Interview
Interview
My Greatest Hits: Jerry Horton of Papa Roach
The Papa Roach guitarist picks his career highlights, from performing to 370,000 people in Poland to collaborating with Carrie Underwood
Very much alive and kicking, nu-metal seems to be unstoppable. Deftones are trending on TikTok. KoRn are finally headlining Download Festival. Hence, six years on from their last UK headline tour, it’s only right that Papa Roach got involved and booked their most ambitious shows to date.
Kicking off at London’s iconic OVO Arena Wembley on 7 February, the California hard rock titans are set to embark on a triple-header of arena shows, heading to Nottingham’s Motorpoint Arena the following day before concluding in Liverpool’s M&S Bank Arena.
To whet fans’ appetites, the band recently unleashed a rampant new single ‘Even If It Kills Me’, their first in three years. Harkening back to their roots with cutting-edge production, its chorus is built to exist in an arena, before the song hits another stratosphere by way of a cataclysmic breakdown.
The man responsible for playing such riffs? Guitarist Jerry Horton, the only remaining original member of Papa Roach alongside vocalist Jacoby Shaddix and bassist Tobin Esperance. Here he unpicks the band’s top ten career highlights, from rubbing shoulders with pop stars at the MTV VMAs to selling out Wembley Arena for the first time.
Headlining the VANS Warped Tour in 2000
“We got signed, did the record [debut album Infest], and went on tour in a van, which is kind of what we expected – playing to some shit clubs. Then we got on Warped Tour, and we went out on the circus and got to meet a lot of our influences, people that we looked up to. We started on the third stage, playing at noon. By the end of the second week, it had gotten so crazy that they had to put us on the headlining stage. We ended up playing alongside Green Day and NOFX. It was like these kids came out of nowhere, while other bands have been slogging it out for 10 to 15 years – where did they come from? Why do they deserve to be here? We got a little ribbing from [NOFX frontman] Fat Mike, but it seemed like it was all good fun. They welcomed us, and it was a blast. It was definitely a moment in time, never to be reproduced or re-experienced”
Supporting KoRn on tour
“KoRn were just past ‘big brother’ status for us, we really looked up to them. They were innovators in the genre, and they were massive. Not only that, but they treated us the best that any band had ever treated us then or since. They took us under their wing and said, ‘OK, we’ll show you the way, grasshopper.’ We had heard stories of bands from the ’80s and ’90s. [giving support acts] tiny bits of lights, or they make their sound a lot quieter, [like it’s a] competition. KoRn went 180 degrees and said, ‘Whatever you want, bring it’… it really gave us that confidence, feeling that we were accepted and they were in our corner.”
Do you still keep in touch?
“I connect most with Brian [Welch, guitarist], we go back and forth on Instagram quite a bit. He moved to Nashville maybe 10 years ago, and I moved to Nashville three years ago. It’s funny, because I would constantly say, ‘I’m home from tour, let’s get together,’ and he would be leaving! We would see each other at the airport. And then last year, he moved to LA… here we go again.”
Playing at the MTV VMAs on the Radio City Music Hall marquee
“It wasn’t just rock bands at the VMAs – it was the pop era, and it was insane. To be in a room, look over your shoulder and go, ‘There’s Rihanna’ or ‘There’s Justin Timberlake’, it was insane. When we were coming up, you could only be seen with – to be taken seriously – your peers. Anyone in any other genre, you had to keep your distance – that would ruin your credibility. But nowadays, everybody mixes it up, so it’s all good.
“I don’t think that the VMAs crowd was ready for what we were there to give them. It’s a legendary building in the middle of New York, it was an incredible experience. I think that was one of our first TV things. So we didn’t really understand that we kind of got to try and sound good as well, so we were just kind of going for it.”
Does that mean your 2024 collaboration with Carrie Underwood would have been out of the question two decades ago?
“We would have looked at each other from a distance!”
Covering ‘Sweet Emotion’ to celebrate Aerosmith being chosen as the MTV Icon
“We were given a list of potential songs to do by MTV, and we chose ‘Sweet Emotion’. Aerosmith are a massive band, but all the other bands that were there – I remember specifically that Metallica were there. I learned to play guitar by listening to Metallica songs, and it was kind of bittersweet, because not too long before that, we had read in a guitar magazine that Kirk [Hammett, guitarist] was [calling us] a cheap rip off of Iron Maiden. I was just like, ‘Well, that sucks’, coming from one of my biggest influences. But all that to say that we met the other guys in Metallica. James [Hetfield, frontman] was super cool, and then Lars [Ulrich, drummer] came up and said ‘Hey man, I’m sorry about our asshole guitar player. Nice to meet you!’ He didn’t have to, but he was gracious enough to do that – I thought that was really cool.”
