Lots of rock bands pull out the roller coaster as an analogy for the ups and downs of their careers.
But the amusement park attraction metaphor is most fitting when used by Papa Roach, a Nu Metal quartet from Northern California that blasted onto the scene in 2000 with the hit single “Last Resort.”
It propelled the band’s debut album, “Infest,” to sell more than 3 million copies – just like that proverbial roller coaster, whose start is typically the highest point on the track.
“It was like a rocket ship ride to the top, and we raged hardcore and partied like crazy. When I look back at it, it was just a big blur,” singer Jacoby Shaddix said in a phone interview last week. “It was definitely not a natural progression for a rock and roll band to blow up. It was almost a blessing and a curse. For a while, we were the one-hit band.”
Now with its fourth studio album, “The Paramour Sessions,” Papa Roach is out to prove once again that it’s the real deal. The band brings its notoriously raucous and energetic live show to the Showbox in Seattle at 8 tonight.
Papa Roach’s second album, “lovehatetragedy” in 2003, didn’t sell very well despite a debut at No. 2 on the Billboard charts. But its third album, “Getting Away With Murder,” featured the hit single “Scars,” which finally helped the band shed the most dreaded label in music and score another platinum album.
“It’s all meaningful. But now, it’s like it’s not getting handed to us on a silver platter,” Shaddix said. “So, like, when ‘Getting Away With Murder’ went platinum, it was like ‘… Yeah!’ I’ve got that one hanging right in my living room. Because ‘Getting Away With Murder’ was the record we had to work hardest for, you know? We really got back the confidence of our band again.”
The band moved into the famed Paramour Mansion in the Hollywood Hills for three months to record its new album, and it was an experience like no other.
“It was just one of the most chaotic times, personally, the band has ever had,” Shaddix said. “My drummer was going through divorce, so he was just lost in a pile of cocaine and hookers. My bass player was going through a separation with his wife, and my guitar player’s wife was pregnant and having a baby.
“And I was just eating space cakes like candy, pills like candy. I was losing my mind a little bit.
“I’m like the sponge, I just soak it all up. But I think that chaos amongst us and between us worked its way into the music and it just became our salvation, because our lives were just so out of control.”
Now Shaddix and the guys get to return to their favorite place: the stage.
“I’m a junkie for getting on stage,” Shaddix said. “I don’t just, like, enjoy it. I need it. If I don’t have it – like right now I’ve been home for three weeks – I’m like a caged animal.”
Reporter Victor Balta: 425-339-3455 or vbalta@heraldnet.com.
Devin DeHaven/ Geffen Records
Papa Roach – guitarist Jerry Horton, bassist Tobin Esperance, singer Jacoby Shaddix and drummer Dave Buckner – performs tonight in Seattle.
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