Stereoboard Talk To Papa Roach About New Album 'The Connection' (Papa Roach Interview)
Monday, 01 October 2012
Written by Heather McDaid
Papa Roach are a band who wear their hearts on their sleeves. Aside from the addictive side of their music, the sheer honesty they've maintained throughout their career makes them relatable and 'The Connection', their new record, proves no different.
Earlier in the year, Jacoby admitted that he found therapy in current putting his pain into the music, making this record a particularly personal one. "I think that any time anyone in the band is going through a hard time, it affects everyone," explains Tobin. "More importantly, it was very therapeutic for him to get the emotions out in a lyrical way and an emotional way through his voice. It just added that much more honesty and vulnerability and meaning to each and every song, which makes the music better and it means it will make every performance of any of those songs mean so much more, you know?
"It's not nonsense. It's not a fairytale. It's not some mystical thing - it's going to be fucking real, it'll hit home every night. I think that's a good thing because it's real, it's heavy shit that you just can't deny."
This recording experience proved different for a number of reasons, the key one being that the band were recording in their own studio in Sacramento. "We would write three or four songs and actually record those at that time and then live with them for a little bit, then move on," explains Jerry. "It was like they sounded fresh. You know, we never done anything in our own place before and any time that we go work in the studio we're normally on a time restraint, a bunch of restraints... I mean, not that we would rush through, but I feel that this time around we got to really take our time on it and focus on the details. I'm really happy about how everything came out."
"[Having our own studio] was everything that we could have possibly hoped for - it was great," adds Tobin. "We've waited a long time and it was always a goal to one day produce our own record in our own studio and do it on our own terms and in our own time. We were just waiting for the right person to help us along and James Michael, who is our friend, and he was like "Dude, we can do this, let's do it". We like lived there for four months together and just had a blast. We just took our time with making the right record and it's 100% Papa Roach, you know?"
'The Connection' may be quintessentially Papa Roach at the core, but there's a very progressive sound about it, notably in their use of electronics. "We had been listening to a little bit more electronic music and sort of took influence from that," notes Jerry. "The way that we implemented it was just adding elements to songs as a textural thing, not to say that it took over the rock-ness, the rock band part of Papa Roach. Where normally we always take multiple guitar tracks and layers, instead of doing that, we would take some electronic elements and synthesisers and that kind of stuff.
"You know, we've always been about the groove and all that but I think for this one we stepped it up a little bit and I guess maybe focussed more on a bounced tempo, something that people could really jump up and down to. That's something that we love to see at shows - that bounce tempo - and people going off, so that was a conscious thing in our minds when we were writing, more so than anything past."
"I mean I'm a fan of electronic music and I've been listening to dubstep music," notes Tobin, responding to Jerry's comment that he was most into dubstep of the four. "It's energetic and it's a new sound. It was really inspiring for us as a band. I went to a few shows actually while we were making this record and seeing that live, seeing the impact that it has on people, is a really cool thing. You see how people are at the live concerts - they really, really are excited and the energy is super high and a positive thing. You can't really ask for anything more when people come together to enjoy music."
"It wasn't really that difficult," adds Jerry, referring to implementing these electronic nuances. "You know, I think the way that we see it is that we've had our influences over the years and we've absorbed certain things into our sound. It's like as we're moving along we suck up things here and there and incorporate that into what we do. I think that just having the electronic part of it is the icing on the cake as in... It's not like we just took what we did before and added electronics, it's been a little more gradual, but it certainly didn't seem like it was work to fit that in."
"There's a club in Sacramento now that wasn't there before - there's a lot of bands coming to it, so we got to go and watch bands play pretty frequently," he adds. "I think we took more influence from the presentation. We would pick little things out - little ideas that we'd say 'Oh, I liked when they transitioned from this song into this song' - something like that. It'd be more subtle things, but it's those kind of details that we get off on and add a little more dimension to the songs."
When this chat took place, the album was still around three months from release. How do they find having to sit on a record for so long after completion? "It's a double edged sword," admits Jerry. "You want people to hear it, but you don't want people to hear it before they're supposed to. I guess we just play it for people, find ways to get feedback and people's opinions on things and that kind of stuff without obviously putting it out there. I mean, really, we're just precious with it. I think that means more to us than getting it out right away. I understand why some bands would want to get it out right away - and we are excited about it - but we know that there's a time and a place for everything but we want to make sure that it's set up right and people know about it before it gets put out there."
And, three months later, the time is here for the band to drop their album and all the excitement is about to come to fruition. So, what was Tobin's parting words on the record? "You know, October 1st - 'The Connection'. It's our first full length record on an independent label. We're super proud, we're super excited. We've waited a long time to make a record like this and we really encourage people to listen to the whole record from beginning to end. We've spent a lot of time making this flow from beginning to end. Thanks for supporting the band, and if you're a new fan give this record a chance and I know that you'll dig it!"
Having heard the fruits of their labour (read Stereoboard's review here), it seems all they've said is true. What's most important is that the honest essence of Papa Roach is evident, so much so you can't help but feel drawn into the record on various levels.
On this note, Tobin concludes, "That's what we're good at doing, that's what we are, that's how we've been with our music. We're just the band that wears our heart on our sleeve - we always have been and we always will be."
Papa Roach’s sixth studio album ‘The Connection’ is out today, Monday 1st October 2012 on Eleven Seven Music. Papa Roach perform in London, with Stone Sour, in December.
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Earlier in the year, Jacoby admitted that he found therapy in current putting his pain into the music, making this record a particularly personal one. "I think that any time anyone in the band is going through a hard time, it affects everyone," explains Tobin. "More importantly, it was very therapeutic for him to get the emotions out in a lyrical way and an emotional way through his voice. It just added that much more honesty and vulnerability and meaning to each and every song, which makes the music better and it means it will make every performance of any of those songs mean so much more, you know? 
