Korn guitarist Brian "Head" Welch would have dreams he'd returned to the Jonathan Davis-fronted rockers while he was out of the band from 2005 to 2012. That's despite the fact that the musician had decided to leave Korn to help curb his drug addiction and better explore his faith.

But even though Welch got clean and began issuing solo material under his own name, eventually forming the still active metal band Love and Death, he couldn't escape an innate desire to reunite with Korn. According to the guitarist, however, the impulse only emerged while he slept.

"When I was awake, I was OK because I was so addicted to my new life and my new adventure," Welch recently remembered to Metal Hammer. "When I used to have downtime in Korn, that was when the addiction and the depression would hit me, so when I left, there was a period of time where I was loving life. I just focused on my daughter and stayed away from MTV and the media; I didn't want to know what they were doing."

He continued, "But when I went to sleep, 80 percent of my nights I would dream about being back onstage with those guys. I would wake up and have an emotional feeling about that. I was missing them. In real life, I wasn't, but my subconscious was. For about seven years, I dreamed about those guys!"

That dream became reality at 2012's Carolina Rebellion festival in Rockingham, N.C., where, in an unplanned guest spot, Welch would join Korn onstage to play "Blind." After that heartwarming reconciliation, the guitarist was confirmed to be an official Korn member again later that year.

"When I jumped up onstage [at Carolina Rebellion], it was like an instant connection, but yet it felt so foreign," the guitarist explained. "The last two years in Korn, I was totally blissed out of my mind — either drunk or, for sure, on methamphetamines. So from this blurry memory to being clear as a bell, I was tripping. Like, 'Whoa, this is surreal!' It was really exciting. I thought it was just the closing of the book, we all forgave each other. and I got one more chance to play with them. That was awesome."

These days, Welch gets the best of both worlds, continuing with Korn while using Love and Death as an additional outlet. Love and Death's latest album, Perfectly Preserved, arrived this month. Meanwhile, Korn are throwing around ideas for their follow-up to 2019's The Nothing.

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