"Dead Bodies Everywhere" is the title of a Korn song, but it's also a snapshot of the pre-rockstar life that frontman Jonathan Davis once led. Before the Bakersfield musician co-pioneered nu-metal and became a career musician, he decided to pursue mortuary school and eventually became a mortician's apprentice, embalming dead bodies and performing autopsies for a living.
In the latest episode of the podcast Sing for Science, Davis and renowned science author Mary Roach — best known for her book about human cadavers, Stiff — engaged in a spirited conversation about their messy, nauseating experiences with corpses.
In a clip from the episode posted on Sing for Science's Instagram, the two guests are captured in the middle of a riveting discussion about the techniques morticians use to prevent cadavers from "leaking" once they're buried. And yes, the leaks come from orifices that are also used to dispel material when us humans are alive.
At the beginning of the clip, Roach is seen talking about a time she visited a mortuary where the morticians determined they didn't technically need to "suture the anus" of a body they were working on, but offered to do it anyway if Roach was interested in seeing the procedure (she wasn't).
"You don't want them leaking in the casket," she quipped. This is where Davis comes in with his expert advice.
"No you don't [want them leaking]," he added with a smile. "But I used to use this restorative clay, they call it tamponing. And you use forceps and cotton, and then you seal it up with this clay."
"Oh, a butt plug," Roach chimed in.
"Yeah...," Davis affirmed. "It's kind of like an old school [butt plug] ... These little trocar buttons were these little buttons and you screw them into where the hole was where you stuck the trocar in. And it would seal it up, so nothing would leak. But they made them for anuses."
The full episode drops Wednesday November 30th, so you'll have to check it out here in order to hear where Davis takes the conversation after leaking anuses. Yum.
