PAPA ROACH Frontman On Next Album: 'We Want To Separate Ourselves From The Pack Again'

Amy Harris recently conducted an interview with PAPA ROACH frontman Jacoby Shaddix. A couple of excerpts from the chat follow below.

Amy: When I spoke to you last year, your album had just come out, "Time For Annihilation", so you guys are still rocking that album. What have you been up to in the last year?

Jacoby: Just touring. We have been to Europe multiple times, a few American tours and just having a good time supporting the record. Plus, we wanted to go out and prove with this record we could be a valid rock n roll band with an independent record company. That was the point of doing the EP mixed with the live album and just getting right back out on the road. It's proved to do really well for us in Europe especially, it's cracking off the fucking hinges. We actually do better in the U.K. and Germany than we do in America.

Amy: A lot of hard rock bands do that I have talked to.

Jacoby: The hard rock scene is just way more alive over there. It seems like Americans are into hard rock but it's not as passionate.

Amy: Do you prefer the festivals or the headlining shows?

Jacoby: I like both of them. The festivals are awesome over there because you get to hang out with dudes from RAMMSTEIN, (in German accent) "we talk about the things we do in Germany together." Hanging out with those guys and my boys in SKINDRED. It's a cool way to cross paths with a lot of people you haven't seen in a long time. Then also the headliner gigs, we did one at Brixton Academy, which is like a legendary venue in the U.K. and it was like 5,000 people going absolutely fucking bananas the whole time. When you step off the stage from that, dude, that's my drug of choice.

Amy: You guys working on any new music yet?

Jacoby: Oh yeah. Right on this thing. Just plug in to that. (Pointing to his Mac Book)

Amy: I'm sure we will get a sneak peek right now.

Jacoby: No. Will not do it. The jams, the music is sick. We want to separate ourselves from the pack again. When we came out in '99 and 2000, we were like part of an underground movement and then that was really cool. Then that movement kind of fell apart and there weren't many bands still out there doing it. So we evolved and separated ourselves again and evolved into more of a rock band. Now we have been lumped into all these rock bands and we are like, "Cool we like that. We like that sense of community in rock. But I want to evolve it into something more even of our own sound.

Amy: Are you going back to rapping?

Jacoby: I wouldn't necessarily say that is the move to make it creatively original. I just think the music we have been listening to, we have been listening to everything from honkytonk country music to electronic music to heavy metal to punk rock. I don't want to make an average white-guy rock record. I want to make a fucking record that inspires people to fuck, fight, love, forgive. An inspiring album that makes people want to move, makes people want to do something.

Read the entire interview from Amy Harris.