Bob Zerull of Zoiks! Online recently conducted an interview with KORN guitarist James "Munky" Shaffer. A couple of excerpts from the chat follow below.

Zoiks! Online: What I liked most about your last album was it was a return to your roots, but at the same time it was still new and fresh. What were you going for with the last album?

Munky: I think we were trying to capture the live element, playing as a band, recording onto tape. We just wanted to get that fire and excitement back about recording a record and not knowing what's going to happen, being in the moment as your writing and tracking, the excitement it captures, as opposed to getting everything into the computer.

Zoiks! Online: What did Ray [Luzier, drums] bring to the album?

Munky: Ray brought a lot of!a lot of killer beats (laughs). He's just a really great drummer and in this business there are very few drummers who can play like him. It was nice to have someone new, fresh blood in the mix, bringing his talent into what we already had. It was refreshing and really exciting. He'd been playing all of our songs, the old catalogue, stuff that he hadn't written, so it was nice to see him write his own stuff and see the passion behind his performance. Really, he gave more than anybody thought.

Zoiks! Online: While preparing for this interview I came across an interview with [KORN bassist] Fieldy and he said that you had already begun recording demos for the next album. How far along are you with that process?

Munky: We have probably three songs we wrote a couple, two, three months ago. We went into the studio, we wrote some songs, Jon [singer Jonathan Davis] demoed the songs on his computer, and then we took them into the studio and played them live and tweaked them a little bit. Then we put those down and recorded them. They're cool. They kind of remind me a little bit of the SOUNDGARDEN style, that sort of Seattle sound! just one of them. The other songs are sort of different, a little more in the experimental stage right now. I don't want to give too much away. We're definitely moving forward, we'll probably start recording in April to try and finetune this sound we're developing.

Zoiks! Online: Speaking of new albums I was researching on the always-reliable Wikipedia and it said that your side project FEAR AND THE NERVOUS SYSTEM was on pace to release its first album this year.

Munky: Yeah, yeah. It's getting closer. There are just three more songs to mix, find somebody to distribute it and go from there. I still have to talk to my manager and ask him what he thinks about it. I've done this up to this whole point all on my own with the other guys in the band. I didn't want anybody - a manager, a record company - looking over my shoulders saying I don't hear a single here. This is an album, these are the songs. I didn't want anybody standing over me telling me creatively which direction to go. It just took on a life of its own. I really need advice on what's the best way to release it, and get it to as many people on an independent level, whether it be Roadrunner or somebody else. But yeah, it should be ready hopefully by the summer.

Read the entire interview from Zoiks! Online.