It came as a surprise when Korn guitarist Brian Welch rejoined the rock band after becoming a Christian. Welch says there were so many positive changes from his bandmates and their environment that he wanted to continue creating good music with them.
"If it was a crazy party still, I would not have gone back. I mean, I'm around parties and we go to bars sometimes. I hang out with my friends and some of them drink mildly, but if there was, like, cocaine and bong rips thrown in my face every day, I couldn't do it," Welch tells The Arizona Republic.
He was initially nervous to reconnect with his bandmates. In fact, Welch tried his best to resist the "Korn train," but the pull was too strong to resist.
Once he met with his old friends and reconciled with them, he was surprised how they didn't care about all the bad stuff they were enjoying in the past, such as booze, drugs, and women.
"It was a been-there-done-that type of thing. Some of them have young kids. They're still poppin' out new kids, so it's a different atmosphere," he shares. "It's not, like, 'Let's get wasted and send our crew guys out to get, like, 50 girls backstage.' It's different now that people care about their families and want their marriages to actually not end in divorce. They want to be good dads. They aren't killing themselves anymore."
Welch thinks their new lives are really cool. Instead of wasting their lives away, they are now more focused on making good music for their fans and keeping the band intact.
It also helps that Welch's daughter Jennea is also a fan of rock music, and she enjoys the music of bands such as Evanescence, Staind, and Chevelle.
Since his coversion he has been outspoken about his faith and the change it made to his life. In a passionate post on his Facebook on August 1, he told of how he was trying to bring more people to Jesus by showing patient love.
However, he also used his post to criticise other Christians for being too judgmental towards those who do not live up to their standards of morality.
He suggested the actions of some Christians, including their messages and posts on social media, are putting non-believers off the faith and that they have unreasonable expectations of "overnight conversion".
"Some of them are having instant change," he said of the people he was ministering to while on tour. "But for most of them, it's going to take some time. Many tears are being shed and their hearts are softening. Each heartless post from you judgemental ones are only helping to harden their hearts to Jesus once again."
He continued: "If I can convince even one hardhearted Christian to stop posting about instant repentance and hell fire while me and my friends are trying to love people to Jesus over time, then I guess this post was worth it.
"It's a tiring job trying to persuade my people to fall in love with the Son of God, Jesus, while other "Christians" are chasing them away with their posts at the same time.
"I'm begging you, please stop."
