Brian Phillip Welch (born June 19, 1970),[1] better known as Head, is an American musician best known as the former guitarist and co-founder of the nu metal band Korn.[2] "Along with fellow Korn guitarist James "Munky" Shaffer,
Welch helped patent Korn's distinctive sound, a mix of sirenlike shards
of dissonant guitar that mimicked a turntablist's various effects and
rumbling down-tuned riffing that defined the nu metal aesthetic
beginning in the mid-'90s."[2] After becoming a Christian,
Welch left the band in 2005 to focus on life as a father and to pursue
his own solo career. He released his debut Christian album, Save Me from Myself, in 2008.
Head and Munky are ranked at No. 26 of Guitar World's 100 Greatest Heavy Metal Guitarists of All Time.[3]
Biography
Early life (1970–1993)
Welch was raised in Bakersfield,
California. Welch claims that, early in his life he was different from
most kids and was therefore picked on in school. His one passion was
music and was a big Ozzy Osbourne
fan. Originally, Welch expressed interest in playing the drums but his
father pushed him towards the guitar so he would not have to haul a drum
kit around. He began playing the guitar at the age of 10. His first
guitar was a Peavey Mystic, which he referred to in his book Save Me from Myself as "maybe the most metal-looking guitar you have ever seen."[4]
Welch on how he got his nickname "Head", "Guys said my head looked
like it was too big for my body, and so they started calling me “Head.” I
guess it stuck”[4]
Korn (1993–2005)
Formation
Korn formed after the group L.A.P.D. folded, due to singer Richard Morrill's drug addiction. Musicians Reginald Arvizu, James Shaffer, and David Silveria
wanted to continue, and recruited Welch to play guitar in their new
band named Creep. In early 1993, the band took notice of vocalist Jonathan Davis
after seeing his band SexArt and attempted to recruit him. Davis
initially did not want to join the band, but after consulting a psychic
he changed his mind and auditioned. After Davis was recruited, the group
decided to rename themselves. "Jonathan had an immediate idea for a new
name. He suggested that we call the band "Korn," and we all liked it.
It sounded kinda creepy because it reminded us of that horror movie Children of the Corn".[5]
Starting with Korn's self-titled debut album, and with subsequent albums Life Is Peachy, Follow The Leader, Issues, Untouchables and Take A Look In The Mirror,
the band gradually became one of the top-selling hard rock groups,
scoring $25 million royalty payments and selling out arenas.[2]
In 1995, Welch's wife Rebekah gave birth to a child, but they decided
to give it up for adoption. When she got pregnant again, they decided to
keep the child. On July 6, 1998, Welch's wife Rebekah gave birth to
their second daughter, Jennea Marie Welch. The band was scheduled to be
on the UK version of Ozzfest,
but dropped out so that Welch could be by his wife's side. He and his
wife have since divorced and Welch has custody of their daughter. The
two reside in Arizona. Despite being divorced, Welch does keep in touch with his ex-wife.
By 2003, Welch had begun to sink further and further into a crippling speed habit. He'd prepare for tours by stashing as much methamphetamine as he could in vitamin capsules, deodorant containers, and his clothes.[2]
According to Welch, the band members also suffered personal battles
with addiction: "We were only sober for just a couple of hours a day in
Korn. Every day. And then when you come home and you've got to deal with
real life and your wife isn't having that, crap goes down."[2] Despite his dreams coming true, Welch did not enjoy the touring life with Korn.
"You travel, you get to another town, you play a show and you do it again. You try to just be at peace but even a big, huge band like Korn, playing in front of thousands of people, it can get lonely. You feel like you're a trucker and you're traveling with a bunch of truckers. You can't connect with people except for the ones that you're with because the ones you party with after the show, you don't know them and then you're gone," he continued. "When everyone's drunk, you're like 'Alright. Later.'"[6]
Departure from Korn
On February 22, 2005, Korn's management announced that after almost
12 years, Welch had parted ways with the band, citing that he had
"...chosen the Lord Jesus Christ as his savior, and will be dedicating his musical pursuits to that end."[7][8][9][10] In a 2009 radio interview with The Full Armor of God Broadcast,[11]
Welch explained: "I was walking one day, just doing my Rock & Roll
thing making millions of bucks, you know success and everything,
addicted to drugs and then the next day I had Revelation of Christ and I
was like, everything changes right now!" On 10 March 2005, Welch was baptized in the Jordan River with a group of believers from his church in Bakersfield, California.[12][13]
He has declared that he has rid himself of all drugs in his "own
personal rehab" with God, in which he had checked into a hotel room and
sat in his bed for hours.
