PAPA ROACH METAMORPHOSIS A PERSONAL TALE

Papa Roach is celebrating ten years, and Jacoby Shaddix talks about the personal and meaningful title of their March 24 release, Metamorphosis.

Papa Roach recently played an east coast and a west coast 10th Anniversary Show, to commemorate a decade that they’ve been on the scene. Fittingly, the band is releasing their new album, Metamorphosis, this Tuesday, March 24. The album is the first without longtime drummer Dave Buckner, and is a far cry from the album they were supporting almost ten years ago, Infest.

Vocalist and songwriter Jacoby Shaddix talked about how his drummer and friend’s departure was necessary for Metamorphosis to be made.

“I think we made the record of our career with this record, and I think that that change was part of us being able to make that record, this record Metamorphosis. I’m just so proud of it. I look at this album and listen to this record, and I’m like, ‘We freakin’ did it. We did it. We finally got to that place that we’ve been going for. It’s like, ten years in the big business, our fifth major label record, we have a sound of our own. Nobody compares us to anybody anymore. Papa Roach stands…We’re in a class of our own.”

Shaddix also said that the band has through their history undergone a metamorphosis.

“We’re a rock band, but we have our own thing going on. We were pigeonholed when we first came in as a Nu Metal band but we finally shook loose from that, and now it’s like ultimate freedom, and it feels great. We’re finally at that point where we can keep chugging along and make music and not worry about that.”

And speaking of Metamorphosis, we asked him what Coby Dick, his former alias, in 1999 would have thought of Jacoby Shaddix 2009.

“I probably would have looked at at my picture and been like, ‘Who the f–k is that? Like, who is that guy?, he’s…’ I’m fully tatted out now. I got longer, hair, wilder hair, and I think… It’s like for me in 2000 I came from working at a hospital in an air-force base, so I had to have a clean cut look. And it was a good job and it paid the bills, but I was rock and roll and I couldn’t look the part because of my job. So when we came in, and I just had a couple of tattoos and once the band got successful, I was like, ‘F–k you’ to the 9 to 5. I was like, ‘Screw the 9 to 5. This is not me,’ and then I started getting tatted out and out sound evolved and it’s a trip, man. I think (back then) I would probably wig out and be like, ‘Really?!’ But now that I’m in my skin, this is me. It’s who I am. It feels good to let loose and be who you are, you know?”

Papa Roach’s first single off of Metamorphosis is “Lifeline,” and it’s in the Top 4 of both the Alternative Rock radio chart and the Active Rock radio chart as measured by Radio & Records. The band is on tour with Avenged Sevenfold. rn