Fieldy was born on November 2, 1969. Known offstage as Reginald Arvizu, the founding Korn bassist developed a sharp, percussive attack that gave the instrument a distinct place among the band’s low-tuned guitars. His playing on “Got the Life,” from 1998’s Follow the Leader, captures that approach in one of Korn’s most familiar recordings.
His move to bass began with a straightforward offer between friends. In a 2015 interview with For Bass Players Only, Fieldy recalled riding in a car with Brian “Head” Welch, who wanted to start a band and needed a bassist. Fieldy was playing guitar, but volunteered to switch. That early connection eventually became part of Korn, which formed in 1993 and released its self-titled debut the following year. By Follow the Leader, the band had reached No. 1 on the American album chart, with Fieldy’s bass occupying a prominent place in songs including “Freak on a Leash.”
He had strong ideas about what that place should sound like. “I just want percussion-style, noisy, clicky things,” he told interviewer Gary Graff. Fieldy explained that his bandmates pushed to retain more low end than he would have chosen alone. The resulting sound reflected that negotiation: his preference for the instrument’s attack met the rest of the band’s need for weight underneath the guitars.
There was a practical reason for emphasizing those clicks. In a Guitar World interview published in 2020, Fieldy explained that Korn’s two seven-string guitars already occupied considerable low-frequency space. He needed his own part to remain audible. He also described his right hand as the source of the rhythmic bounce, while the fretting hand determined where and when the notes moved. That distinction helps explain his priorities: the timing and attack of a note mattered as much as its pitch.
His instruments supported that approach. Ibanez developed the signature K5 bass, and Fieldy told Guitar World that one early wood-finished example became a studio fixture. By the time of that interview, he estimated he had used it on at least 10 Korn albums. Other basses were tried, but he repeatedly returned to that particular instrument and kept it off the road.
His solo work gave him room to explore a much wider collection. Released on November 17, 2017, Bassically gathered recordings made over nine years, with parts captured in dressing rooms, buses and hotel rooms. Fieldy described the music as a mixture of funk, fusion and rock. Across 17 tracks, the album moved his instrument into the foreground, giving experiments developed around touring life a release of their own.
Those experiments included upright and fretless basses, along with a custom 15-string instrument. As Fieldy explained in his 2015 interview, its strings were arranged in five groups of three. He later confirmed that the instrument appeared on several Bassically recordings. The finished album even gave that unusual setup a track named for it: “15 String Exodus.”
