Confession: I used to think that only complete losers filed for bankruptcy.
How hard is it to manage your money? I would think when I heard of someone falling into financial ruin.
But over the past several years, my eyes have been opened to a lot of things, and I’ve learned some incredibly valuable lessons—one of which is that financial catastrophes can happen to anyone. It has nothing to do with whether you’re a good person or a bad person, how hard you work, or what kind of family you come from. Sometimes we just get beaten down by circumstances beyond our control. Look at me. I came from a great family, had an massively successful music career, and though I was careless with my money after I left KoRn, I was working as hard as I could to provide a stable, happy life for my daughter. Yet there I was—tapped out, desperate, and up to my eyebrows in debt.
I’ll admit that I allowed my faith in God to be twisted into unwarranted faith in certain people, which turned me into a complete idiot in many ways. I made a lot of mistakes by being too risky and not playing it safe with my money, and yes, it was very foolish.
It was also very complicated. Over the next few weeks, I met with a couple of different bankruptcy attorneys to talk through my options. And it turns out, there were a lot.
The first guy I met with told me I wasn’t eligible for a chapter 13 reorganization because I owed too much money. He said that I could apply for a chapter 7, but that would mean giving up all my future residual income, aka my KoRn royalties, and I definitely didn’t want to do that. So I moved on to attorney number two, a guy named Griffin.
When I first met Griffin, I thought he looked too young to be an attorney, but I’ll say this for him—the kid knew his stuff. I explained my entire financial situation to him, and after we talked for a while, he came back with a great solution. It’s called a chapter 11 reorganization plan.
Normally, a chapter 11 plan is reserved for businesses that owe more than $300,000 (which, by the way, is the cut-off for chapter 13). It allows them to pay back their creditors less than what they actually owe them. It’s a little uncommon for individual people to file for chapter 11, but thanks to the ridiculous amount of debt I had racked up, I qualified. Finally, a break.
As Griffin started drawing up the paperwork, I felt a strange sense of relief. I was broke, but at least I could see some light at the end of the tunnel. It felt almost like I was getting a fresh start.
I say almost because the doctors still wanted a piece of me, and they weren’t about to let a little thing like me filing for bankruptcy get in their way.
Don’t get me wrong. I always knew the doctors were good guys. I think that when they gave Driven the money, it wasn’t so much an investment on their part as it was helping out a good friend. They really liked Gary, and I’m sure they just wanted to see him happy and successful in life like they were. But as soon as they felt like they were getting taken advantage of, they got understandably angry and went on the attack. And I was their target.
I pleaded with them over e-mail to give me a chance to find a way to pay them back, but they didn’t want to hear it. They just wanted their money back immediately. Gary and Carl were making a few payments to them, but in the end it was me they really wanted. And because I had signed a personal guarantee, I owed them every last penny. Desperate and out of options, I sent them one last e-mail, begging for mercy to come up with a payment plan, but I got no response.
They weren’t going to let up until they saw money in their hands. In fact, one of them even hired a lawyer to contest my bankruptcy and have it thrown out. It was intense. Technically, they were completely justified; I had willingly put my KoRn royalties up as collateral for the loan. But I had Jennea to think about. All I was asking for was to be left with enough money to take care of my kid and to pay the doctors back as quickly as I could with whatever extra money I had after living expenses.
For the moment we were getting by. We didn’t have much, but I had enough money to pay Griffin’s law firm and all my bills. If the doctors’ lawyer got her way, though, I would’ve been completely wiped out. Thankfully the publishing companies froze my royalties until the court could decide who was entitled to what.
Once the doctors realized this, things got ugly. Their lawyer accused me of fraud. They pointed out that a judge back in Arizona had handed down a judgment against me because I had put my KoRn royalties up as collateral in the initial loan agreement way before I filed for bankruptcy, so I had no right to withhold them now.
Fortunately, Griffin found some obscure Tennessee law that protected me from the Arizona judgment. I didn’t understand how it worked then, and I still don’t understand it now. But there’s one thing I do know for sure—my heavenly Father was watching out for me. God knew my heart. He knew I wanted—and fully intended—to pay the doctors back. I just needed time and help to do it.
