Next PAPA ROACH Album Will Be 'Diverse', 'Experimental', 'Emotional' And 'Dynamic'

In a new interview with The Mistress Carrie Podcast, PAPA ROACH guitarist Jerry Horton was asked if the experience of making the band's upcoming album was different to the way he and his bandmates went about making 2022's "Ego Trip". He responded (as transcribed by BLABBERMOUTH.NET): "I would say that maybe the experience — well, definitely the experience was different, 'cause we kind of bounced around different producers, different studios, but I think the energy is the same. We're still fired up about it. And the first song coming is — it's a banger. It's heavy, catchy — it sticks in your head, for sure. And the record is diverse, just like the last one. It's experimental and it's emotional, it's dynamic. I think even though the experience was different, it has more in common with the last record than not."

Earlier in the month, Horton told Meltdown of Detroit's WRIF radio station that PAPA ROACH's new single will be released before the band's upcoming tour.

Asked if PAPA ROACH is planning on putting out a full album or if the band will "drop songs here and there", Jerry told WRIF: "It's gonna be both, actually. We'll probably do song by song in a lead-up to putting out a record, but we're not gonna put the whole record out at once… Because we're our own label, basically, we don't have anybody telling us what to do. And I don't know if that's a good thing or a bad thing, but we're just gonna try it this way and see how it works. But, yeah, we'll do singles kind of like how things normally go and then kind of figure it out from there."

Regarding whether he is "a full-album kind of guy", Jerry said: "I like albums. But that's kind of old school, I guess, of me. I have a record collection and I still have CDs in the car and I do streaming stuff as well, but I still like to listen to a whole record."

Horton continued: "There's good to both ways of doing it. I think that because everybody's listening kind of in a mix environment, like a playlist type of environment, I think it's okay for us to explore different styles and sounds and kind of make it feel like a mix of things, but that then takes a little more work to make everything feel cohesive."

Asked if there will be any special guests on any of the new PAPA ROACH songs, Jerry said: "Not on this first [single], but we have talked about having a guest or two on a couple of the other ones… We've got some things in the works."

Last month, PAPA ROACH singer Jacoby Shaddix told "The Jasta Show" about his band's plans for new music: "We are the label now. So just this last go-around, we ended our contract with Better Noise Music, fulfilled our contract with them, and then we started taking meetings out there in the business. And we went and kind of met the wizard. And then I went and realized that I'm a fucking wizard. Come on — I'm a wizard. You can't be the only one. So then we realized we're gonna do this. We're gonna start our own label. So we get distributed through Warner ADA. And it's a label services, so we have a team of people that we access there, but then we also have our own team of people with our management and our independent staff that we hire as New Noize — marketing and social media and all that kind of stuff. And we've just built up something great together. And on this last album, 'Ego Trip', this was our first go as an independent. And we're on the heels of this thing now. We've had four No. 1s on rock radio, which, that blows my mind. We've been able to serve our fans up what they want and give give our people what they want. And that, to me, I'm like so fucking stoked. We just put the work in and we're seeing it happen. And now we're on the heels of that. We're promoting our song 'Leave A Light On'. And we're off the road right now, so now we're, like, 'All right, now it's time to pull the slingshot back.'"

He continued: "We've been getting in the studio for the last five months. I'd say probably about 10 days a month we're together. We'll go, write, create, step away, trip out on what we created and finetune it the next time. And now we've got seven or eight songs. And the first kind of go-around for us, we went in… 'Cause our current single, it's an acoustic song; it's very heartfelt. And we're, like, 'All right, let's flip the script. We need to go write the heaviest P-ROACH we possibly could ever write. Let's just go see what that sounds like. Let's go experiment in the studio.' And so we've done that a few times over, and some of the stuff that we're… We've drop tuned some of the stuff. We're messing with some of the tunings, which then adds even a heavier element to it. And you know I love heavy music. It's something that is in my blood as well. I'm a fan of many styles. And it just feels natural to wanna lean into that heavy sound for us right now. And I'm excited. I feel inspired about creating."

Regarding the possibility of collaborations on the new PAPA ROACH music, Jacoby said: "There's collabs that are gonna come together, but I think once we get to the end of the creative process, and then we look at the songs and we go, 'All right, what do we have as kind of like a body of work or what's gonna be the first single, and who can we get to collab on this or reimagine this song?'"

Shaddix also talked about how PAPA ROACH plans to promote its new music. He said: "Looking at this thing from not only an artist perspective, but as from a label exec perspective, it's exciting for me. It really takes my interest in what I'm creating to another level. Because after we get the art finished, it's like instantly I'm imagining in my mind, what could a video look like? Or what could a marketing campaign around this song look like? What are the pieces we can put together that make the song more than just it is, so we can just push it out into the world. And then once it's out, it's the world's. It's how do you make that those impacts? And we found a lot of different ways to do it. Social media has been a really big one for us. We pressed in really hard with that. And some of it, I'm just, like, 'Oh,' it's cringe and I hate it. And some of it I just do it and then I get to the other side of it, I'm, like, 'Actually, that was actually really cool.'"

PAPA ROACH recently united with eight-time Grammy Award winner Carrie Underwood on a new recording of the band's multi-format hit single "Leave A Light On (Talk Away The Dark)". The official music video for the track — directed and filmed by Bryson Roatch and Jeff Johnson — was released in August.

PAPA ROACH will join forces with RISE AGAINST and special guest UNDEROATH to embark on the first North American legs of the "Rise Of The Roach" tour in the spring and fall of 2025,

PAPA ROACH are two-time Grammy-nominated, platinum-selling leaders in alternative hard rock music, who in 2025 will celebrate the 25th anniversary of their iconic album "Infest". PAPA ROACH are not unfamiliar with calling attention to mental health and have been doing so since the seminal release of their first hit-single "Last Resort". Since then, the band has gone on to create 10 studio albums, their most recent, "Ego Trip", on their own label New Noize Records. "Ego Trip" has garnered over 450 million global streams to date and has produced four No. 1 singles bringing the band's total to 26 career Top 10 hits, and 12 career No. 1s.

Photo credit: Bryson Roatch