In a recent interview with Collider, Jacoby Shaddix opened up about his ‘grand delusion’ with Papa Roach.
“I had the grand delusion, as a young kid, that this is what I would be doing for my entire life,” the singer replied when asked whether he is surprised the band is still together after 25 years, or he always expected to keep making albums and touring.
He continued, “Our very first full-length record, that we put out in 1997, we titled ‘Old Friends from Young Years,’ and that was the goal for the band. We wanted to be old friends from young years, and now here we are, 25 years later, still doing it.”
“I just had this grand delusional idea that I was gonna be a rock star and do this until the day I die. We’ve still got more years in us. I’ve still got more to prove. I’ve still got more to say. I feel inspired. I feel like the story is still being told,” Shaddix added in his answer.
Papa Roach is currently working on their new album, which will be a follow-up to 2022’s ‘Ego Trip.’ “We’ve been getting in the studio for the last five months. I’d say probably about 10 days a month we’re together,” Jacoby said of new music in October. “We’ll go, write, create, step away, trip out on what we created, and finetune it the next time.”
The frontman added, “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,” Shaddix further noted.
He also shared, “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.”
Papa Roach’s European tour kicks off in Frankfurt, Germany on January 23. They will also visit Poland, Austria, Belgium and the Netherlands.