The doctors’ lawyer had a different perspective. She was convinced that I had deliberately moved to Nashville with the intent of defrauding them and was dead set on dragging me back into court to prove it.
If they only knew I wasn’t smart (or crooked) enough to come up with a plan like that.
Things were beyond rational at this point. I’d already tried reasoning with them, and it didn’t work. Now it was time to let my lawyer do the talking and let the whole mess run its course through the legal system. It was “everyone get the rock star” time again, and frankly, I was sick of it. I needed a break.
I didn’t get one.
While we were waiting for the court to decide my financial fate, I went out on the road with my band to play some shows. But about ten days into the tour as we landed in Greensboro, North Carolina, I got called back to Nashville to address the fraud charges.
By the time I got back to the airport in Nashville the next night, it was late and I was feeling tired and grumpy. I took the bus to parking lot B where I’d left my car, and as I was pulling out of the lot, I noticed a plain white van driving very slowly off to my left. There were two guys in it, and they were just staring at me. As they drove past me, I got behind them but realized they were going too slow, so I decided to floor it and blow past them on the right. That’s when they turned their red and blue lights on. I had just blown past an unmarked airport police van.
You have got to be kidding me!
I quickly pulled over and rolled down my window while the two of them started walking toward my car. And they were ticked.
“What were you thinking trying to pass us like that?” they asked, shining a flashlight in my face. “We had to swerve out of the way because you cut us off!”
That wasn’t exactly true. I didn’t cut them off. I just passed them—very, very quickly. Still, I wasn’t in a position to argue, so I politely responded, “Sorry, officers. I thought you were somebody else, and it seemed like I had plenty of room to get around you.”
They glanced at each other, then back at me. They weren’t buying it.
“License and registration, please.”
I handed my paperwork to the one standing closest to the window, and he started walking back toward the van. But the other one just stood there staring at me. It was starting to get uncomfortable. After a few seconds he followed his partner back to the van.
What is that guy’s problem?
A few minutes later the van door opened, and the cop that had been staring at me so intently walked back over to my car, leaned down, handed me my license, and said, “I saw you speak at Cornerstone Christian Festival last summer.”
Doh! Busted. Sometimes I forget I don’t exactly look like your average, ordinary guy next door. Then his partner appeared in the window.
“Mr. Welch, I want you to know that we could have issued you a reckless driving citation.”
Oh, awesome, I thought, my spirits lifting a little. I’m finally gonna catch a break!
“But instead I’m giving you a ticket for making an unsafe passing of another motor vehicle,” he said, handing the ticket through the window.
Wow. Never a dull moment.
The next day I stood in court feeling like an innocent man accused of a crime he didn’t commit.
But I was ready. Remember that suit I wore to the High School Musical 2 premiere? The one that earned me the nickname Gator? Well, guess what I wore to court? Yep, and I was stylin’. But that wasn’t all. A few days earlier I had heard an intense online teaching about God being not only our Father but our perfect Judge, and how by faith, and by using our imagination, we can come boldly to his throne in the court of heaven to find help in any situation. After I slipped into my gator suit that morning, I spent a few minutes pleading my case with him.
God, you are everything to me. My relationship with you gives me everything my life needs. So right now I come to you in your position as my perfect Judge. I come boldly before your throne in heaven. I choose to believe I am entering into the heavenly courts by faith right now. You know me, and you know I want to make things right with my creditors. I am asking for your help to declare me innocent of these fraud charges. I didn’t move to Nashville to defraud anyone. I moved here for music by your leading. I just need more time to pay the doctors and all my other creditors back. Please look at my situation and judge fairly in my favor, so I can make everything right with these people and move on from this. Please, in Jesus’ name, give me justice.
As I stood in the Nashville courthouse that morning, explaining my story to the judge, I had no doubt that the ultimate Judge in heaven’s courts had my back, but I was still a little scared.
Jesus, I know you know what this feels like. You were innocent and accused of all kinds of junk you didn’t do. Be with me, Lord.
The state judge, on the other hand . . .
