Jacoby Shaddix, frontman for Papa Roach, knows this is a crucial moment for his decade-old band. "The music industry is in a very shifty time right now. Heads of companies are moving to different companies. Tons of people are getting fired and tons of bands are being dropped," the singer says. "This is a time when I could have all the worries in the world. But I am not even trying to think like that. This is a time for opportunity for our band, because times are changing and our band is still here."
In fact, Papa Roach's label, Dreamworks, was recently sold to Universal, meaning the group's fate is suddenly in the hands of a new slate of industry executives. Also, thanks to bands like the Strokes and White Stripes, the hard alt-metal with the occasional rap which Papa Roach specializes in delivering isn't as beloved by radio as when the band broke four years ago with the hit "Last Resort."
Yet, despite the state of the music business, Shaddix says the next Papa Roach disc will offer a surprise for fans. "There are points on this record that are really positive. That is kind of a difference for our band; we usually talk about darker subjects. Now, I embrace the highs as well as the lows in my life.
"I am in a spot right now where I am learning all about myself, and that is reflected in my lyrics. I have depression and that is something I have to deal with," Shaddix says. "But I have music as my savior, straight up. I mean, sometimes I seem miserable now, but then I imagine my life without my band, my music, and it would be horrid. I learned that music is a creative way to cope. With this new record, it was about taking myself out of a lot of sticky situations and just putting myself right in my music. I ate, breathed and shit music while we did this record. Like I said, it is an imperative time in our career and we have something to prove. But it has always been like this from when we were punk rocking it in a band, to when we blew up, to where we are at now. There is always a new challenge. And this record was another chance to prove ourselves as a band."
Titled Getting Away With Murder, Shaddix hopes the new disc will be out by June.
"We are really happy with what we did in the studio. I can really hear on this record that every note that we are playing, we are playing with everything we got," he says.
One thing that Shaddix is counting on to keep Papa Roach alive is that the band has always been more musically diverse than many of its peers. After all, how many groups could comfortably tour with everyone from Suicidal Tendencies to Eminem? "The thing that focuses our music is that it is straight ahead and it's rocking," explains Shaddix. "But we have elements of punk rock, elements of rock 'n' roll, elements of post-hardcore, elements of hip hop, and elements of emo in our music."
Tour warriors earlier in the decade, Papa Roach has kept off the road while working on the new disc. This trip to Vegas is actually not part of an official tour, but a mini-venture as the band works its way down to a performance at the South By Southwest music conference in Texas. Once again, ignoring the state of the industry and trying to stay optimistic, Papa Roach hopes to use the SXSW appearance to help launch an independent label that will promote similarly inclined groups. Las Vegas fans will be among the first to hear the new Papa Roach songs.
"We are going to play about five new songs," Shaddix says. Among them, "Scars," about Shaddix's last trip to town, and a turning point for him:
"'Scars' stems from an experience in Vegas. It was a bad night; it happened in front of the Hard Rock. To make a long story short, I landed up in the hospital with 11 staples in my head and it was pretty much self-inflicted. It was a wild experience and pretty much an awakening for myself to pull my life together."