This past Friday (May 31st, 2024), Papa Roach‘s frontman Jacoby Shaddix and guitarist Jerry Horton graced “The Lounge” at Chicago’s alternative rock station Q101 for an acoustic set and Q&A session. The event was live-streamed, and you can catch the entire session below.
During the Q&A, Jerry Horton reflected on their favorite tour experiences (as transcribed by Blabbermouth): “I would say the Korn tour. ‘Cause we were young. We did Warped Tour in 2000, and then right after that, we did Korn. And they took us under their wing. They were, like, ‘Grasshopper, we’ll show you how to do it.’ And they treated us great, and they set the bar for how we treated bands when we took them out.”
Jacoby Shaddix added to this sentiment by highlighting how accommodating Korn was, “They were just, like, ‘Turn up as loud as you want. You can use the stage however you want. Just get up there and throw down.’ And some bands aren’t like that. They wanna squash your sound. They wanna, ‘Oh, you can’t use this part of the stage.'”
When pressed to name bands that were less accommodating, Shaddix did not hold back, recounting an incident from their 2008 tour with Mötley Crüe during ‘Crüe Fest.’ “I’ll tell you right now. We did a tour with Mötley Crüe. And they had these wings. It was ‘Crüe Fest‘. It was sick, dude. And I had befriended the guys in the band. And I didn’t know Vince very well. And there were these wings out on the side, and they were, like… The stage manager comes over and he goes, ‘You can’t use the wings.’ I’m, like, ‘Don’t tell me not to do it, ’cause I will.’ So I’m out there on the wing doing my thing. And it’s, like, halfway through the tour, and I continue to not listen. And I’m getting calls from management and this and that.”
“And we get off and we’re in — it was in Ohio somewhere. And I remember getting off stage I’m all sweaty. I’m walking back to the bus. And you never see Vince and Nikki together on tour. And these two dudes are walking side by side, and they stop and they’re, like, ‘Hey, how’d the show go?’ And I was, like, ‘Oh, it was banging, dude. What’s up?’ Vince looks at me, and he goes, ‘You know, next time you walk out on that wing over there, you could just walk right off this tour.’ And I didn’t skip a beat, and I just looked at him. I said, ‘So there is a fucking way off this tour.’ I just walked away. And I’m, like, ‘Man…’ I love the dudes in Mötley Crüe, but it was, like, ‘How are you gonna try to tell somebody to live by rules? You’re fucking Mötley Crüe. Give me a break.’ Like, nah, dude. You can’t. Nah, it’s, like, it just doesn’t work.” Shaddix remembered.
Despite the tension during the tour, Shaddix emphasized that the relationship with Mötley Crüe remained intact. “And then they had us back on the second ‘Crüe Fest‘. So it didn’t burn the bridge,” he mentioned. “It was a good time, man. They even had me on a song of theirs, ‘Saints Of Los Angeles’. I got to go up and sing with them and almost get burnt by pyro every night. I’m like, ‘Where is it coming from?’ I’m like, ‘Guess, kid.'”
