How I found his book, quit my job, and wrote about his amazing story

This week’s winner

MANILA, Philippines – Maria Luisa U. Antigo, 28, has held many jobs in the past, both related and unrelated to her journalism degree. The most recent was as assistant operations manager for a website company and content writer. She has also taught English to Koreans and Turkish students. She is a huge fan of Jars of Clay and football, and is a Christ follower. On her “1,000 Things To Do Before I Die” list is to manage a magazine to inspire young people, covering relevant topics about life, faith and progressive culture.

The first time I laid eyes on Brian “Head” Welch’s courageous memoir, Save Me From Myself, was at National Book Store Market! Market! branch. Who wouldn’t notice this book? The cover features a fully-bearded man sporting long and braided pigtails with both arms covered in seemingly strange tattoos, looking all too gothic in his dark eye makeup and staring directly at the camera as if hypnotizing you.

Not too mention it also looks very similar to the portrait of Jesus Christ that the Catholic Church uses. Others may even find it creepy or blasphemous at first glance, until you read the tagline that says, “How I Found God, Quit Korn, Kicked Drugs and Lived To Tell My Story.”

I thought to myself, this must be a really interesting read.

Since I had just splurged on books the week before, I thought I’d get it the next time, plus I still had more than 20 unread books on my shelf. I got it later at 90 percent off during a sale!

A year passed. I quit my demanding and stressful job. One of the reasons I gave my boss was that I wanted to read my books. Brian’s book was still untouched and unread until the Facebook page of the man I cared so much about was filled with video clips and posts about his favorite metal bands. It reminded me of Brian’s book. I put away the other book I was reading and started reading Brian’s life story. And, just like on a TV series, I was instantly hooked. 

If you were born in the 1980s, you probably grew up watching MTV during your high school days and you probably heard about this metal band Korn. Not my taste though. A metal band? Not quite appealing to me. You’d understand if I told you I was raised in a Christian family where the only secular music allowed at the time was Gary V’s. Well, not really, but you get the picture.

Brian (or Head) is the former lead guitarist of the controversial metal band Korn, which soared on the charts from the late ‘90s to early 2000s. He wrote his memoir after he left the band at the height of their popularity and shocked the whole world with his decision to follow Christ.

Brian started with a story of how his innocent five-year-old daughter, while skipping around their living room, sings one of the band’s songs called Adidas, which stands for All Day I Dream About Sex. Hearing these words coming out the little girl’s mouth made him realize that very moment that something was not right and needed to change. He then took me back to how his life started. From his family’s house in Bakersfield, California, growing up in a middle class family with a drunken father to meeting friends in junior high who would later become his band mates, to his first relationship with a girl, his first drug encounter, to being friends with Kevin and his family who played a part in his conversion later on, to giving his first child to adoption and to all of the roller-coaster events in his life.

The book is an honest account of the lifestyle of an out-of-control rock star and his all-consuming addiction to meth. Brian shares his life story in a very candid but provocative way that provides readers a vivid illustration of how both bad and good things unfold in his life. As the book’s front flap says, it offers you a backstage pass to his time with Korn.

Reading his book was a journey for me. Although I was hooked, I didn’t finish it in one sitting. Like every book I read, I made sure I stopped between chapters or pages to have time to ponder about what I read. In one of those stops, I cried. I cried because some of his experiences and the people around him resembled mine. How he treated his first girlfriend reminded me of how I was treated by the man that I love. How he would ignore her and treat her in a way she didn’t deserve, just because he was too insecure and didn’t know how to express his love.

I consider this book special, not only because I could somehow relate to some of his experiences and because it talks about Christ’s love for us, but it is special because I know this book will transform and touch the lives of many, including that man I care so much about and to whom I intend to give my own copy of the book. It is just so liberating to know that the seemingly unending dark times of our lives will come to an end one day and light will be found, and that forgiveness and change is possible.

While I don’t consider the book to be totally religious, although in a sense it is, I would say it is the story of a man just like many of us, who wandered down the wrong road for a long time in search of life’s purpose and now has found it. Maybe most of us are still wandering the wrong path, still searching for our purposes, but the good news is, there is hope in Christ. As Brian testifies in the last few pages, when he was with Korn, he had people waiting on him left and right; anything he wanted, he got; anywhere he wanted to go, he went. All he had to do was give the word and it would happen, he had the world in the palm of his hand, yet still something was lacking: there was nothing there.

Nothing we chase after on this Earth will satisfy us like a real, everyday, intimate relationship with Christ. Jesus Christ is the only one who can make us complete.