Former KORN Guitarist Talks About His Upcoming Album

Bob Zerull of Zoiks! Online recently conducted an interview with former KORN guitarist Brian "Head" Welch. A couple of excerpts from the chat follow below.

Zoiks! Online: You recently left your record label. Was that part of the delay with getting new music out?

Welch: For sure. It was just business. You know the music business is junk right now and my old partnerspeople panic when things go wrong. No one was really seeing eye to eye, so it took a while. We're still at the very end of getting all that squared away. I released a song anyway, because I couldn't take it anymore; I needed something new out (laughs).

Zoiks! Online: You have a new EP coming out in 2012. How far along with that are you and what can you tell us about it?

Welch: We got some songs already and they're right up the alley of "Paralyzed". I'm hitting the studio on the 3rd of November and we're going to finish it this year. I think I'm leaning towards putting a full album out. There songs are just flowing out so I think we're going to go full-length. But yeah, it'll be released in the spring.

Zoiks! Online: KORN had a very definitive sound the downtuned guitars with heavy grooves. You've been out of KORN for a while. Do/did you feel limited by KORN's sound or has leaving them freed you to do what you want musically?

Welch: I don't feel limited. It's what I know and what I'm good at. I do feel freer. There's a lot of, I don't want to say egos, because it's not like that anymore, but there are a lot of ideas and people. It is better now. I'm opening up myself to writing with other people on this album, too. It's good where I'm at right now and I feel free to do what I want.

Zoiks! Online: Is it frustrating that there are people out there that would probably enjoy your music, but will never give it a chance strictly because of the Christian label that gets put on your music?

Welch: Yeah, that's true. I knew that was going to happen when I left KORN and I was so vocal about it. I was coming off of drugs, methamphetamine. For two years of doing that drug I was even more weird than I should have been. I think I alienated people worse then. But I think the music If you've got good music, I think people will open up more. That's what's happening right now. I think the people that were meant to open up to us will come, but it is kind of irritating (laughs).

Zoiks! Online: Can you explain that moment when it finally clicked and you knew that you were going to give your life to God. Is it like a light switch going on, because that's the thing with me, is I haven't had that moment, I don't know if I'm scared or what.

Welch: When it happened, I was going to church a little bit, I had quit drugs for like five days, then I found more drugs and I started doing drugs again for like a week, but I was still searching, looking at the Bible. I knew that even people that weren't really Christians were telling me that God was calling me, "I think God's calling." I felt that he really was calling me for something, so I was searching and seeking and I did feel like a touch from eternity like come into the natural realm around me and come into my heart and it was so intense and real. I just went after it after that. If this is a call from God I want to find out what it is. I live one life. You only live so many years on this Earth. Who wants to waste another minute if I know God is calling me for, first of all, a relationship with him?! But second of all, a whole new purpose for me, that new existence I was telling you about. I just got it in my head and it was like a switch that just clicked. It says that if you seek, you will find. So in your life, or whoever's life, if you just go after it, if you seek, he will show you. If we mean business, he will definitely watch. He tests us to see if it's real. If it's not real, he won't push us. He's a gentleman. It's crazy.

Read the entire interview from Zoiks! Online.