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Korn are preparing to drop their new album, The Path of Totality. And it marks a real seachange for the band – it's basically Korn does dubstep.

But, hold on a minute, it doesn't sound quite as strange as you'd imagine. The record is Korn's finest for more than a decade, and keeps the band's trademark broodingly sinister sound, but adds in more of the industrial tones of Nine Inch Nails, as well as, of course, those huge dubstep drops.

What does drummer Ray Luzier have to say about this unlikely, but ultimately successful, collaboration? We got on the phone to Ray and found out all about it.

The album is very different from what Korn has traditionally done, how did it come about?

"Korn's a very organic band and this album is totally opposite. We're working with DJ dubstep artists. Korn III the last record was no click tracks, two inch tape and most of the drums I've done on this had been programmed before I'd even started playing on anything."

"It was all locked up with a machine and I had to play right on, there was no pushing or pulling."

Given that the last album was back to Korn's roots and was so well received this must be a risk

"That's what I love about this band, they're not afraid to try new things. If you try to change the style too much and take a risk you might lose fans but there's nothing wrong with being creative and expanding what you're doing. Jonathan was a big fan of dubstep about a year ago and I'd never been exposed to it. The more he got into it he started writing over the top of it. He's such an amazing singer. There's no one that sounds like Jonathan Davies. Little by little we messed around with some recordings. It's weird because there's not drummers at all, they're DJs. It was really interesting. It was an experiment that turned into an EP and then a full-length record."

Did the electronic element add a challenge for you drum-wise?

"I like to get creative and do my own thing and whatever I feel. I play from the heart. I like to hear a riff and come up with a groove. In this situation the drums were programmed for a reason, they wanted these really long snare sounds and then there's tight ones and on one song there's four snare sounds on one song. You can't reproduce that with acoustic drums. I went in there and a lot of the time it was just real cymbals. The sounds are so massive that it just takes over. At first it was a shock to me because I like to just go for it."

What was the balance of acoustic and electronic like for you?

"Mostly I would play acoustic then go back and there's a lot of sound replacement where they would take the kit and lock it up with a machine. Some of the tracks were completely done and I just went in a played what they'd programmed. It was weird for me because there were times I'd love to have played a fill here or leave something out but it sounded so good and the band agreed on that sound. You'll hear more live cymbals than you'll hear live drums. It was challenging for all of us, but it still has that signature Korn sound, in a very obnoxious way."

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