“Mr. Welch, let’s stick to the facts of the case, please,” he stated flatly, cutting me off in the middle of my story. “We need to get through this quicker.”
The guy actually sounded annoyed. My daughter’s future is hanging in the balance, and this guy just cut me off!
Thankfully, my lawyer stepped in and helped me lay out the facts quickly.
“Mr. Welch,” he led, “can you please tell the court exactly why you moved to Nashville last year?”
“Yes. I moved to Nashville because I had just hired a new management team that was based here, and I wanted to be closer to them.”
I also made it clear that I had no idea there was some random law in Tennessee that would protect me from past rulings in Arizona and that I never had any intention of defrauding anyone.
When I finished pleading my case, I tried to get a read on the judge, but the guy was completely stone-faced.
My attorney sat down, and the doctors’ lawyer spent about twenty minutes rehashing my testimony, trying to get me to trip up or catch me in a lie, but there was no chance of that.
It all came down to the judge. Given the way he had cut me off earlier and the emotionless way he listened to my testimony, it wouldn’t have surprised me in the least if he had found me guilty.
That’s why I was so floored when he announced his verdict.
“I don’t see any fraudulent action in Mr. Welch moving his daughter and himself to Tennessee to start over,” he stated very matter-of-factly. Then he brought the whole ugly ordeal to a close with the pound of a gavel and two beautiful little words: “Not guilty.”
Bam! Yes! That’s what I’m talkin’ about!
It was a temporary victory. Over the next few weeks, I got called into court a couple more times while the doctors’ attorneys battled with me and my lawyer, trying to shake loose every last penny I had. Then, to add insult to injury, the IRS started in and tried to sucker punch me too. Apparently, they weren’t happy with the reorganization plan Griffin and I had set up.
I was starting to feel like a dead animal carcass on the side of the road with a pack of buzzards circling overhead, waiting for a chance to swoop down and start picking the meat off my bones.
Please, God. Let this mess come to an end.
Then something unbelievable happened. Apparently, the doctors grew as weary as I was of the whole ordeal, and they finally agreed to a settlement. I would pay them half of every royalty check I received until they were paid back with interest.
See? Was that so hard?
Then things got even better. A few weeks after the doctors called off the dogs, I got an e-mail from Griffin telling me that the judge sided with us and rejected the IRS’s attempt to stop the proposed settlement.
Brian,
Congratulations, the plan was confirmed! The battle with the IRS was resolved peacefully, so no issues should be remaining. I bet it feels great that you can finally put the bankruptcy in your rearview mirror. The case can’t be closed until a “final decree” is entered, which won’t happen until the first payment under the plan is made. We’ll get you what’s called a “plan payment spreadsheet” that will tell you who needs to be paid and the amount of every check that has to be written. That should make things easier for you.
I’ve attached the confirmation order that you’ve seen before (which lays out the settlement terms), but it looks much nicer being signed by a judge. Congratulations again.
Griffin
“Jennea, get in here!” I screamed.
“What?” she said, sounding a little freaked out.
“Read this,” I said, turning my laptop in her direction. I had tried to keep the bankruptcy stuff from Jennea as much as I could so she wouldn’t stress out, but she had picked up bits and pieces here and there, and she knew I’d been pretty tense the last few months.
“Whoa, awesome!” she said, smiling. “So does this mean you don’t have to go into court anymore?”
“Yep. No more court for me!” I was so happy, I almost burst into tears. I could finally start walking into the light at the end of the tunnel. But make no mistake, I was still in the tunnel.
The Driven lawsuit was still in full effect. It may have taken a team of lawyers to deal with the doctors and the IRS, but I genuinely believed that Gary and Carl were different. So I decided to reach out to them myself.
“Listen, Carl, I don’t want to spend another five grand on a lawyer to go to court over this,” I explained over the phone. “Is there any chance you guys would be willing to try and settle this thing with me out of court?”
It turns out I was right about those guys. They were reasonable.
“Sounds good to me,” Carl answered, sounding as relieved to be done with the whole ordeal as I was. “Honestly, I wanted this whole thing done with long ago. I’ll have my lawyer get in touch with your manager, and we’ll work something out, okay?”
