Gotta hand it to Korn for taking a stand against BP in the wake of the massive oil spill in the Gulf of Mexico. When the band comes to West Palm Beach's Cruzan Amphitheatre for the Mayhem Festival on August 11, you can be sure that their trucks have nary a drop of BP in the tank. But is this stance an attempt to cut off the Big Oil problem or simply a headline-grabbing PR chase? Read on.
According to a news release issued today, "The band has formally announced that it will not be fueling any of its
touring vehicles with BP products and is strongly encouraging other
touring artists to do the same." This in itself is not a bad thing, because the Korn-CNN crossover isn't as high as it could be.
"The daily images are hard to watch," says KORN frontmanJonathan Davis.
"We need to do our part to let BP know there are consequences for
causing something like this. We want to send a message to corporations
like BP so that they will take more preventative measures in the
future. The more costly their punishment, the more money they will spend
to make sure disasters like this don't happen again. It's plain and
simple capitalism."
Nothing about this stance, however, stops Korn from using the identical
product produced by any of the other members of the Big Oil club:
ExxonMobil, Chevron, Royal Dutch Shell, Total S.A., or ConocoPhillips. While we find Jack Johnson's music to be only slightly more appealing (less appalling) than Korn's, at least his
August 26 visit to Cruzan is actually "sending a message to
corporations like BP" by opting for sustainable biodiesel for his buses.
And, lest we think that we can get out of this news release without some sort of sales pitch (italics added): "In a timely coincidence of life imitating art, KORN's new album artwork,
photography and stage set imagery reference the band's hometown area
near Bakersfield, CA and its bleak landscape littered with oil rigs. The video for the first single "Oildale
(Leave Me Alone)" reveals a poverty-stricken area situated among
the rich oil fields and tells a story of a young boy's desire to
escape. The video story echoes the band's own struggle out of
Bakersfield."
This song and accompanying video depicting the bleakness of life near oil refineries is an admission that Korn witnessed part of the Big Oil problem on U.S soil. Bakersfield is in Kern (that's a similar name!) County, the most oil-productive county in America. It inspired Daniel Day Lewis' "I drink your milk shake" moment as well as countless overblown messes from the Korn catalog like "Oildale."
Watch and listen below, if you dare:
