"This record we're very proud of what we came up with. And it's a banger," PAPA ROACH singer Jacoby Shaddix told the Anchorage, Alaska radio station KWHL on Wednesday (July 9).
"We wanted to work with a producer that worked in that heavier realm and kind of check him out a little bit. So there's elements of hard rock, elements of heavy metal, elements of pop, elements of… it's just all over the place, man, but it's another classic PAPA ROACH record. I'm very proud of it."
Shaddix also spoke about the recording process for "F.E.A.R.", explaining: "This time it was very different than last time. Last time, we recorded our record at a hometown studio in Sacramento. So that was, like, every day we'd leave our house and go to the studio. I was going through some personal turmoil in my life at that time, and the music was really and truly my saving grace. And I'm very proud of that record as well.
"When we went in to make this new record, we [were] out on the road for, I don't know, a year and a half, and we came home and we were, like, 'You know what? Instead of taking a bunch of time off, let's go into the studio with our road chops; we're playing really tight. Let's just go in.' We didn't have any material written. And it was like the floodgates opened, to be completely honest."
He added: "This record, if I were to die tomorrow, I'd be happy with this being my last statement as a musician."
Some of the songs on the new album include "Just As Broken As Me", "Never Have To Say Goodbye", "Gravity" and the title track, "Face Everything And Rise", which Shaddix said is "about stepping up to your problems and connecting with my God and walking through those things."
Shaddix previously told Loudwire about PAPA ROACH's new CD: "We are making the sickest, most illest P-ROACH record to date, guaranteed. It's fiery, that's how I explain it. It's fiery. It's like I'm holding a light orb in my hand and when I put it to the sky, I take off like a superhero, if that makes any sense."
He continued: "We've got a song called 'Just As Broken As Me' that's about forgiveness, when you don't want to forgive but you know it's the best thing to do. We have a song called 'Never Have To Say Goodbye'. It's about a really good friend of mine who passed away the last couple of years. It's just my song … I never got to say my piece, and he was someone who really helped me when I was down and out and helped me clean my life up and then I went out there and lived that wicked life again, and when I was out there, he passed away. I've always had a hole in my heart from that so I decided to write a song about that.
Back in February, Shaddix spoke in an online chat about another new song, "Gravity" that "Jerry [Horton, guitar] was working on, and we all heard it, and we were just, like, 'This just sounds cool," he said. "It just sounds like the sound of us driving down this desert road.' And it just sounded like the environment that we were in."
Shaddix further explained what the song "Gravity" was about. He said, "'Gravity' is about what are the things in the world that keep pulling you back to reality or back down to the ground or back down to earth or back down to who you really are. And so that's a great track. And for me, that was just something really different. I was, like, Jerry wrote the song, and I started lyricizing on it, and I was, like, 'This song seems like it would be cool if I rapped on it.' Everybody was, kind of, 'Huh?! Really?' And then I did it. And I remember I was just getting really painfully honest about some of the dark moments in my life that I never spoke about. I think that that's when I really expose myself in the most vulnerable ways and step out of my comfort zone and really put myself out there, like, 'You guys are gonna know this about me now?' That's when I think the best art is created . . . when you're pulled the furthest out of your comfort zone. And that's why PAPA ROACH records are so diverse."
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