Korn’s Jonathan Davis is happy to be alive after a recent near-fatal bout with a blood infection, but he’s also itching to get back on stage and do what he does best. “I feel good but I feel like I want to jump out of my skin,” he tells Billboard.com by phone from his Los Angeles phone, where he will rest until the July 27 start of Korn’s Family Values tour.
As previously reported, Davis was rushed to a London hospital earlier this month after developing the blood disorder immune thrombocytopenic purpura (ITP), forcing Korn to scrap the rest of its European tour.
“We had just done a show in Hamburg, Germany,” Davis recalls. “I was on the bus and noticed all this bruising all over my body. It wasn’t bad, just here and there, but I was like, what the hell? This ain’t right. I don’t remember hitting myself or anything, and I never bruise.”
From the hospital, Davis urged his bandmates to go on with their scheduled show as part of the U.K.’s Download Festival, even if it meant finding substitute vocalists. “I talked to [guitarist] Munky and told him, ‘Dude, please do this.’ They didn’t want to do it,” Davis says. “But he went out and found all the singers and they did it. I saw some video and it was pretty funny. The singers did the best they could do.”
Davis has responded very well to treatment for ITP, which causes the number of platelets in the blood to shrink to severely low levels. “[ITP] is a rare blood disease,” he says. “Kids get and it goes away, but adults get it and it doesn’t. But the way I’m responding, going from five platelets to 350 in seven days — people sit in the hospital for months and months trying to do that.”
Korn is hoping to make up the European dates later this year, but for now is focused on Family Values, which will also feature Stone Sour, Deftones, Flyleaf and Dir en gray. “Having Deftones is a big deal because our fans have been waiting for years and years for us to tour together again,” Davis says. “And Dir en gray is this crazy, psychotic band from Japan. They have a really bug following, even though nobody understands what the hell they’re saying.”
Asked if the medical ordeal will find its way into his songwriting, Davis quickly answers, “Oh, I’m sure it will. This has been one of the scariest times in my life. I’m sure you’ll be hearing about it!”
