JACOBY SHADDIX On Brand New PAPA ROACH Music: 'It's Heavy, It's In Your Face, It's Aggressive And It's Pummeling'

In a new interview with 97.7 QLZ, PAPA ROACH singer Jacoby Shaddix spoke about the progress of the songwriting sessions for the follow-up to 2022's "Ego Trip" album. He said (as transcribed by BLABBERMOUTH.NET): "I'm going actually into the studio end of the month for a couple of days and cutting tracks on two songs. We're really excited about this new music and where we're taking it. And fans are gonna be frickin' stoked on the sound and the style. It's heavy, it's in your face, it's aggressive and it's pummeling. The riff on this one track is just, like, 'Ah.' It's simple, but it just has that attack to it. That's something that we love. Like in the shows, when we drop that riff and it just gets people in that vibe together. There's something magical about that."

He continued: "Yeah, man, we're stoked to go create new music. We're running the record company now, and that's been awesome. So for on this album, 'Ego Trip', to have three Numbers Ones out of the four singles we released, like, 'What? Huh?' But it's another part of the deal. 'Cause you've got music videos, you've got radio, you've got streaming, you've got album sales, you've got vinyl sales, and it's, like, we've just learned so much about this process and really kind of locked in and engaged in to it, and it's been something that's been really inspiring to us. Not only the creative side but the promotion side of what we do."

Shaddix previously talked about PAPA ROACH's plans for new music earlier in the month in an interview with Meltdown of Detroit's WRIF radio station. He said: "Tobin [Esperance, bass] and Jerry [Horton, guitar] and Tony [Palermo, drums, they've just been putting together music over the last year. 'Cause we finished 'Ego Trip' quite a while ago, so there's been time to be creative. And I've got a stockpile of, I'd say, probably like eight to ten songs to choose from, and we picked two of 'em for me to go into the studio and cut vocals on 'em, that we just felt were the most inspiring that sonically felt the right direction for the next song.

"We run our own record company as well," he continued. "And we just had a great run on this album. 'Ego Trip' got three Number Ones on rock radio, our maiden voyage as a record company for PAPA ROACH. So that's really exciting for us as well.

"At one point or another, we're gonna sign [another] band [to our label]; that's gonna be something that we do," Jacoby added. "But I think for us right now, we're gonna focus on PAPA ROACH another cycle and build the infrastructure, and then it's, like, 'All right, here we go. We've tested this thing out with our band for a while… So what's the next phase? It's exciting. That's what we're finding out."

PAPA ROACH recently announced the digital deluxe edition of the band's eleventh studio album "Ego Trip", and the long-awaited release date of "Ego Trip" standard edition on vinyl. The 20-track digital deluxe release features remixed versions of songs from the original record, as well as new music.

An album that sprouted almost by mistake in the throes of a global lockdown, "Ego Trip"'s seeds were planted when the quartet entered a COVID-secure mansion in Temecula, California in the summer of 2020. What started as an escape and an exercise in keeping the creative juices flowing, in a world that had completely ground to a halt, quickly grew into something bigger.

PAPA ROACH are two-time Grammy-nominated, platinum-selling leaders in alternative hard rock music, who in 2020 celebrated the 20th anniversary of their iconic album "Infest".