Welch and Davis have attacked each other in the media since the
former's departure. After Welch said that Davis and the rest of Korn
care only about money, Davis responded in kind, opening a rift between
them that has since been resolved. In an interview in which Welch was
asked about his book and Korn's reaction to the book and the attacks in
the media he made earlier at the band:
They heard that I'd written it, and there was rumors going around in Hollywood that I was totally trashing them and that it was a "tell all" book about everything they did and I did. And so they actually wrote two songs on their new album bashing me about the book. But once I heard that they were concerned about the book, I sent them a copy and put a note in there and said, "I love you guys. I didn't trash you like people say. Read it yourselves. It is what it is." And now they're doing interviews, and I've read that they're totally cool with the book, and it's not what they thought it was going to be. So everyone's happy. But, now they've got two songs hating on me on their record. But it's cool. It's all good. I love them, they love me. I think maybe I deserved those songs because of some of the stuff that I said after I quit the band. So it's all good.[14]
In July 2005, Welch appeared on CNN's feature-format program "People
in the News" where he admitted to having been addicted to alcohol, methamphetamine, Xanax, and sleeping pills[15]
before being introduced to the Christian faith. Following his
conversion to Christianity, Welch went to some of the more poverty
stricken areas of India to build orphanages or "Head Homes". He visited a tribe of head hunters who were apparently reduced to cannibalism because of a lack of food.[citation needed]
In a podcast with Headbanger's Blog, on May 30, 2008, Korn vocalist
Jonathan Davis expressed interest in playing with Welch on the band's
upcoming album, but stated that it isn't likely.[16] In late 2008 Welch, among other celebrities such as Josh Hamilton and Greg Ellis, appeared in testimonial videos called I Am Second in which he shares his story of recovering from drug use with the help of his faith in Jesus Christ.[17][18]
In September 2009, Korn guitarist Munky, in an interview with Altitude
TV, alleged that the band had denied a request by Welch to rejoin the
outfit. In the interview, Munky claimed:
Brian actually contacted us recently and wanted to come back to the band. And it was not the right time... for us. We're doing well, and it's kind of like... It's kind of like if you divorced your wife and she went on and she stayed successful and her career flourished, and you go back and [say], 'My gosh, she's still hot. Baby, can we get back together?' 'Wait a minute... All the stuff's been divided, and it's like...' I don't see it happening right now.[19]
Shortly after, Welch responded to the statement via his Myspace and official website, denying the claims:
I recently learned of an interview that Munky gave where he said that I came to Korn and asked to be taken back in the band. That's definitely not a complete and accurate picture. The full truth is that for about a year... Korn's managers have been requesting my manager to work on getting me back into Korn. The calls were initiated by Korn's managers, not my manager. I shut the door on their requests many, many times over the last several months.
As far as Munky's comment that "everything has been divided already" that is also not accurate. In fact, from January 2005 when I left, and for the next 4 years, Korn failed to pay to me royalties that were due me on records that I did with them. However, I don't believe this was done intentionally. We are trying to be patient and work with their management to get the financial issues resolved so that "everything can be divided as we agreed long ago in our contracts.[20]
Brian said that it was not only having found Christ that influenced
his decision to leave the band. As a single father he did not want to
raise his daughter in an environment filled with drugs, sex, and
explicit language.
