KORN's FIELDY Is Putting Finishing Touches On 'Bassically' Solo Album

KORN bassist Reginald “Fieldy” Arvizu has confirmed to Weld For Birmingham that he is almost done with his long-awaited jazz fusion album titled “Bassically”, which he has been working on for the past few years. “I’m actually almost finished,” he said. “I’m having Marco, who’s our sound guy and who is also a mixer, he’s going to mix my bass album in November. I’m doing some final touches on it. So that’ll be out. It’s a musical ride. It’s all instrumental. I play 15-string bass, fretless basses — every kind of bass you can think of, Fender jazz, whatever. I don’t even know if we could name all the basses I played on there. It takes you on a ride. Jazz fusion, punk, Latin, blues, reggae… I don’t even know if I even left any style of music out. As much as I could put on there. That’s how it is. It’s just an instrumental album.”

Asked what his inspirations were when writing “Bassically”, Fieldy said: “To write it, my inspiration was probably my wife Dena. She was, like, ‘You should put a bass album out.’ And then I really thought about it. And if you go back in time to my inspiration in my early days, I listened to a lot of Stanley Clarke. And then from there on, I got into a lot of Flea. And I started really listening to some of these great bands — if you’re not listening for it, you don’t really know how great a lot of those bass players are unless you listen. For example, a lot of classic rock bands I listened to as a kid — now, I was like, ‘Wait, I just found the EAGLES on the bass, rippin’! Or LED ZEPPELIN! LED ZEPPELIN gets to rippin’ on bass! You hear these great tones that as a kid, I’d never really listened to. And now, I’m like starting to listen and trip out on it.”

While most of “Basically” will feature Fieldy being backed up by a drum machine, the record will reportedly include a guest appearance by KORN drummer Ray Luzier on a few of the cuts. The drummer told ABC News Radio back in 2013 that he found some inventive ways to create drum tracks for the upcoming album. “I did some made up percussion stuff, like we’d literally have a cup full of, like, change and seashells and I’d shake it,” he said. “And then… backstage [at a KORN show], we recorded a drum track, I pulled a floor tom off my kit and a snare and a hi-hat and it’s come out way better than we thought.”

KORN‘s new album, “The Serenity Of Suffering”, will be released on October 21. The follow-up to 2013’s “The Paradigm Shift” was helmed by Grammy Award-winning producer Nick Raskulinecz, who has previously worked with FOO FIGHTERS, DEFTONES, MASTODON and RUSH, among others. The CD features a guest appearance by SLIPKNOT frontman Corey Taylor on the song “A Different World”.