August 20, 2008 , 6:30 PM ET
Gary Graff, Detroit
Brian "Head" Welch wanted his first solo album to bring him back to Korn -- the sound, rather than the band.
"I was getting away from our sound, the Korn sound, as far as my writing," the guitarist, who left Korn in 2005 and releases "Save Me From Myself" on Sept. 9, tells Billboard.com. "The last couple Korn records I just didn't feel like I was doing what I wanted. I feel like I was trying to please the industry or management or whatever more than myself.
"I got to get back to that (sound) on this record. You can tell that it's Korn. You can hear some of the old Korn stuff in there. That's what I love, and I wanted to do that."
Welch spent nearly three years making "Save Me...," working in fits and starts interrupted by his recovery from crystal methamphetamine addiction and deadlines for his autobiography of the same name. And though he left Korn to follow a Christian path, Welch says the album isn't intended as musical ministry.
"I'm just sharing my experiences," he explains. "I don't want to be preachy. I just want to be real, and the songs are real. The purpose and the intent of the album was just to tell my story and things that happened to me and share what I went through. I went through a lot of positive changes, so you're going to get a lot of positive feelings from that."
Welch says that he and the other members of Korn are on good terms now -- "I look at them as brothers" -- and although he hasn't had much contact with them, he appreciates frontman Jonathan Davis' public comments that "the door is always open for me if I ever wanted to come back." But he doesn't think that will come any time soon.
"I don't see it happening right now," says Welch, who plans to do a signing tour to promote "Save Me..." before putting together a band for a concert tour. "Right now I just want to help people, so if (Korn) had the same drive and wanted to do a project or something ... But I don't know what the future holds. For right now I'm just gonna do my own thing and see what happens."
http://www.billboard.com/bbcom/news/..._id=1003841155