PAPA ROACH bassist Tobin Esperance spoke to Alicia Atout of Knotfest about the band’s upcoming follow-up to 2019’s “Who Do You Trust?” album, tentatively due in early 2022.
“Originally, we weren’t even gonna put out a record; we were just gonna adopt this new thing of just putting out songs whenever we felt like it,” he said (as transcribed by BLABBERMOUTH.NET). “But we wrote so much within that — especially when COVID hit, we were cooped up, and the only thing we really could do was just write music and be creative and stuff. So we just kept getting in the studio and the songs started building up. We were, like, ‘Let’s not be too precious about everything. Let’s put out pretty much everything that we’ve written. Let’s just put it out on a record.’ And that’s what we’re doing. But we narrowed it down to 14 songs. I think we probably kicked, like, maybe two or three to the curb… But still, 14 songs is a lot, especially for the attention span of people these days.”
This past October, PAPA ROACH released a new single called “Dying To Believe”. The track, produced by WZRD BLD a.k.a. Drew Fulk (ICE NINE KILLS, MOTIONLESS IN WHITE, BULLET FOR MY VALENTINE), is a call for human unity and harmony, despite any differences people have.
“Dying To Believe” arrived weeks after the release of PAPA ROACH‘s previous two singles: “Swerve”, which was a collaboration with FEVER 333 frontman Jason Aalon Butler and Los Angeles rapper Sueco; and “Kill The Noise”. All three tracks are expected to appear on PAPA ROACH‘s upcoming eleventh studio album, due via the band’s own record company, New Noize Records, Inc., under exclusive license to ADA.
Back in May, PAPA ROACH singer Jacoby Shaddix told the FM99 WNOR radio station about the band’s decision to release its next LP through its own label: “We’re using our knowledge over the years that we’ve accumulated with our team and ourselves to take the reins and run with this one ourselves. And it’s very exciting. It’s kind of scary. ‘Cause you don’t know. But guess what? I just feel like we can’t fail… I just go, we’ve been doing this; we know a lot; we know what our fans want; we know what we want; we know that we are inspired; we know that we are passionate; and we know we’ve got a fanbase that loves us. Let’s do this. And I go, ‘You know what? I think we can do this.’ And so we made the jump.”
In January 2021, a snippet of a brand new PAPA ROACH song called “Stand Up” was included in commercial for Ultimate Fighting Championship‘s (UFC) partnership with ESPN.
PAPA ROACH‘s second greatest-hits collection, “Greatest Hits Vol. 2: The Better Noise Years”, was released in March on Better Noise Music. “Greatest Hits Vol. 2 – The Better Noise Years” includes 12 of the band’s top 10 hits released between 2010 to 2019 as well as three previously unreleased remixes and two unreleased acoustic recordings recorded live at the YouTube Studios in New York City.
“Who Do You Trust?” was released in January 2019. The disc was produced by Nick “RAS” Furlong and Colin Cunningham except for the song “Top Of The World”, which was helmed by Jason Evigan.
In December 2020, PAPA ROACH released a five-song EP, “20/20”, featuring “new takes on old jams,” including “Last Resort” and “Scars”.
Photo credit: Darren Craig
