During his August 1 speech at the sixth annual SoulStock Festival at Shawmut Park in St. Marys, Pennsylvania, Brian “Head” Welch — who left KORN in early 2005, at the same time announcing that he kicked his addictions to drugs and alcohol by becoming a born-again Christian — spoke about his decision to exit the band and his eventual return. He said in part (as transcribed by BLABBERMOUTH.NET):  ”I ended up leaving the band for a while and I laid it down, as they say. You lay at the altar, you surrender your life. And the disciples left everything to follow Christ. And so I left my band. I told them, ‘I don’t wanna do this anymore.’ We had a $25-million contract with another record label on the table. They were negotiating. And I was so encouraged and just joyful about Jesus, I didn’t care. I went on a radio station and told everybody, ‘Come to this church. I’m gonna tell you why I’m leaving my band.’ And my band’s, like, ‘Is this a practical joke? Are we getting punked?’ … They didn’t understand. They thought it was a joke. And next thing you know, MTV, CNN, Fox News, all these stations, go to this church to find out what happened to the dark metal guy. And I got up there and confessed in front of my family for the first time and the world that I had been a crystal methamphetamine user for all those years. And I teared up, and it was hard, honestly.”

Welch continued: “I knew at that moment that I had found something that was gonna be the rest of my life. People were saying it was a phase, but I was, like, ‘I don’t care what they say. They don’t understand what I just experienced. I found the meaning of life. I found the meaning of my life. And I don’t know what I’m gonna do with music. I don’t know, but I know that I found the reason for me breathing is this. And I don’t care who says it’s not gonna last. I know it’s gonna last.’ And I knew it then and I know it now. And it’s proof now, because it was real. And I didn’t know, ’cause I started going back to KORN. The Lord led me back there. And it’s messy and some people don’t understand it, but I know that I know that I know, through people that I trusted that counseled me through it, and just seeing the things that have been happening, what God has done, I know that I’m supposed to be there. And it’s been a crazy journey.”

Less than a month after leaving KORN, Welch — wearing a white robe and sporting a long beard — was baptized in Israel’s Jordan River, along with about 20 other members of the Valley Bible Fellowship, the Bakersfield, California, church in which he spoke two weekends earlier. At the time, Brian told MTV News that he decided to be baptized in the Jordan after receiving a divine message.

Welch officially returned to KORN in 2013, one year after joining the band onstage at the Carolina Rebellion festival in Rockingham, North Carolina to perform “Blind”.

Brian told the SoulStock crowd: “I’ve been back in the band for 13 years. My first run was 11 years, so I’ve been back in the band longer than I was the first 11 years. And God has done so many things. We’re just very grateful now. We’re old. We’re just old. We’re in our mid-fifties. We’re just, like, ‘Oh my God, thank God we’re still doing this.’

“Not everybody believes like me in the band,” Welch admitted. “Does all of your family believe like you, whatever you believe? No. But they’re my family. And I’ve been able to share my story all over the world to fans and to show them the non-religious Jesus Christ, not the one that is outside of rock concerts and rap concerts saying, ‘You’re going to hell. Jesus hates you. You’re going to hell.’ That’s not the Jesus I met. I met a God that said, ‘I’m gonna lead you to repentance with my kindness.'”

Since his conversion to Christ 20 years ago, Welch has been very open about how God changed his lifestyle and restored his relationship with his daughter.

In recent years, Brian has been preaching that people don’t have to wait until they die to see if having an encounter with the presence of God is real.

Both Welch and KORN bassist Reginald “Fieldy” Arvizu have had highly public, though separate, conversion experiences, ones that have been greeted with a certain amount of skepticism.

In 2007, Welch‘s memoir, “Save Me From Myself: How I Found God, Quit Korn, Kicked Drugs, And Lived To Tell My Story”, rocketed into The New York Times bestsellers list after its first week of publication, debuting at No. 20 on the “Non-Fiction” list.

In the book, Welch talked for the first time about how his tumultuous life with KORN led to his surprising decision to quit the band.

In May 2022, KORN frontman Jonathan Davis was asked by one of the readers of U.K.’s Metal Hammer magazine if Jonathan had ever been to church with Welch and Arvizu. Davis responded: “No. I’ve been to church and I respect their beliefs.

“The world would be a much better place if people would just stop fucking sticking their noses where they don’t belong and respect people’s beliefs.

“My only problem with Christianity is the fucking ‘holier than thou, we’re better than you’ bullshit,” he continued.

“But those two, especially Head, don’t talk about that stuff. He just kicks back and accepts everyone for who they are.

“We played a livestream in a church when we released the new record and that was cool,” Davis added. “I love the actual buildings. I decorate my house like a church. I just don’t necessarily like what goes on in them. [Laughs]”

Six years ago, Jonathan touched upon his feelings about Christianity while speaking to Mistress Carrie about his appearance in the first feature-length documentary about Welch. “Loud Krazy Love” is Welch‘s story of faith-based redemption and Davis‘s skepticism about Welch‘s spiritual awakening helps to provide balance in the movie, which debuted in May 2018 at the Dallas International Film Festival.

In the film, Davis is particularly blunt about his feelings toward religion. While he is happy that religion has helped Brian come to terms with his issues, the singer criticizes what he views as the assimilation tactics of Christian recruiters.

“I don’t buy into that bullshit, and they all fucking know it,” Davis said. “Don’t even try to do that to me, ’cause I’ll shut your ass down in two seconds.

“If you look at it, it’s pretty fucking funny how they believe and how they act,” he continued. “It’s ridiculous. I think [Head] agrees with a lot of what I was saying. It wasn’t to be mean; it’s just real and it’s true.

“I respect anyone’s beliefs, but when it’s radical, like some of those people, I don’t like that. And the whole way everything happened, I was just being real, and everybody liked that.

“I have no problem with [Head‘s faith]; it’s just the religion in general,” Davis added. “I have no problem. I’m glad that something could get him out of his dark hole and dark place. So I totally respect that. And if people need that, fine. Just don’t throw your views on me. That’s the only problem I have. Don’t push what you believe on me. I’m not doing it to you. So get the fuck back.”

Back in 2018, Welch told Billboard that he loved the fact that Jonathan spoke his mind in the film. “He just was honest, whether it offended me or the guys doing the movie,” he said. “We just wanted him to share his feelings on everything. When he talked about me going back and all these things that I was saying, he’s like, ‘Man, that’s not God telling you; that’s your head telling you.’ I think it’s good because that’s a lot of what people think, and it was good to have his opinion. And you know what? Family can have different beliefs and different things going on. And what do you do? Do you leave your family because they believe something different? No, you stick it out and you stick together and you work out life.”