Editor’s Note: As president of the 2014 North American Christian Convention, Tim Harlow, senior minister with Parkview Christian Church, Orland Park, Illinois, interviewed Brian “Head” Welch, guitarist and founding member of the nu metal band Korn. Welch’s story is a testimony to God’s mercy and grace, leading him from Satan’s darkness into God’s light. This transcript of the interview has been edited for length and clarity.
Walk us through your journey of becoming a rockstar. You were a parent, you were married, and you were trying to do everything at the same time.
Let me back up. When I was getting ready to enter high school, this kid named Kevin lived in my neighborhood. He told me about Jesus. His mom told me about Jesus. I hung out with them all summer. They were the nicest family I’d ever met. So, I became a Christian the summer before high school and I think Jesus was setting me up. He knew how much of an idiot I was going to be for the next 20 years. He must have thought, “I’d better put a hook in him now so I can reel him back right at the last second.”
But I also started drinking in high school. I started and didn’t stop. I started at 15 and drank for 20 years. Then I started messing with drugs. So when Korn came along, it was just like, “Here’s free beer and we’ll pay you to play your music. And here are some Doritos for your dinner.” So, it was more beer and more drugs, and it just got worse and worse. And the party got darker and darker. It was fun at first. I was young and dumb. But then it felt like medicine. I had to do it to feel normal. So, I—and everyone around me—spiraled out of control.
It’s crazy, because only in rock and roll can you be a loser and still keep climbing to the top. I don’t understand how it worked, but we kept climbing. As my soul fell deeper and deeper into destruction, I was climbing professionally. But inside I was crumbling. I hated the person I had become. That happens to most rock stars at some point along the way. I could count on one hand the rock stars I knew who had strong marriages and weren’t drug addicts.
I understand you were addicted to prescription medication as well, and that you were taking 17 Vicodin just to get through a single day. How did that even work?
I really don’t know. And I’ve heard worse stories than that. It was just crazy. I did that for more than six months. Finally, I did my own rehab and just stopped. I got past it. But after that I got into methamphetamines and that wasn’t as easy a habit to break.
So, at some point you realized your marriage is a mess and you’ve got a daughter. Tell us about the driving factor that made you say, “I’ve got to do something different with my life.”
The first bomb came into my life when my wife left me. I was on tour with Metallica, the biggest band in metal. We were on top of the world. And my wife spun out of control. I was doing meth on tour, and when I’d come home, we’d do it together. Then we’d swear we wouldn’t do it, and we were apart. We had a baby, and that’s just not the right thing to do. But when you’re an addict, that’s what you do. Then one time I left for tour, and she kept using drugs. She ended up connecting with a skinhead gang and invited them to come live in our house with my child. She had a boyfriend and he was in my house, and I almost committed murder.
I found out what was going on. I heard rumors that the skinheads were stealing my stuff out of my house. So I started talking to real gangsters, people I could hire to start a war with these guys. But the guy I met with said, “Brian, if you cross that line, you can never go back.” So, I thought about it and realized that’s not me. I didn’t want to put a target on myself or my daughter. So, I just let it go. My marriage fell apart and my wife left. I gave her a large sum of money. She said she was going to go to court and get half my money and I threatened to kill her if she did, because money was like a god to me.
So, I said, “I’ll give you $800,000 to walk and I don’t want to hear from you again.” She took it and—I’m just being honest here—I’m not proud of what I did. But she took it, and I became a single dad because my ex-wife was too messed up to show up in court. So, I became a single dad. I tried to get it together for the next few years and I just couldn’t. I didn’t have God in my life. I was trying to do it by willpower and that didn’t work.
So how did you reconnect with Jesus?
This guy asked me to church. He built monster trucks, and he was just a normal guy. His family was awesome. They reminded me of the family that I hung out with when I was a kid. They did stuff together and they were happy, and the spirit of God was there.
So I ended up going to church with him and I recommitted my life to Christ. I went home and I said, “Jesus, you’ve got to help me or my daughter’s going to have a dead dad. Just clean me up.” And I’m telling you, ever since that encounter, I’ve been with Christ. It was like a Paul thing where he was killing Christians and all of a sudden a light shone, and he was changed. I had an encounter with God’s love. Eternity filled the room. I felt like I was home for the first time in my life. To be honest, that was the highest high I’ve ever felt. It was pure and real and forever. It was like, “I’m home, God.” And I’ve been with him ever since.