“Thanks, man. I really appreciate it.” And I did.
The three of us went back and forth a few times on possible terms until we finally reached an agreement we could all live with. And then, just like that, it was over. Rodrigo, the banks from my foreclosed house, and everyone else were all included in my bankruptcy; they had all been awarded a specific amount the court allowed them to get paid under the US chapter 11 bankruptcy code. So once I settled with Driven, that was it. No more lawsuits. No more accusations. No more stress. The only thing left to do was come up with a few hundred thousand dollars to make payments on the rulings the courts had handed down. I had no idea how that was going to happen, but I had come this far, and I knew Jesus would never let me fall on my face this close to the finish line. Now I could turn my attention to new hurdles.
To make up for the fact that I was traveling a lot more, I had started taking Jennea with me on some of our shorter road trips. It was great having her out on the road with me, and she really seemed to enjoy it. There were, however, a couple of drawbacks that I hadn’t anticipated. For one thing, she was having trouble making friends at her new school. She had met a few girls that she kind of clicked with, but nothing that sparked any kind of deep friendship. Most of the girls she connected with had family members in the music industry, which meant they spent a lot of time on the road too. That’s one of the downsides of life in the music industry. It’s sometimes hard to find and maintain solid friendships at home when you’re on the road a lot.
It’s also hard for the kids to keep up with their schoolwork. Jennea did okay most of the time, but she had a little trouble remembering to write down and follow through with some of her homework responsibilities, which led to missing assignments.
Complicating matters even more was the fact that I only had her in school part time. She had regular classes on Tuesdays and Thursdays, but the rest was all done at home. I had enrolled her in this type of school because I figured it would be easier for her when she had to go out of town with me, but all it seemed to do was mess her up academically and make it harder for her to make new friends. As with the hamster and the puppy fiascos, my intentions were good, but the results? Not so much.
Since seventh grade was proving to be a challenge for Jennea, I decided to hire a nanny for a little while so I could go on a couple of short tours and she could stay at home and focus on her schoolwork. Angie, who helped us find our house, started asking around for me, and we ended up hiring a sweet girl named Anna. Anna happened to be the daughter of legendary Christian recording artist Michael W. Smith. I used to listen to Michael’s worship music a little bit back when I first came to Christ, so to have his daughter looking after my daughter was pretty cool. Knowing that Jennea was surrounded by honest, caring people set my mind at ease while I was on the road.
Jennea also got a kick out of it. Michael and his wife, Debbie, were connected to so many people in the entertainment industry that we never knew who was going to stop by the house. One night I called to check in, and even I couldn’t believe who was there.
“Oh my gosh, Dad . . . you are never gonna guess who is cooking dinner for us right this second,” she said with excitement.
“Who?”
“Guess,” Jennea said, barely holding it together.
“Bono?” I asked. I had heard that Bono and Michael were friends.
“No!” she said, full of preteen attitude.
“Then who?” I shot back. “I don’t have all night, Nea. I have to play a show.”
“Jesus!”
I laughed out loud. “Come on, Jennea. Who is it?”
“Jesus!” she repeated. “It’s that guy who played Jesus in The Passion of the Christ movie! He’s cooking us dinner!”
Whoa! Jim Caviezel was cooking steak for my kid. If that wasn’t a sign that God was with us in all our trials, I don’t know what is.
We had a few bumps in the road during Jennea’s seventh-grade year, but it seemed like God always let cool things like the Jesus dinner fall into our laps at the perfect time.
During that year I ran into someone who used to work for Jennea’s favorite band, Blink-182. They were able to get us tickets and backstage passes to a huge festival where Blink was playing. When I surprised Jennea with it while we were at dinner with my bandmates, she didn’t believe me. But when she finally realized it was for real, she broke down and cried right at the table. The date for the concert approached very quickly, and the next thing we knew we were walking into the festival gates. Right before Blink went onstage, Jennea got to meet all the band members and take pictures with them. She was blown away.