Performing to 370,000 people at Woodstock Poland in 2010
“It’s hard to put into words. When we got the offer, the deal sheet said that it had a capacity of 500,000 – we thought it’s probably 50,000 and a typo. We drove through some forest, and we saw people spilling out of the tents onto the roadway – it looked a mess, really. We’re thinking, ‘What are we doing here?’ We’re the only American band on the show. It was a two-storey stage, and there was no barricade. At this point, we’re thinking, there’s nobody that’s going to show up.
“About 30 minutes before our set time, it was like a battle scene in Lord Of The Rings, where people came out of the forest in waves, down into this bowl. It was 370,000 people. We hadn’t mentally prepared for that… I remember my knees going a little bit wiggly for a second. There were two parallel walls of death – 100 feet long – and 20 pits going on at the same time. The next day, we flew to do Download Festival. On literally any other day, we would have looked out at 60,000 people and thought, ‘This is awesome’…”
Receiving the Public Education Lifesaver Award for our work with the American Foundation for Suicide Prevention (AFSP)
“Jacoby is so honest about his personal experiences and using the music as therapy, so we got a lot of fans expressing to us the gratitude they had, that the music was there for them. It wasn’t always our intention to do this, but that really just pushed us to take it a step further… let’s talk about [mental health] and bring it to light. We want to help people and bring resources to as many people as we can. It’s not a hard thing for us to do, and it helps more people than we can on our own. Half of our publishing money [from 2024 single ‘Leave A Light On’] is going straight to AFSP. That was a decision that we made together, and it’s something that can carry on when we’re not here anymore.”
Being nominated for three Grammys
“It was incredible. For a band like us, who, in general, is probably looked at as a legacy band, to still be doing it 25 years later, and to be recognised in some way is gratifying. It’s something that we had hoped for when we were kids, still doing it as a career band and making music that moves the needle. We didn’t win anything, but, you know, it is what it is. We’ll see what happens in the future!”
Working with Carrie Underwood on ‘Leave A Light On’
“Someone told us that they were listening to her station on SiriusXM, where she was talking about being a fan of the band. Apparently she loves a lot of metal, she likes Slipknot. We had talked about other people that we wanted to try and collaborate with for the song, but nothing really stuck. We did a tour with Shinedown, and she came out to the [Nashville] show, and we met her and her husband, and they’re super cool people. After that was when our management teams got together and proposed it.
“She heard the song and she loved it, and she did the recording – Jacoby was there for it. The coolest part, for me, was when she was doing press for [another project], and she was talking about the song – you could tell that she was genuinely excited about it, and happy that she got to do it.”
Going Gold with ‘Help’ and ‘Born For Greatness’
“Crooked Teeth was the album where we got in with some younger guys. This was after doing a long string of albums with established rock producers, which was cool, but we felt like we were being put through a machine. Been there, done that. We didn’t want that for ourselves anymore. We wanted to work with people who were excited about experimentation. Nick Furlong and Colin Brittain were the two guys that we leaned on to produce the whole album.
“It was like it was 2000 again, we had no rules. Even if somebody had an idea that they thought was stupid, we would explore it. That whole time was such a rebirth for us. Those two songs in particular were the best of the bunch – the hooks were undeniable and those two came together super fast. The fact that we got gold singles was at that point [in our career], 17 years later, was awesome.”
Selling out Wembley Arena for the first time
“There’s been so many artists who have filmed there – ‘Live At Wembley’ is something that is in the fabric of rock ‘n’ roll. It’s almost the Madison Square Garden of the UK. A lot of our peers have played there, it’s something that we’ve wanted to do, but never really had the reach to do. The timing is right, and we said ‘OK, we’re gonna go for it’ and see what happens. We’re grateful, excited and we can’t wait to do it. We’re ready to step up and bring the show that we’ve always wanted to bring.”
Papa Roach tour the UK from 7-9 February. Find remaining tickets here
Photo by Mike Lewis Photography/Redferns