On June 17, 2011, Brian Welch had a private interview, shot by Carson
Bankord of Red Rocks Church in Denver, Colorado, in which he discusses
his conversion experience.[citation needed]
Solo career (2005–Present)
Save Me From Myself
As early as a week following his departure from Korn,[21]
Welch had claimed through press that a solo record was close to being
completed, although there was no release date given, nor had he yet
signed on with a label to distribute the record.[22]
A number of demos from these early sessions surfaced on peer-to-peer
networks, among them "A Cheap Name," a song directed at rapper 50 Cent. He also recorded several other songs including "Dream" and "A Letter to Dimebag," the latter being an instrumental tribute to "Dimebag" Darrell Abbott, guitarist for heavy metal bands Pantera and Damageplan. In his autobiography,
Welch mentions the songs "Washed by Blood," "Save Me from Myself," and
"Rebel", which all have made the final track listing for the album.
Initially tight-lipped about the details, in an interview with MTV News
Welch was quick to clear a few things up. Primarily, he was concerned
that it was reported that his new songs wouldn't be "Christian music."[23]
During his stay in Israel with members of the Valley Bible Fellowship of Bakersfield, California,
Welch continued to write songs for his solo effort, confident that the
music would speak for itself. "I want to make music that will help
people. I want to use every dime of the money I make off the songs to
build skate parks for kids," he said. "My life now is about helping
kids."[23] Originally, Welch contacted Fieldy of Korn to produce the album, but Fieldy made no response.[24]
On March 15, 2008, Welch announced he had founded a record company with Mark Nawara and Greg Shanabeger called Driven Music Group. The company's artists are distributed by Warner Music Group and Rykodisc. Welch announced also that he had re-dubbed his album Save Me from Myself, after his autobiography of the same name. Following this, his official MySpace profile went online, and the domain name for his official website was moved from www.headtochrist.com to brianheadwelch.net. Welch also revealed that a tour was expected to follow the release of Save Me from Myself.
For the album, Welch contributed the majority of the instruments, but also hired other contributors, including rhythm guitarist Archie J. Muise Jr., bassist Tony Levin and drummer Josh Freese for assistance. The first single, "Flush," was released on July 5, 2008, at Cornerstone Festival in Bushnell, Illinois and a music video directed by Frankie Nasso followed on September 5.[25]
Originally, Welch planned for the project to follow the "Head" name,
but was persuaded otherwise, so as not to be sued by the tennis
equipment manufacturer of the same name. Though the project has since
been dubbed "Brian Head Welch", the album art continues to carry the
imprint of the project's original title. The project's true title does
appear on the spines of the packaging.
Of the album, Welch said:
I knew it was going to be nothing near as big as Korn, but I was proud of it. It's got some heavy riffs and it's got a lot more emotion than I've ever put in music. I'm an emotional guy (and) it was cool to be able to put it in there. It was cool how people were surprised by it. A lot of people thought I was gonna come out with some 'Kumbaya,' Jesus music.[26]
For his live touring band, Welch held auditions, at first closed,
then open to the general public to recruit members. Members posted
videos online of them performing Welch's solo songs and the list was
narrowed down to a select few who did a personal audition with Welch.
Eventually, the lineup was finalised to include Brian Ruedy (Keyboards),
Scott "SVH" Von Heldt (guitar & backing vocals), Ralph Patlan
(guitar), Michael "Valentine" (bass), and Dan Johnson (drums).
Head contributed to "A Song for Chi" along with many other artists including ex Korn bandmates Fieldy & Munky. The instrumental track is to benefit Deftones bassist Chi Cheng
who was in a coma and is now in a semi-conscious state recovering. All
the profits will benefit the "One Love For Chi" foundation. This was the
first time Head was involved with any of his former bandmates since
leaving the band.
In 2009, Head joined the 9th annual Independent Music Awards judging panel to assist independent musicians' careers.[27][28][29]
On July 2, 2009, Welch headlined the mainstage of the Cornerstone Festival and on August 29, Welch headlined the Exit Concert in Las Vegas at the Thomas and Mack Arena with Blindside and Flyleaf. On July 3, 2010, he was featured on the Fringe stage of the Creation Festival.
Head has often described his solo project as being received very
differently from Korn. Despite his fame with Korn, he has compared his
solo project to 'starting over:' "It's a struggle, because one show I'll
have a thousand people there, and the next show there'll be a hundred.
