PAPA ROACH Frontman Talks 'F.E.A.R.' Album, 15th Anniversary Of 'Infest'

Anthony Morgan of Metal Forces recently conducted an interview with PAPA ROACH frontman Jacoby Shaddix. A couple of excerpts from the chat follow below.

On writing tracks for new album "F.E.A.R.":

"Writing songs for this new record was very challenging for me, in the beginning. I went in this time with nothing… Well, not nothing. I had one chorus written for a song called 'Broken As Me', so that was kind of like 'Well, alright. If you've got one chorus, then let's start there and write a song, and just finish it from beginning to end.' Once we got through that first track, the floodgate just opened.

"I wasn't really into the idea of going to [Las] Vegas and making a record there, period. I wasn't into the idea of not getting together for a month before, and just jamming as a band, and coming up with a bunch of ideas, but everybody else in the band was, like, 'Dude, we'll just show up. We'll just throw it at a wall, get after it, and see what happens.' In hindsight, it was exactly… It was awesome. I was very fearful of it, to be honest, like, 'Alright, I'll just show up, but what if I've got writer's block?' It was… I don't know, man. The experience was exactly the opposite of what I made up in my head of how it was gonna be. We killed it, dude. The band was on fire from the beginning of the sessions all the way until the end. It was probably some of the most inspired, convicted sessions that we've been a part of and that I've been a part of."

On the general lyrical theme of "F.E.A.R.":

"The general theme of this record is in the face of everything that arises, the core. It's about taking a step back from yourself, and so I really took a long, hard look at my life, and my actions, and my behaviours, and my failures as a man. I looked at my part in those things, and owned my shit. I said, 'This is where I fucked up, and this is where I have failed, and this is my brokenness.' This record is about the hunt for a better version of myself. Tracks like 'Falling Apart' talk about that, 'Broken As Me', 'Skeletons'. 'Skeletons' just talks about the way that sometimes when I get in that dark place, I just build up walls around myself and isolate myself, and shut out the people who love me the most. I'm just learning from those mistakes in my life; I'm putting them into songs and making them part of my growth, instead of my demise."

On upcoming 15th anniversary of debut album "Infest":

"That's a solid fucking record, man. That record is a snapshot of who we were as young men, and I feel that there was a huge purpose in that record. That record took us on a wild ride across the world, and we sold a shit ton of records. It put a stake in the ground: 'P. ROACH is here'. I look back on that record, and I'm very proud of it. We've been actually going in, and rehearsing some songs that we haven't played in years from that record. It's just interesting to get in the headspace again of some of those songs. We were just hard, and I guess that as I've grown as a writer, I've just become a lot more open emotionally and I guess a bit more vulnerable. But yeah man, that first record. It's fire, dude."

On March 2015 U.K. tour:

"The next tour that we're doing in the U.K. is gonna be fuckin' bangin'. It's selling really well, which we're very excited about. We've got a little something special planned for one of the U.K. dates that's gonna blow old-school PAPA ROACH fans away. I can't really let the cat out of the bag, but it's gonna be a great tour and we're very excited. We're playing the classics from 'Infest' mixed in with a bunch of stuff from all of the records in between, and new cuts. I think right now —– just live — we're more on fire than we've ever been, and I think that that just comes from being away from the road for a little while. Plus, we just have something special going on with our fans in the U.K."

Read the entire interview at Metal Forces.