Tell us about your Jesus story.
After I was saved, I didn’t shave for a while. I went to a store one day and a group of kids saw me and said, “Hey, it’s Jesus!” It was funny, but I liked it. I kept the beard for quite a while.
So, my church invited me to go on a trip to Israel. They said somebody backed out and I could transfer their ticket. So, I went. At one point during the trip, my pastor gave me a robe and said, “Wear this robe, Brian.” And I put it on. I was just playing the role of Jesus, but at the same time, inside, I was head over heels in love. God was spoiling me. He was holding me the whole time in his heavenly arms. I thought to myself, I don’t care what I look like, I don’t care about anything. I was just enjoying it.
So you were convicted, and you decided to leave Korn. You turned down a $23 million contract. You gave yourself time to figure out what God wanted for you. Then you returned to Korn. Some people who heard that were saying, “Well, Korn doesn’t exactly sing about Jesus.” So how does that work? Tell us about what’s going on now and what God’s doing with the rest of your life.
Well, I went back, and I’m still praying that people will understand. I raised my daughter. The little angel was five when I left Korn. And when I went back to Korn, she was 14. Everything worked out according to God’s plan. The circumstances were right. There were things I couldn’t do any longer, and things I didn’t want to see my friends doing. In time, everybody cleaned up and had new families. We became a bus full of Christians—my whole crew. They called us the holy rollers and we prayed for people as much as we could.
For example, we went to Australia on tour and we were praying, “God, reveal the hearts of people to us.” One day I stepped outside of the hotel and a guy came up to me and said, “Hey man, I’ve been a fan forever.” I said, “Let me pray for you.” He started crying right there. We became friends. From that point on, we made friends everywhere we went. It’s just crazy what God does.
We’re still in the middle of a lot of partying. I’m on tour right now with Avenged Sevenfold and Ice-T. We’re right there in the mix and everyone knows what we stand for. God has placed Christians in all these bands, and we all meet in a bus and do Bible studies and talk about why we’re there and what we’re doing there.
I’ll have to say I didn’t see this coming. I was out of the music scene for at least eight years. I was trying to stay in the shadows, but God was pushing me back there. I felt like he was saying, “I want to restore your relationships with your friends and your fans. I want to restore you in every way.” And he’s been doing that.
Paul said he became all things to all men so that he could win some. And I know people out there are saying, “Man, you’re in an evil environment.” But isn’t that what we’re supposed to do? We’re supposed to be light in the darkness. If we keep to ourselves all the time, what good is it?
Most people know my heart. I could leave Korn tomorrow and be a missionary. I don’t care where I am. I don’t know how long I’ll keep doing this, but I know I’m called to it. I have the grace to be here. I have the strength, I have the accountability, and I’m called to it—for however long this season lasts.
You needed some time to raise your daughter, to get your head together, to grow in Christ, and to get ready to go back in there. I think that’s important. I talk to people about getting out there and going to the places Jesus would’ve gone out to, going out to where the sinners and the tax collectors are. But there is a sense in which you’ve got to know what you can handle, and you’ve got to have your Christian people around you or you’re going to fall right back into it.
I couldn’t have handled it right away, but year by year, God was preparing me. He was strengthening my soul every year until I got to the right place. That’s when I could hear him telling me to go.
Ten million people follow you guys on Facebook. That’s an impact you’re able to have that none of us has. Jesus brought you out of that and he’s brought you back into it.
I’d like to pray for you as a missionary to rock and roll right now. Lord God, I thank you so much for this man. He is a hero to so many young people. You’ve given him the opportunity to minister to people in ways none of us can. We commission him right here as a missionary from the Restoration Movement to the world of rock and roll. And we ask you to watch over him and his daughter. We pray for his wife. We pray for the people who will attend his concerts, who will hear him, and get a chance to know him, and find out who he is. People who might then search out his testimony and find out that this guy is the real deal. Bless him and keep him safe. And Lord, let him be the light in the darkness that none of us could ever possibly be. We ask these things in Jesus. Amen.
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