PAPA ROACH has spent the last few months recording its eighth album at The Hideout Recording Studio, owned and operated by Kevin Churko (OZZY OSBOURNE, FIVE FINGER DEATH PUNCH, IN THIS MOMENT). Speaking to Loudwire at yesterday's (Wednesday, April 23) Revolver Golden Gods awards show in Los Angeles, PAPA ROACH singer Jacoby Shaddix said: "[We've been] in the studio working with the one and the only Kevin and Kane Churko, father-and-son production combo, and 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. It's for real."
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.
"What else? I just finished another song called 'Face Everything and Rise', which is just the P-ROACH mode of operation, you know. That's what I'm all about. It's about stepping up to your problems and connecting with my God and walking through those things."
Shaddix also spoke about his knack for putting himself out there for the listeners without holding back. "That's just my spirit, man," he explained. "The more that I put myself out there 100 percent and fully, the more that I find it humanizes me, makes me real and connects me with the fans of PAPA ROACH. That's the most important thing and that's what our fans love about what we do and our band. I'll continue to do that. The more I shed the shell and be honest, it's just great."
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."
Shaddix and his wife, Kelly, welcomed a baby boy, Brixton Gabriel Shaddix, last summer.
During the making of PA
New Orleans' disciples of hardcore, blues-based, post-amplified audio wreckage, EYEHATEGOD will unleash their long-anticipated new studio recording later this spring. Set for North American release via Housecore Records, the domestic version of the self-titled offering will come in a CD digipack while the LP will be a single slab of vinyl in a gatefold jacket. The first pressing will be limited to 1600 copies and made available in the following colors:
* Black (600 copies)
* Purple (300 copies)
* Clear (400 copies)
* Purple and Grey (300 copies)
"Eyehategod" track listing:
01. Agitation! Propaganda!
02. Trying To Crack The Hard Dollar
03. Parish Motel Sickness
04. Quitter's Offensive
05. Nobody Told Me
06. Worthless Rescue
07. Framed To The Wall
08. Robitussin And Rejection
09. Flags And Cities Bound
10. Medicine Noose
11. The Age Of Bootcamp
Preorder packages including various CD, LP and T-shirt bundles are currently available via Housecore Records at this location.
"Eyehategod" will be released on May 27 by their partners at Housecore Records in North America, May 26 by Century Media in Europe, Australia and New Zealand and May 21 by Daymare in Japan.
Comments EYEHATEGOD vocalist Mike IX Williams: "I have to say I don't believe we've lost nary a step in the creation of this album and we think these newer songs are a killer combination of classic EYEHATEGOD mixed along with our best production, mixing, engineering and songwriting in thirteen years. The main and total tragic break in the chain, was obviously last year's death of our great friend and drummer, Joey LaCaze. However, his original drum tracks made it onto the final master recordings and we're fucking psyched about that... As for working with Housecore, it was a no-brainer. We've always been a family, and will always remain a family."
Adds Housecore founder Philip H. Anselmo (PANTERA, DOWN): "Being a part of the new EYEHATEGOD record is a dream come true. I've known, supported and loved the guys for almost as long as I've been playing music myself, and it is our pleasure here at the Housecore Records compound to have 'em aboard. And I gotta mention, having heard the new record, this is the EYEHATEGOD record every true fan has been waiting for.... Hail!"
In related news, EYEHATEGOD will take to the streets again next month for a short string of live takeovers including a return trip to Japan with VENOM and MORBID ANGEL, a stint on Three Floyds Beer's annual Dark Lord Day Festival as well as various onstage abrasions through the West Coast and the previously announced Baltimore, Maryland gala with HIGH ON FIRE and CORROSION OF CONFORMITY, with additional dates to be announced in the coming weeks.
As a band that helped create a genre as well as equate a city with a sound, EYEHATEGOD has always remained humble anytime words like "legend" were thrown around to describe them. The thing with legends is that they grow stronger in time and over the years, word of mouth has been kind to the band. EYEHATEGOD is bigger now than they ever have been in their twenty-five plus years as a band. Pretty impressive seeing as they haven't released a full-length album in almost fifteen years. Most people who know the band have a story to tell or they heard a story about the guys. Whether it was them playing nothing but feedback to a bewildered WHITE ZOMBIE crowd during their opening stint for the arena metal band in the mid-Nineties, being banned from a certain venue for attacking a promoter with a barstool or cleaning out entire small towns of their drug supply, these stories spread throughout the metal community over the years, usually through a game of one-up-manship, establishing them as one of the most notorious bands around.
Certainly not the first band to be surrounded by myth and lore, EYEHATEGOD's staying and growing power ultimately comes from the music. No one riffs like Jimmy Bower and Brian Patton. Drummer Joey LaCaze grooved and held it together with numerous bass players throughout the years, doing so impeccably with Gary Mader over the past decade. Singer Mike IX Williams has always been able to encapsulate the ruins of life through his lyrics and vocal delivery. All combined, the music is the most genuine, distressing cacophony of sound around.
"BLACK SABBATH mixed with BLACK FLAG with a little bit of SKYNYRD and the element of blues thrown in there," Bower once said of the band's sound. In 2014 that style might sound somewhat commonplace. In 1988 it most definitely was not. The band's second album, 1993's "Take As Needed For Pain", is the pinnacle album that other bands of this genre to this day try to reach. Today, EYEHATEGOD sounds as fresh and innovative as ever. When the band released its first new track in over a decade, "New Orleans Is The New Vietnam", it was clear that nothing about the band had changed. They were touring more than ever and used that time and energy to work on an album's worth of songs. At the end of 2012 they were ready.
The recording process for "Eyehategod" started with producer Billy Anderson back in the fold (he recorded 1996's "Dopesick"). The session saw both producer and band not quite on the same page and at the end, the album was unfinished. A few months later, the band reconvened at longtime friend Phil Anselmo's home studio with producer Stephen Berrigan (DOWN). Both Anselmo and Berrigan helped draw out the missing pieces to one of underground metal's most anticipated albums in years.
An unexpected tragedy occurred shortly upon returning home from a recent five-week European tour in the fall of 2013: Joey LaCaze passed away due to respiratory failure. An outpouring of condolences and tributes spread online. Enough can't be said of the loss felt by the band, family and friends. Fortunately, LaCaze's drum tracks were captured by Anderson and appear on the album, creating the definitive tribute for the member of the band who encapsulated best just what EYEHATEGOD was all about; seriously not taking yourself too seriously. New Orleans native, Aaron Hill (MOUNTAIN OF WIZARD, MISSING MONUMENTS), took over for LaCaze without missing a beat, both figuratively and literally. The band hit the road after wrapping up the record and plan to embark upon their most exhaustive touring schedule to date.
EYEHATEGOD is:
Mike IX Williams - Vocals
Jimmy Bower - Guitar
Brian Patton - Guitar
Gary Mader - Bass
Aaron Hill - Drums
