Korn’s Brian ‘Head’ Welch Nods To Deftones In New Clip With Fieldy’s Son

Korn guitarist Brian ‘Head’ Welch has thrown a subtle but loaded nod toward Deftones, surfacing in a new social clip that taps straight into the genre’s tangled history.

It’s low key on the surface, but if you’ve been around since the late ‘90s, you know there’s more sitting underneath it, in the video, Welch is seen wearing a Deftones x Dickies throwback shirt, a design that spent years floating around as bootleg gold before being officially revived last year (which I missed out on, still shattered).

It doesn’t stop there though, Welch picks up an acoustic guitar and runs through a stripped back take of Deftones’ 1997 track ‘My Own Summer (Shove It)’, no theatrics, just a quick, raw nod to a band that once shared stages, scenes, and eventually tension with Korn (per The PRP).

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Next gen nu metal in the room

The clip wraps with Welch hanging out alongside Israel Arvizu, son of Korn’s ‘retired’ bassist Reginald ‘Fieldy’ Arvizu, Israel is carving his own path, playing bass in nü-metal outfit PlaYuH.

In the same clip, he steps into familiar territory, handling low end duties on a cover of Korn’s ‘No Place To Hide’, it’s not subtle, the lineage is right there in front of you.

History that never fully settled

Korn and Deftones were once tightly linked, moving together through the rise of late ‘90s alternative metal, but things shifted when Deftones pivoted with ‘White Pony’, deliberately pulling away from the nü-metal label and the bands tied to it.

That distance didn’t go unnoticed, back in 2017, Welch spoke openly about the divide, saying: ‘Chino, Chino don’t like Korn or any of us man. He won’t tour with Korn ’cause we’re not cool enough for him.’

He later added: ‘I think they [Deftones] got too cool for us somewhere down the line.’

There was talk of patching things up, a tour even got floated, but unfortunately it never happened.

Where things stand now

These days, the tension feels less explosive, more unresolved, members from both camps have crossed paths over the years, but nothing official has tied them back together onstage. That’s what makes Welch’s clip interesting, it’s certainly not an announcement or a reunion tease, just a quiet gesture that suggests the door might not be as closed as it once seemed.

Or maybe it’s just respect, stripped back and played acoustic.

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