Korn’s “Disgusting” Band Name Origin Confirmed by Lead Singer Jonathan Davis

The legends behind how some famous rock bands ended up getting their names are well-known within the music community. Led Zeppelin's moniker was a tongue-in-cheek reference to Keith Moon's joke that the band would go down like "a lead balloon." Of course, that didn't happen with John Paul Jones, John Bonham, Robert Plant, and Jimmy Page: Led Zeppelin went on to become one of the most popular bands of all time.

Other famous acts have also left folks wondering just how they earned their namesakes. Like Korn. Why did the members of the Bakersfield, Calif., outfit decide to name themselves that?

There are a lot of theories as to why the band settled on the name. And if you get bashful around not safe for work tales with adult themes, then you may want to avert your gaze.

The rest of you perverts keep on reading.

During an interview on Steve-O's Wild Ride podcast, the band's lead singer, Jonathan Davis, confirmed a longstanding rumor as to where he and his bandmates found the inspiration for their band's name.

As it turns out, the inside joke was rooted in a pretty graphic story Davis overheard while at a party.

Longtime fans of the band were pretty much privy to this information, but Steve-O offered up some alternative reasons as to why the Davis-led outfit ultimately decided on the name.

He asked if Korn was derived from the fact that Bakersfield was located in the Kern County Seat in California.

Furthermore, he postulated if the band decided to call the band Korn as an abbreviated version of the word "coroner." However, Davis was quick to let the MTV personality and podcast host know that neither of these was the case.

Instead, he relayed a story pertaining to the party in question, where the inside joke between him and his friends first formed. And how it snowballed into giving them the inspiration for their band name.

During their talk, Steve-O asks, "So there's speculation that the name Korn has something to do with coroner." However, Davis can be heard saying "no" in the background during their discussion, shaking his head and smirking.

A co-host on the podcast then asks, "So ... the two things I saw was that it was the coroner in Kern County. Or, it was Children of the Corn," he states, before Davis shakes his head and laughs, clarifying where the band really got its name.

"It's f--king horrible, the story," Davis says, which prompted an uproar of laughter from Steve-O and his co-host. "Now we're excited," Steve-O expressed, before Davis jumped into it.

"I'll just do it short. Me and some of my friends in Bakersfield back in the day were at this party. And there was two gay guys talking about how they loved f---hing each other," Davis says.

The singer continued, "And one dude was talking that he was f---hing his lover and the guy s--t all over his face, he had a corn kernel on his tongue."

Steve-O grins upon hearing this information, "OK, got it."

Next, Davis says, "So that's how it came about. So people that knew this story, they were there. We'd just go: corn. And they'd be like shut up dude, ahh, g-----n, no, no, no, no, no. And that's how the name came about."

Davis said that when he first joined the band, other folks didn't know the story that inspired its name. He went on to state that after telling other members about the origin behind the moniker that despite initially being grossed out, they still enjoyed the band's name.

"Our manager Larry was like h--l no you cannot name your band Korn ... no, absolutely not." Davis, not being deterred, said, "Then we'll name it Larry."

Davis said that the decision to name the band "Korn" came from a "punk rock" mindset, and that it doesn't really matter what a band's named, nor did it need to have any deeper meaning.

And as for its distinct spelling, with the "K" replacing the "C" and the backwards "R," one of his band members said that it should look like a little kid wrote the band's name. Davis liked the idea and did so with a crayon in his hand. "Done in two seconds and that's become an iconic logo and just that's how it all came together," he told the podcast hosts.

He did say that when asked about the band's name when he was younger, he liked to pretend to be dark and mysterious, but admits that the name of the band is one of the "dumbest ... on Earth."

But went on to state, "It's cool, that's the charm of it. It's like we didn't care. I loved that energy when we were young. We didn't give a f--k about nothing."