Better Noise RecordsWhile Papa Roach is known for their hits of the early 2000s, the “Last Resort” rockers proved they still have more than enough in the tank the last decade with some of the most experimental songs of their career. That period is chronicled in the new compilation Greatest Hits, Vol. 2: The Better Noise Years, which features the biggest Roach singles of the 2010s.
What stands out the most for frontman Jacoby Shaddix when reflecting on that era is the band’s “evolution,” especially given where he was as a musician leading up to the 2010s.
“Probably around 2006-2007, I really fell in love with bands like Queen, just that classic element of rock,” Shaddix tells ABC Audio. “Led Zeppelin. The Who.”
By the end of the 2000s, though, Shaddix felt Papa Roach had hit a “dead end” with that kind of sound.
“‘We gotta get back to the roots of who we were,'” Shaddix recalls thinking. “That’s when I started bringing back in more of the rap element into the music, and really exploring those modern textures.”
You can hear those textures especially in the last two Roach records, 2017’s Crooked Teeth and 2019’s Who Do You Trust?, and the band also found themselves gravitating towards younger producers.
“We felt like working with these older producers…they just were so jaded and not adventurous,” Shaddix says. “These new dudes, they reminded us of us. Just f***ing spastic wild energy, and the f***ing M.O. was, like, ‘The weirder, the better! Let’s get kooky, let’s flip it up!'”
“I just didn’t wanna become a parody of ourselves,” he adds. “There was an urgency behind wanting to evolve, but also bring those roots back into the style of music.”
Greatest Hits, Vol. 2 is out today.
By Josh Johnson
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