Jacoby Shaddix ‘Hated’ That Papa Roach Were Lumped in With Nu-Metal

Yet again, we have another musician who's admitted that they didn't like the idea of being labeled "nu-metal" back in the day — Jacoby Shaddix of Papa Roach, whose brand new album Ego Trip is out today (April 8).

Papa Roach's self-released debut album Old Friends From Young Years came out in 1997, just as bands such as Korn and Faith No More were beginning to make waves and shift the direction of what was considered popular in heavy music. Their 2000 follow-up Infest became a massive commercial success as a result of this musical shift, which saw Slipknot, Limp Bizkit, System of a Down and many others benefit from as well.

“I hated it, I couldn’t stand it,” Shaddix expressed to Metal Hammer of the label. “Everyone was trying to compare me to Fred Durst and I was like, ‘I am so much more fucking punk rock than this dude. He’s on the hip-hop side.’ No disrespect to Fred. I think he’s fucking great at what he does, and I dig him.”

However, as the vocalist has reflected on the time, he realized it was another musical revolution, as so many others had happened before it.

“It was a new interpretation of what metal music could be and we were pulling inspiration from all over the place. Ministry were an influence, Faith No More were an influence. They were like the OGs of nu metal. They hate to own it, but they are. Mike Patton, you fucking motherfucker, you started it.”

For some reason, it seems that a lot of musicians from that era were perplexed by being placed in the same category. Disturbed's David Draiman is another example.

"The nu metal thing I never got because we never rap, we’ve never had a turntable. All of the elements that are parts of being a nu metal band were never part of what we did," the frontman argued to Music Connection. "But we came up at the same time as those guys were enjoying a tremendous amount of success so we got slapped with that label."

Incubus vocalist Brandon Boyd even confessed that he was offended by the notion of being considered nu metal.

"It felt a little strange to be associated with some of the bands around that time who were very deeply misogynistic in their content and vibrationally kind of violent," he remarked to Kerrang!. "So for years it hurt our feelings that we were associated with so many of these bands who we felt we had no relationship with or similarity to."

If the members of Alice in Chains, Soundgarden, Pearl Jam and Nirvana were able to get over all being placed in the same confines, these guys eventually will too (hopefully).