When the hundred is there, I'm like, 'There's one or two people who
really need us to be here,' and it should be focused on them and I
shouldn't care if there's a big crowd or not, but I struggle with it. I
was in Korn and we sold like 25 million albums, and I can't even fill
this little bar up? Of all those fans, 300–400 people can't just show up
here? It's like starting over, totally."[2]
Save Me From Myself peaked at No. 63 on the Billboard 200 while also peaking at 13 and 21 on the Hard Rock and Rock charts respectively.[30]
The Whosoevers
In 2008, Sonny Sandoval of P.O.D. and Ryan Ries, son of Pastor Raul Ries of Calvary Chapel Golden Springs, Lacey Sturm of Flyleaf created a ministry with Welch and freestyle motocross aerialist Ronnie Faisst. Taking the name "The Whosoevers" (from John 3:16), the ministry "seek[s] to impact those whose pain has previously driven them to addictive or self-destructive behaviors."[31]
Second album
According to an interview with the Great Falls Tribune, the band returned to the studio to begin work on their second album.[26] Concerning his career at the time, Welch said that
"I feel like I was created to do what I'm doing right now. Everything I learned in my life before I changed it all over, it set me up for what I'm doing now. That's the satisfaction. That's the peace in knowing, without a doubt, that you're on the road you're supposed to be on. There's nothing more content than that."[26]
In November 2009, Head announced that his second effort would be produced by Grammy-nominee Rob Graves (Red, Pillar) and that the band was recording in Nashville, expecting to complete the record by February 2010.[32]
Of recording with Graves, Welch stated that "the production on our new
record is going awesome with Rob Graves. Our goal is to get the record
completely mixed and mastered by the first part of February, and
released immediately thereafter. My band is together, helping with the
recording, and we will be ready for a full U.S. tour beginning early
next year."[32]
Welch also signed an international representational deal with William
Morris Endeavor Entertainment. On signing the deal with WMEE, Welch said
that "I'm really excited about my deal with William Morris Endeavor,
and I’m honored to be on the roster of one of the largest and most
storied agencies in existence. I would like to publicly thank Ember
Rigsby Tanksley and her entire team at WMEE for their belief in what I
am trying to do. I feel like this is the final piece in the puzzle that
we have been working on to take us to the next level."[32]
In addition, Welch signed with Union Entertainment Group, Inc., for
management in early 2010. This move to the major management company
placed Welch alongside an already outstanding roster of artists, with
notables such as Nickelback, Hinder, Red, Candlebox, and more. See ueginc.com for details and roster.
According to Welch in April 2010, the band has finished a demo of the
record, but have yet to re-enter the studio to complete the recording
process as they are on tour in the United States.[33][dead link] The band has been playing a number of new songs live from the forthcoming record including the following songs:
- Runaway
- Bury Me, Resurrected
- Take This From Me
- Torment
The CD is expected to be released before December 2011.[34]
On March 25, 2011, Head started a North American tour with Decyfer Down, The Letter Black and The Wedding.[35]
Welch's booking agent, William Morris Entertainment, confirmed that a
European tour is currently being arranged, with the band receiving
numerous requests for dates.
Upcoming EP
Welch and his band are currently in the studio with Jasen Rauch recording an EP. It is due out in 2012, and the lead single, "Paralyzed", will be released on October 4, 2011.[36]
The "making of" video for "Paralyzed" was posted on his Facebook fan
page, along with a streaming of the full "Paralyzed" track.[37]
Split with record label
On March 22, 2011, it was revealed that Welch was in a legal battle
with his own label, Driven Music Group, and former managers Greg
Shanaberger and Mark Nawara. According to Welch, Shanaberger structured
Head Touring, Welch's touring company under Driven Music, to give
himself and Nawara share of control and revenue. Shanaberger's
agreements required Welch to buy merchandise through Head Touring at an
inflated price which was far above industry standards, "for which
Shanaberger and Nawara reaped the benefits," claims Welch. Welch also
claims that Shanaberger attempted to hide "his fraudulent, unethical and
illegal behavior"[38] by listing his then fiancee as a shareholder.[38]
Welch claims that the agreements were "predatory, unconscionable, and
constitutes self-dealing" and that they were written with the intention
to "rob Welch of his master recordings, which were worth upwards of
$600,000."[38] Welch is seeking punitive damages, the appointment of a receiver, the dissolution of Driven Music Group, and costs.[38]
Band Members
- Brian "Head" Welch – guitars, lead vocals (2005–Present)
- Michael "Valentine" – bass (2009–Present)
- Dan Johnson – drums (2009–Present)
- J.R. Bareis – guitar (2011–Present)
- Former
- Ralph Patlan – guitar (2009–2011)
- Brian Ruedy – keyboards (2009–2010)
- Scott "SVH" Von Heldt – guitar, backing vocals (2009–2011)
Musical equipment
Welch's first ever guitar was a Peavey Mystic,
which he later sold along with a practice amp to future bandmate James
"Munky" Shaffer. Throughout his career with Korn, Welch almost
exclusively played Ibanez guitars, most of which were assembled at the
Ibanez LA Custom Shop.
