“The crazy thing is I had an experience with something from another dimension,” Brian Welch told Metal Hammer while speaking about his spiritual epiphany in hindsight. “And it wasn’t the religion — going to church and being a good boy — it was, like, I felt something come into my house, and I can’t explain it to this day. But I believe that it was Christ doing something in me.”
In his 2008 autobiography “Save Me from Myself: How I Found God, Quit KoRn, Kicked Drugs, and Lived to Tell My Story,” Welch shared in detail his reasons for leaving his band, opting to step away from the fast-paced life of drugs, debauchery, and unpredictability. It also presented a chance to spend more time with his daughter Jennea. However, becoming a born-again Christian wasn’t necessarily a death blow to his music career. Welch continued to release tracks on his own, though the themes naturally became more tame and spiritually influenced (via Phoenix New Times).
“He’s more on the straight and narrow with his Christian views and I can respect that,” KoRn frontman Jonathan Davis shared shortly after Welch’s departure. “I don’t necessarily agree with it — I definitely don’t agree with it — but if that’s working for him … I don’t want to judge anybody because of what they do. I just don’t agree with the ideals and the idea of it” (per MTV News).
