The leader of the rock band Korn discusses former band mates, his opera and his near-death experience. Korn visits Seattle on Saturday. There was lots to talk about when I called Korn’s Jonathan Davis after a recent show in Austin, Texas. You know, people quitting the band. That opera he’s writing. The time he almost died last year. No big whoop.

Here’s a bit of what Korn’s mouthpiece had to say leading up to Saturday’s show at the WaMu Theater in Seattle.

Drummer David Silveria went on hiatus, and you went through a couple of drummers – three, including you. You did some drumming on the album, right?

Yeah, yeah. We had Terry Bozzio (of Missing Persons, Frank Zappa fame), we had Brooks Wackerman (Bad Religion) and me. It was amazing working with Terry. He’s an amazing drummer. He’s the best drummer in the world, hands down. He brought something really kind of prog-ish to our music. And we had Brooks come in, who is the most amazing human metronome. … And there were some other songs (recorded when) Brooks or Terry weren’t around. So I just went up there and busted on ’em, and it seemed to work really good.

I think I read David’s coming back at the end of this year, right?

Nah. We don’t know when he’s comin’ back. He’s burnt out. That’s it. We’ve been runnin’ hard for 14 … years. He wanted a break. He needed to be with his kids, and he wasn’t feelin’ playin’ drums really that much, and we could all feel it. The whole band felt it.

He’s not the first guy to bail. Do you guys talk to (guitarist) Head (Welch) at all?

Not really. We don’t talk to him much. He basically left because he was a really huge speed addict, which we didn’t know.

He was going through rehab – an outpatient thing – and that’s when he found religion. And, you know, it worked for him to get him clean, so that was good. And then he had a lot of moral (stuff) against me because of his newfound Christianity, and it got a little stupid for a while. But we all grew up, and we’re grown men. He apologized, and I apologized.

(Religion) really helped him. He’s clean and he’s with his daughter and everything’s good. And so I’m happy for him.

One of the inspirations for the new songs was that condition you had that I don’t even know how to pronounce.

ITP (idiopathic thrombocytopenia purpura). I was in Europe. I basically was bruising all over my body and started bleeding out of my (anus) profusely. Something was really wrong, so they sent me to a doctor, and they gave me a blood test. And basically my platelet count … was five, and normal is between 140 and 300. So I was near death.

Basically, I was bleeding internally – the blood was leaking out of my veins. I was doing shows and banging my head and doing what I do, and I could have easily had a stroke and died. So it was really, really intense there for a while.

When was this?

It was just a year ago. It happened last summer. And I got over it. They put me on steroids, and I did all this stuff I was supposed to do. And I haven’t had any problems since.

I read you’re working on an opera.

Yeah, yeah. I’m doing it with my buddy, (composer) Richard Gibbs, who I did (the soundtrack for) “Queen of the Damned” with – my best friend – and Clive Barker.

Clive Barker? So, you’re friends with that guy, too?

Yeah, yeah, yeah – for quite a while. And then Stan Winston … he’s the guy who made “Jurassic Park,” “The Terminator.” He’s the set designer. He’s gonna do set design for the thing. And basically it’s all about the end of the world. … We’re still in the starting stages of it. We’re gonna make it a hybrid opera-musical thing. We’re really excited about it.

Do you have a name for it yet?

“Oblivion” right now is what it’s called.

Are you taking it on the road?

No, we wanna put it on Broadway. … We want to do it in the style of Cirque du Soleil with huge production and make it really elaborate – blow people away; maybe bring a new audience to Broadway that’s never been there.

Ernest Jasmin: 253-274-7389

ernest.jasmin@thenewstribune.com

What: Korn in concert

When: 8 p.m. Saturday

Where: WaMu Theater, 800 Occidental Ave. S., Seattle

Tickets: $42.50

Information: Ticketmaster, 253-627-8497 in Tacoma, 206-628-0888 in Seattle or www.tickemaster.com

On the Net: Listen to more from Jonathan Davis on Bring the Noise, blogs.thenewstribune.com/ej.