During an appearance on the latest episode of the “Hardcore Humanism With Dr. Mike” podcast, PAPA ROACH‘s Jacoby Shaddix, who stopped drinking alcohol in 2012, revealed that he recently had a slip-up on his path to sobriety. “Just to be straight with you, during the pandemic, I fell off the wagon and I was smoking pot,” the singer said (as transcribed by BLABBERMOUTH.NET). “And I just got caught up and depressed and just stuck in this space. And I wasn’t working an active program of recovery, and I found myself with a joint in my mouth, you know? And yeah, it’s legal in California, and yes, it is medicine to some people, but it’s not to me. Anytime I put any kind of mind-altering substance in my body, there’s this veil that gets dropped on me and just kind of isolates me from the world, isolates me from the potential of who I can become and puts me in a space of inaction. And that’s not a good place for me to be.
“So I got honest with my brothers in recovery,” he continued. “I was, like, ‘Hey, man, this what I’ve been up to. I need help, dude. I need help getting myself back out of this.’ Because I knew I was getting closer. I told my guys, ‘Well, at least I didn’t drink.’ And they were, like, ‘Well, yeah, that’s good. That is good, Cobe. But you were headed straight towards it, homey. That’s where you were going.’ And that was a really hard realization but a good realization for me to have, is to really understand I was feeding the bad wolf. I was just doing the wrong things.”
Shaddix went on to say that February 19 marked nine years since he last drank alcohol. “That’s not my sobriety date that I hold, but it’s nine years for me, and I’m fucking proud of that,” he said. “It’s given me an opportunity to just try to become fully human, because I was straight subhuman as an alcoholic, as a drinker, and it was real messy. So just to be straight with you, I’ve got a new sobriety date, and I’m okay with that.”
In a 2019 interview with Kerrang! magazine, Shaddix revealed that the struggle with alcohol had been in his family for generations, continually destroying lives and relationships.
“I remember my mom telling me when I was a kid that I had to be careful, as alcoholism runs deep in both sides of the family,” he said. “I should have heeded the warnings, but when you’re young and restless, you don’t give a fuck, so I went for it. And lo and behold, it started damaging relationships, and my health and drive. I tried for a long time to put the bottle down. I got kicked out of the house and it looked like my wife and I were going to split up. There came a point when I realized enough was enough, and now I haven’t picked up the bottle in seven years. It’s dramatically affected my life in so many positive ways, giving me the opportunity to be a good husband and father, as well as a kickass frontman. I watch all the fucking VH1 documentaries about musicians dying, and having friends die from this shit, I’m lucky that I got out alive. I can’t say I’ve been perfect — I’ve slipped up and smoked weed a few times, but haven’t had any alcohol, cocaine, pills or anything else.”
When asked if he ever feared that the need to stay sober might have meant he had to stop touring, Jacoby said: “I think that’s why I kept falling off the wagon. Before we put out ‘Getting Away With Murder’ [2004], that was the first time I tried to put the bottle down. But on the road, I was apart from my sober friends, and I’d be on the bus with everyone drinking. So I’d end up in the back lounge, secretly chugging vodka. That was tough for years. Now I’ve been relieved of the obsession — I look back like, ‘That’s a young man’s game.’ Plus, I want to stay pretty.”
Shaddix recently told Germany’s Rock Antenne that PAPA ROACH‘s follow-up to 2019’s “Who Do You Trust?” album will not be released until the coronavirus pandemic has subsided.
In January, 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”, is due on March 19 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 is helmed by Jason Evigan.
In December, PAPA ROACH released a five-song EP, “20/20”, featuring “new takes on old jams,” including “Last Resort” and “Scars”.