When it came time for Jennea to start eighth grade, I decided to try online homeschooling full time. David and I had been talking a lot about the possibility of me touring more, and with all the payments I had to make to the doctors, the IRS, and all my other creditors, I wasn’t going to be able to afford a nanny much longer. That meant Jennea was going to have to come out on the road with us. So I started checking out online curriculums. I wasn’t sure it was the best situation for Jennea, but given our circumstances I really didn’t see any other option.
Angie offered to help us out and let Jennea stay with her family while I toured, but Jennea had just turned thirteen and was getting a little testy as well as starting to put up walls around herself to keep people out.
Of course, had Jennea known what was coming just a few months down the road, she might have been a little more receptive to Angie’s offer. While she was struggling to finish out seventh grade, my solo band was having a few problems of its own, and the solution was going to take Jennea about as far away from normal home life as you could get.
By the fall of 2011 my band hit a low that made us question if it was wise to continue. We had booked a tour with Decyfer Down, and normally they did pretty well, but our tour with them was a letdown due to promoters not actually promoting the shows. One night after another nearly empty show, I poured out my heart to God in a letter.
God,
I’m sick of touring. I’m sick of being a failure. Why aren’t things picking up for us? Why am I so miserable every time we go out on tour? I sometimes feel like I don’t even want to do music anymore. I think I’d rather speak to people full time or something. After eight years being gone, I know me and KoRn are over and done with, but why am I failing so much in this solo music mess? For me to continue with all this, I’m gonna need a few changes. I need to start over with my bandmates. We need a new band name. I want a record label to partner with us and invest money into us. I want a tour bus. I want our sales and influence to grow. I want to feel like we are doing something rather than experiencing failure nonstop.
About a month later my bandmates and I decided that we would try a few more things to give it one last shot: come up with a band name, record a full-length album, and release it. If our fan base still didn’t grow, we’d hang it up for good.
Up until that point, we had been touring under the name Brian “Head” Welch. Aside from me, there were only three guys left in the band—Valentine on bass, Dan on drums, and a sixteen-year-old kid named J. R. Bareis on guitar (we found him on Facebook right before we went on tour). My manager didn’t want to hire a teenager, but since our original guitar player quit just weeks before the tour, it was either cancel the tour or take J. R., so we hired him. I even signed papers to become his legal guardian on the tour, along with our tour manager Justin Jones. It was awesome because I figured if J. R. messed up on his guitar parts, I could just ground him.
We started tossing some possible band names around, but we couldn’t come up with anything we all liked. Then one day—don’t ask me why—I was thinking of the two words love and death. I liked how they blended together because they are two of life’s strongest forces. I told the guys about it, and although nobody jumped up and down, they didn’t seem to mind it. Just like that, we became Love and Death.
Now we needed an album.
I decided to ask David to call my friend Jasen Rauch, who used to play in the band Red. Jasen had gone into producing full time, and I was hoping he’d be willing to work with me on writing a couple of songs. Turned out he was, and we wrote a song together called “Paralyzed.” And you know what? It was one of the best songs I’ve ever been a part of. It had a crushing, groovy guitar riff that is still one of my all-time favorites. Plus, once I started working with Jasen, I found a good range to sing in, and my voice was doing better than ever. Finally. “Paralyzed” eventually went to number one at Christian Rock Radio, and we shot our first music video together as a band with “Paralyzed.” Both did very well, and it definitely created some excitement for us.
After the release of “Paralyzed,” we saw a big increase in excitement for our music, so we started gearing up to announce the new Love and Death name. Within months we had written a few more songs with Jasen that were absolutely killer. One was called “Chemicals” and another was a revamp of the classic Devo song “Whip It,” along with a few other songs we were pretty proud of. A lot of people finally started catching on to what we were doing. That was exciting because after two years of lackluster touring experiences, it felt like God was already answering some of the requests I had written down just a few months earlier.
