to his alma mater’s music department. Those were bad times, he says. They still fuel his anger, and his career.

“So all those weird little [guys] dressed in black in high schools, those are the guys that are going to go on and do something,” Davis says with a smile. “And all the guys that pick on them usually end up working construction or hating life.... It’s funny how high school sets you up for the rest of your life.”

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Korn

Where: Long Beach Arena, 300 E. Ocean Blvd., Long Beach

When: 7 p.m. Thursday

Price: $29.50 to $39.50

Contact: (562) 436-3661