During his later days with Korn, Welch and Munky played their own signature guitar, the Ibanez K7.[39][40] Since leaving Korn, Welch mostly uses custom-built baritone guitars from Ibanez.[41]
Welch's pedalboard
has grown considerably from his early days with Korn. He considers
experimenting and trying out new pedals to be one his favorite things to
do when working in a studio.[42]
Guitars
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Effects
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Amplifiers
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Discography
Korn
For a more comprehensive list, see Korn discography.
- Korn (1994)
- Life Is Peachy (1996)
- Follow the Leader (1998)
- Issues (1999)
- Untouchables (2002)
- Take a Look in the Mirror (2003)
Brian Head Welch
- Into the Light: The Testimony (2007)
- Save Me from Myself (2008)
- Paralyzed EP (2011)
Music videos
- Blind (Korn) w/Korn – 1995
- Shoots and Ladders (Korn) w/Korn – 1995
- Clown (Korn) w/Korn – 1996
- Faget (Korn) w/Korn – 1997
- No Place To Hide (Life is Peachy) w/Korn – 1996
- A.D.I.D.A.S. (Life is Peachy) w/Korn – 1997
- Good God (Life Is Peachy) w/Korn – 1997
- Got the Life (Follow the Leader) w/Korn – 1998
- Freak on a Leash (Follow the Leader) w/Korn – 1999
- Falling Away From Me (Issues) w/Korn – 1999
- Make Me Bad (Issues) w/Korn – 2000
- Somebody Someone (Issues) w/Korn – 2000
- Here To Stay (Untouchables) w/Korn – 2002
- Thoughtless (Untouchables) w/Korn – 2002
- Alone I Break (Untouchables) w/Korn – 2002
- Did My Time (Take A Look In The Mirror) w/Korn – 2003
- Right Now (Take A Look In The Mirror) w/Korn – 2003
- Y'All Want a Single (Take A Look In The Mirror) w/Korn – 2004
- Word Up! (Greatest Hits, Vol 1) w/Korn – 2004
- Another Brick In The Wall (Greatest Hits, Vol 1) w/Korn – 2004
- Flush (Save Me From Myself) – 2008
- Paralyzed (Upcoming Paralyzed EP)- 2011
Other appearances
- War & Peace Vol. 1 (The War Disc) (Appears on "F*** Dying" with Munky) (1998)
- Videodrone (Appears on "Power Tools For Girls" (1999)
- Queen of the Damned Soundtrack (2002)
- Rock'n Roll Gangster (Appears on Korn Gigglebox & Special K Buzz) (2002)
- Results May Vary (Appears on Build a Bridge) (2003)
- A Song for Chi (2009)
- I Am Second (video testimony) (2009)
Bibliography
- Save Me from Myself (2007, 2008)
- Washed by Blood (2008)
- Stronger: 40 Days of Metal and Spirituality (2010)
Filmography
- Who Then Now? (1997)
- Family Values Tour (1998)
- Deuce (2002)
- Korn Live (2002)
- MTV Icon: Metallica (2003)
- WWE WrestleMania (2003)
- Live at Montreux 2004 (2008)
