Writer: Chris Ahrens
Sunset Strip, the original boulevard of broken dreams, luring a million high school quarterbacks and prom queens from Last Chance, America, out West, only for them to end up as flask-in-drawer valets to some furniture czar, all the while believing they could be as joyfully ruined as Jett Rink or Norma Desmond. That was the Hollywood of the past, broken, but not beyond repair, if cared for by the right hands. Flower power optimism came next, to be been crushed to powder, traded in for a crack head’s delusions as they wandered in search of a name, while trying to remember what was printed on their own birth certificates.

    I was born about five miles from the Strip, in a baby factory once called Queen of Angels Hospital. The place has been renamed The Dream Center and is responsible for another sort of birth. The Dream Center can deliver what the Strip can only hint at: abundant life.

    Part mausoleum, part fun park, the Strip can be a sad destination, where the dead tell lies as they are forever venerated for their self-abuse by kids the world over who all too often follow them into the same ditch.

    You arrive with visions of diamonds in the gutters, and leave with a bag full of rocks. Seductive unisex billboards fan the flame of AIDS with one hand and try to put it out with the other, bigger-than-life images of the lottery winners who inevitably hit the top, making the jump that much higher. Next stop: Forever Hollywood, or Celebrity Rehab. Jeans offer a better butt and therefore a better life. The tattoo parlors, the celebrity tour buses, the fab restaurants, the midnight cowboys, chic’ junkies, medical marijuana clinics. Did you ever turn around to see the frowns on the jugglers and the clowns as they all do tricks for you?

    The only thing I recognize from the near wreckage of my youth is Whiskey a Go Go, a dark nightclub that once featured acts like The Doors, Janice Joplin, and Led Zepplin, on their way up. Formerly of the band Korn, Brian “Head” Welch tops tonight’s bill. Head, as he is commonly known, is not on his way up. He’s been up, once helping pack stadiums with tens of thousands of shrieking fans. Still, this is up for Head, when you consider his climb from the depths of addiction.

    The uniform at the door consists basically of black hoodie, black pants, and as many menacing tattoos as you can fit onto your skin. Smoking cigarettes is mandatory. Some in attendance look a lot like Head. While he does still look like them, something is different, not so much visible in his now clear eyes, but through the pleading, bleeding words forever on his heart and arms, and in those passion-bled lyrics—God save me from myself. I’m begging you. God, save me from my hell—from the title song of the album Save Me From Myself. It’s as if some kind of spirit has inhabited him and is driving him toward a beautiful new world, and that a dream once broken, shattered, nuked, melted, liquefied, powdered, left for dead, has been nicely repaired as a present to him and all who hear him and Him. Head has good dreams now and good news, fueled on promises that cannot be broken, as he moves toward a place that even the stars can someday inhabit.

Risen Magazine: It seems that people get high to feel good and eventually to feel nothing.

Brian Head Welch: That’s what it is; you get high and it starts to fade and you start feeling like you’re sinking. You get high and it takes you to a point where you’re normal and functional. Pretty sad, huh? It turns from fun to sad.

RM:A lure is a piece of plastic with a hook in it, but to a fish it looks like food, until they’re hooked and flopping around on the ground.

BHW:Things catch your eye. It’s a big lie. But when you’re blind, you’re blind. That’s why I don’t knock anybody. I’ve been in this world, and I know both sides. When you’re blind and want to feel good without the knowledge of the truth of God…When I got the real stuff, I could see everything else as a counterfeit. It’s crazy.

RM:When was the last time you were tempted to get high?

BHW:2005, when I found some crystal meth in my closet. I found a big old eight ball. I thought I had thrown it all away, but when I was high, I hid it. [Chuckles and shakes his head] I found it in this big walk-in closet and I immediately took it and walked out. I could have chopped it and done it. I paced around and said, “Jesus, give me strength; I’m not gonna go back there.” I think I quoted this scripture [reads tattoo on arm] I can do all things through Christ who strengthens me [Philippians 4:13]. Suddenly I got this idea to get my camera and film myself throwing this stuff away. It wasn’t going to take me anymore. I wrote a book called Save Me From Myself, and in it, I have that picture of me throwing it away. [Laughs]

RM:I would think that felt like cutting a noose from your neck.

BHW:At that time it was like an enemy trying to pound me, and I looked at it and said, No, I’m gonna pound you; I’m gonna drown you. It was like a fight. It felt good. One other time, later that year, I was going through a lot of ups and downs, coming off drugs. I was mad at God one day, and I saw this bar, and I screamed [in stage voice] “Does anyone know where to get any speed?” I wouldn’t have stopped, but I was so mad at God. I was just out of it.

RM:I think that in rough emotional times is when it’s easy to revert to old ways.

BHW:I’m trying to be a really disciplined person now. Like I changed my whole life. I’m trying to eat well. I treated myself bad, now I’m gonna treat myself good. The worst thing I do is when I fall back is to start eating like crap. Luckily they’ve got Subways everywhere now, [Laughs] so there’s no excuse for not eating well.

RM:Were you ever one of those kids who said, I’m never going to use drugs?

BHW:Well, I tried marijuana at eight years old. I didn’t like it, and so I stayed away from it. But I drank. An older friend used to do coke and stuff. He and his friends would act all weird, and I didn’t want any part of it. After I turned twenty-one, I was at a party and this girl had crystal meth and I did it. I didn’t even like it then, but later on I became a junkie. Speed junkie.

RM:Some people say addiction is a disease; what do you think?

BHW:My dad was an alcoholic, so alcohol was pretty easy for me. I liked it. I don’t know if it’s a disease or not. All I know is that if it was, I’m cured. I’m totally cured.

RM:Have you ever been to meetings?

BHW:I don’t do that, because the Bible says that the tongue has the power of life and death. Don’t get me wrong; it’s good for some people. For me, if I go there and say, Hi, I’m Brian and I’m an alcoholic—I’m not. I’m set free from that and it’s buried and gone. That’s buried and dead! Still, it works for a lot of people and I love it for them.

RM:Alice Cooper told me basically the same things—he basically said he couldn’t walk ten feet without a beer and that he was cu