JACOBY SHADDIX Says PAPA ROACH Wants 'To Make Rock Music A Little More Adventurous'

PAPA ROACH vocalist Jacoby Shaddix was recently interviewed by Tommy Carroll of the Grand Rapids, Michigan radio station 97.9 WGRD. The full conversation can be viewed below. A few excerpts follow (as transcribed by BLABBERMOUTH.NET):

On the group's latest album, "Crooked Teeth":

Jacoby: "We've been doing this for quite a long time, and to still be here and still be doing it, [we're] definitely grateful. On the vocal side, I cleaned up kind of my vocal style a little bit — not as raspy on some of the songs. I think working with the producers that we worked with, we wanted to kind of evolve my style, so going in and cutting vocals, it was like, not cutting everything with that raspy edge — more cleaner vocal sounds. It just came out really good. I'm really proud of it. I can't wait to go back in and work again with those guys and do another record, and the reaction we got from fans is very positive."

On "taking chances" on the new record:

Jacoby: "That's how we feel we're going to stay relevant, is that we take chances and we evolve and we try new things. I think we did that back on our album 'Getting Away With Murder', when we came with that song in particular and 'Scars' as well. They were very different from what we were doing, but it was a ballsy move, but we said, 'This is who we are. We have to go where the music takes us.' We can be intentional about writing songs, but I think when the music grabs a hold of you and takes you to a place and it feels authentic and it comes from a real space and an honest space, it connects. I think we did that on this new record 'Crooked Teeth', it felt right."

On the song "Born For Greatness", currently the most-played track on active rock radio:

Jacoby: "That song in particular, we knew we were going out a limb on. That was actually the first song we recorded for 'Crooked Teeth'. We did that intentionally. We wanted to go out and just go, 'Let's go as weird and out there as possible, and start there, and then see where we land in the end.' So we wrote that song, and it didn't really fit the record all the way, so we had to do some work to it, and it finally worked its way to feeling right on the record. We worked with new producers on this album, so that was a bold move for us. I think working with those different producers brought out different sides of us creatively. We took a look back at what we did before, way back in the day — 'What was our style back in early 2000s with 'Infest', and where did we go from there?' – and looked at those evolutions and how did we pick and pull what we felt were the most powerful and compelling styles that we had and mash them together, but in 2017, 2018. 'Born For Greatness', it's definitely outside the box, but for us, we kind of just kept getting lumped in. We didn't want to feel like we were just stuck in a box. We want to make rock music a little more adventurous with this record."

On how the band has changed over the years:

Jacoby: "I think with age, as we grow, and as we grow older, in this music, it's like, more moments where we're just like, 'You know what, man? Fuck it, man. We used to hold all these rules around us, and what our scene was. Now, I'm just like, 'We've just got to make music that moves us, that inspires us, that makes me want to get into a studio and write and record.' I feel that having that state of mind, it's exciting, so when we go in and create, crazy shit comes out. I'm excited to see where we go next. We know what makes a great PAPA ROACH record, so we don't want to be crazy self-indulgent and go do some odd, weird, computer-blip music. We still want to rock, but open it up a little bit."

"Crooked Teeth" was released last May via Eleven Seven Music. The disc was written and recorded in a cramped North Hollywood studio with producers Nicholas "RAS" Furlong and Colin Brittain, with the exception of "Born For Greatness", which saw the band collaborate with writer/producer Jason Evigan (Jason Derulo, Demi Lovato, Zedd, MAROON 5).