Jonathan Davis, American singer-songwriter
Jonathan Howsmon Davis (born January 18, 1971), also known as JD, or JDevil, is an American singer, songwriter, and musician. He is best known as the lead vocalist and frontman of nu metal band Korn, who are considered a pioneering act of the nu metal genre. Davis' distinctive personality and Korn's music influenced a generation of musicians and performers who have come after them.Davis co-founded Korn in Los Angeles in 1993 with the dissolution of two bands, Sexart and L.A.P.D. He had led Sexart during his years as an assistant coroner. Davis rapidly gained notoriety for his intense and powerful live performances with Korn. Anchored by his personal, passionate lyrics and unusual tenor vocals, Davis launched a successful career which has spanned almost three decades, although his popularity declined in the middle of the 2000s. Davis' vocals, which alternate from an angry tone to a high-pitched voice, switching from sounding atmospheric to aggressively screaming, have been the trademark of Korn throughout the band's career.From 2000 to 2001, Davis and Richard Gibbs wrote and produced the score and soundtrack album of Queen of the Damned, his first work outside the band. He began his side project called Jonathan Davis and the SFA in 2007, and continued to experiment with musical styles. He released his first solo album in 2018. He has collaborated with various artists over the course of his career, ranging from metal to alternative rock, rap, world music and electronic music. Davis is a multi-instrumentalist musician who plays guitar, drums, bagpipes; piano, upright bass, violin, and the clarinet. He is also versatile in many genres, mixing tracks and performs DJ sets with his alter ego JDevil. For decades, Davis has been passionate about visual arts, horror films, comics, and video games.Fourteen of his albums reached the top 10 on the Billboard 200, including MTV Unplugged and Greatest Hits, Vol. 1. In the U.S, he was awarded fifteen platinum album certifications by the Recording Industry Association of America (RIAA). In Australia, he received eight platinum album certifications by the Australian Recording Industry Association (ARIA), and in the UK he received six gold certifications. He won two Grammy Awards out of eight nominations throughout his career. As of 2018, Davis has sold over 40 million albums worldwide.