Right around the release date of our EP “Chemicals,” we got asked to go out on tour with Red and Icon for Hire to continue building our fan base. Jennea had already started her online homeschool program, so she hit the road with us. In addition to her schoolwork, I gave her a few jobs to do. Her daily routine went something like this:
• Noon: get up, tweet, text, chat on Facebook
• 12:30–3:30 p.m.: do a little schoolwork, tweet, text, chat on Facebook
• 4:00–5:00 p.m.: hang out, watch the sound check, tweet, text, chat on Facebook
• 6:00 p.m.: help set up our merchandise table, tweet, text, chat on Facebook
• 7:00 p.m.–midnight: sell our merchandise before, during, and after the show, tweet, text, chat on Facebook
• Midnight–3:00 a.m.: finish schoolwork, tweet, text, chat on Facebook
• Go to bed while tweeting, texting, chatting on Facebook
You know, typical teenage stuff.
For the most part Jennea enjoyed touring with us. Having J. R. around was fun for her as well—sometimes. They were almost like brother and sister, and as legal guardian to them both, I had to play referee whenever they’d start snipping at each other.
For example, Jennea caught J. R. talking with one of her friends on Facebook, and man, she was ticked.
“J. R., why are you talking to Carolyn on Facebook?” she yelled.
“I don’t know. She friend requested me,” J. R. said, shrugging it off.
“Don’t talk to my friends!”
“Why? She’s cool. I like her.”
“Dad!”
“J. R., stop talking to my daughter’s friends. It’s creepy, dude. You’re in my band.”
“Okay, okay. Whatever.”
You know, typical touring stuff.
In addition to snipping at J. R., Jennea was also starting to mouth off to me. And we were touring in a tiny van that was barely big enough to hold all our equipment, let alone us, so we were right on top of one another all day long. Between the bankruptcy stuff, having to constantly hound Jennea about her homework, touring, and babysitting two cranky teenagers in addition to Dan and Val, sometimes I would just snap and lose control.
One day we were leaving a hotel room and Jennea was mouthing off about something I’ve long since forgotten about, and before I knew what happened, I turned around, grabbed her hard, and yelled at her to shut up! My loss of self-control crushed me as I watched Jennea silently cry in the back of the van after we left the hotel. The rest of the band guys awkwardly stayed silent, too, since it was obvious something had happened between Jennea and me.
What was worse, without realizing it I had fallen back into the same old pattern—lose control, flip out with uncontrollable anger, and fall into guilt and depression.
God, I thought I was finally over all these anger issues. Why can’t I get past this?
All the responsibilities and heavy burdens I had on my plate were too much for one person to juggle. I was like a steel rod slowly being bent back farther and farther until . . . snap!
In spite of all the problems, Love and Death’s fan base was really starting to pick up. Before we even finished touring, Tooth & Nail Records came on board to back our album.
Finally things were starting to look a little bit more positive financially—and musically as well.
The only thing that wasn’t doing well was Jennea. I loved having her with me on the road, but hocking CDs and T-shirts until three in the morning and sleeping in a different hotel every night (if we even got a hotel), wasn’t the kind of life a thirteen-year-old girl should have been living.
I tried to spend quality time with her and take her out to dinner and to the movies whenever we had a break in the schedule, but she started pulling away from me. It seemed like all she wanted to do was talk with her old friends from Arizona on Facebook and Twitter. Who could blame her? After all, she spent almost twelve hours a day cooped up in a stank-filled touring van with a few adult male musicians and a teenage boy.
It wasn’t ideal, but I didn’t know what else to do. I couldn’t figure out how to give her the kind of life she deserved. She was slowly slipping away, and it was breaking my heart.
Jesus, things are going so well for me right now musically. The band is doing great. The tour is going great. Our fan base is getting bigger. We’ve even got a label behind us now. Almost every request I made to you in that letter has come true, so thank you. But I’d give it all up tomorrow if I could just see Jennea happy again. This isn’t what I wanted for her. She deserves so much more. I want her to have friends her own age and a normal life, but I don’t know what to do. I can’t stop touring. We need the money. But I’m afraid if something doesn’t change soon, she might fall too far. Please, if there’s any way to make the music thing work and get Jennea back and give her the life she deserves, show me what it is. Tell me what to do. Send us some help. Show us a sign. Whatever you gotta do. Just do something. Please.