When Brian Welch, musician, author, Bakersfield native and former guitarist of the heavy-metal band Korn, was at his lowest, he found God at a time when his use of drugs, such as methamphetamine, was at its worst.

“I started praying, I felt this intense love come into me when I was at my worst moment. I was in such a horrible dysfunctional gutter, but I felt this feeling of euphoria and love come over me,” said Welch.

“Instantly I cared about living again.”

This spiritual experience led him to take another look at his life. He decided that his life needed a change and that’s when he left Korn.

“I remember my business partner telling me I should stay in Korn and while he was telling me, I was thinking, ‘I just want to go home and quit Korn.’

“I wanted to be home for my kid, I didn’t want to sign a contract that kept me touring for two years straight again. So I just quit, that was the moment I knew  [I wanted to quit.]

“I went home and I quit within an hour. I was done. I was out of the band.

“I got touched by God and it totally changed my life and I wanted to figure out who this being was that I got touched inside [by], and I also wanted to be at my own pad instead of being gone on the road all the time,” he said.

“It all was a big piece of it, it all came together.

“It wasn’t like I got to leave the evil band, cause I’m a Christian now. It was just ‘I got to figure my new life out’.”

Since leaving the group in 2005, Welch has used his music and books as a way of telling his story and connecting with people that have a connection to his work.

“When I get personal with people, I really like it. That’s the most important part, because it all comes down to that for me. That’s what life is, connecting with the Divine and that’s where we’re all from and so I love to do that. Whenever I can connect with people like that,” he said. “Last night I got to connect with someone like that, he was struggling and my music got to touch their (sic) life. I love to hear people tell their stories.”

Welch has recently released his new single “Paralyzed” on the Internet. It is a new single off his new EP, which is planned for release in early 2012.

Welch wants to accomplish a lot with his new music.

“We’re just trying to focus on quality songs, quality lyrics and quality riffs, that a lot of people can connect with,” he said.

Welch recalls his time with Korn as like being in a family, but a dysfunctional one.

“We did laugh and have fun a lot. We were wasted the whole time, that’s the only thing that sucks,” he said.

“There were maybe three to five shows that we didn’t drink, like in over ten years. Being wasted the whole time just kind of clouds it up.”

Another big step for Welch was his sobriety.

“I don’t kill myself with that stuff now. It’s helped everything, I’m clear in everything I do, music, family,” he said. “It’s really being high to me. It’s just the best high ever, being clean and clear and sober.”

Recently, Welch faced his past when he played a show in a bar.

“I had a lot of crazy, weird emotions because I saw people I used to drink with in the crowd and they were good friends and everything, but it brought back those memories,” he said.

“I saw the singer from Korn (Johnathan Davis) and I hadn’t seen him for six years and he came to see me. It was really emotional, I was just a wreck afterwards.”

Welch describes his relationship with the former members of Korn as a distant relationship that is recently getting closer.

“They’re busy and I’m busy. I didn’t talk to or see the singer for six years.

“I just saw him a month ago. There’s a disconnect you know, you go your way and they go their way, there was not a lot of friendship there.

“(But) just recently we started texting once in a while. It was cool to reconnect as friends,” he said.

Welch has mixed feelings about the thoughts of rejoining Korn.

“It would have to totally make sense and it would have to be for some kind of purpose just because, I’m focused on purpose, destiny, like everything’s got to have a purpose, if there’s some kind of reason its supposed to happen, then sure.

“I don’t know, we will see what happens. One month I’ll say ‘I’ll never, never, never go back’ then six months later I’ll say something else.  I just don’t know. I feel like I don’t know what the future holds.”