Korn and Deftones grew up together in the Nineties California scene and jointly spearheaded the love-it-or-hate-it heavy-music style that would become known as nu-metal. The two bands have been longtime friends, touring together, collaborating, naming songs for the other group's members and covering each others' music.
Korn's go-to Deftones song to cover has always been "Engine No. 9." Notably, Jonathan Davis and Co. played the Adrenaline rager many times in 1997 and 1999, often throwing it into the mix as part of an epic medley with their originals "Shoots and Ladders," "Justin," "Ball Tongue," "Divine" and "Proud."
Sadly, there's not much high-quality video of said performances online, but one of the better clips (from '97) can be viewed above. Korn only play about 30 seconds of the 'Tones classic, but they look and sound great doing so, with Davis going nuts and Head providing brutal backing vocals.
The video speaks to the kinship between the two bands. As Davis told us of the first time time he met Deftones' Chino Moreno: "I'll never forget my Jim Morrison moment. Remember in The Doors movie, when Jim Morrison and another cat who looked exactly the same walked around each other? Me and Chino really fucking did that in '93. Ross [Robinson, producer of Korn and Life Is Peachy] was like, 'There's this band from Sacramento, you've got to see them!' And then when we first met, he's in an adidas jumpsuit with the dreadlocks and we just circled and looked at each other. And we then became really good friends. We were kindred spirits."
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