Track Fighter reap the benefits of 10 years of hard work

Ten years ago, Track Fighter frequented old venues like the Underground in Roseville, writing material at the time guitarist and only original member Dino Vidovich describes as “emo, metalcore shit.” On top of their dissatisfaction over the sound the band represented, members were at odds, forcing a new incarnation of Track Fighter to emerge with new members, including guitarist Mike House, vocalist TJ Chopelas, drummer Jeff Wathen and bassist Bobby Martin. Yet there’s always the aftermath when a band reforms under the same name. Or the “baggage” as the guys so candidly phrased it in front of Shine coffee house one afternoon. Keeping the same name was ultimately a unanimous decision and quickly motivated the band to start fresh with conviction and purpose. A new sound paired with an idea to expand their fan base nationally mixed with a lot of sacrifice catapulted the five friends into a direction many bands only dream about within the music industry. On June 1, 2012 Track Fighter signed with record label Silent Majority Group, a subsidiary of Warner Music Group. Owner of the label Jeff Hanson, is also the band’s manager and his roster of musical gems includes Creed, Paramore and Sevendust.

“I just have a lot of respect for what they’ve done on their own up until now,” says Hanson of his newest band’s work ethic. “They went out and toured around on their own dime and were able to make it happen just hustling. They did their own radio promotion. And when you find a band wanting to do it themselves, it makes you a little more apt to want to work for them and help them out. Track Fighter deserves their shot.”

And it doesn’t stop there. The guys are set to release their new, five-song EP at the Boardwalk on July 13, 2012 called Revenge, which Chopelas says, “Definitely has a story behind it.” A fitting title for a group who has won numerous awards and even contests presenting opportunities to perform alongside bands like As I Lay Dying, Deftones and more during the Taste of Chaos tour at Arco Arena six years ago. What was once a struggle under their original moniker is viewed between band members as accomplishment and motivation especially when the new EP is mentioned. Not only did members of Track Fighter set out to prove to Sacramento they work hard and are a force to be acknowledged, they ultimately wanted to prove to themselves they deserved a shot to tour internationally or perform alongside bands like Papa Roach or Oleander–and now, they have.

How did you feel learning Track Fighter is now represented by Silent Majority Group?
TJ Chopelas: Oh my goodness. I cried. It was just amazing. It was like vindication. We’ve worked so hard for it. I don’t think people understand that because we aren’t very public about the inner workings of our band. Now we finally have the chance to actually be successful at this. We all want to do it for a career and we’re finally getting the opportunity after all this time. It’s so gratifying. In a really weird, roundabout way, it has finally paid off.

Tell me about recording Revenge in Tennessee.
Dino Vidovich: We were like screw it. We’re going to do everything ourselves. Make the best record we can make on our own. We went out to Nashville, Tenn., and we recorded with Malcolm Springer and worked with him for the last year-and-a-half just getting this thing ready. He’s worked with Matchbox Twenty, Collective Soul [and] Fear Factory. With Matchbox Twenty, the first record they did he mixed and engineered.

How would you categorize the current sound of the band?
DV: It’s hard rock. We just try to appeal to more of a mainstream audience. It’s not all screams, but it’s not all pretty singing either. It’s a mixture of everything. There’s conviction behind it. This is just what we do and what we play and hopefully people like it.

Besides Deftones, what is another band you’ve performed alongside?
DV: We opened for Papa Roach at Ace of Spades last February. It was completely sold out over two nights. They wanted some local bands that were working hard and making it happen. I don’t even know those guys very well, but they picked us and it was this huge honor.

Where do you want music to take you?
DV: I want to play festivals in Germany, all over Europe. I want to come here and sell out Memorial Auditorium and just do the damn thing. Playing in front of 10 people, well, that shit’s fun, too. We have a lot of work to do, but it doesn’t seem like an impossible goal anymore.

What advice do you have for other Sacramento musicians striving to be represented?
DV: It has to be fun otherwise you’re not going to want to do the work for free. But, you have to understand there’s a lot of shit that you have to deal with that most people don’t want to deal with, and they wonder why things don’t happen. A lot of bands and people get discouraged. There’s a lot of hard work for free. For years. Treat your band as a business.

What are you most proud of after all the years of hard work in Track Fighter?
DV: As soon as we got the new lineup, regrouped and did everything new almost immediately we went out on a national tour. The first show was in Reno and then we went all the way to Utah, Colorado, Michigan [and] the South. We toured most of [2009 and 2010]. This is my first real band, and it’s just a matter of time now. We started over with a new incarnation of the band, and we had to win the respect back from everyone. We were going to overcome that, and we did.

Come snag a copy of Revenge at Track Fighter’s CD release show at the Boardwalk on Friday, July 13, 2012 with supporting performances by For All I’ve Done, Overwatch and more. Doors open at 6:30 p.m. with advance tickets at $10 or at the door for $12. The show is all ages.

Papa Roach’s Jacoby Shaddix is addicted to bringing the rock

Love ‘em or hate ‘em, there is no denying that Papa Roach has earned their rank as one of the most successful bands to come from the Sacramento region. They’ve sold upwards of 10 million records worldwide, have toured the globe for over a decade playing venues packed with adoring fans and have truly lived the rock ‘n’ roll lifestyle. But for every high point, there’s been a low. Be it battles with their record label or battles within the band itself, Papa Roach has shed its fair share of blood, sweat and tears, most notably when they parted ways with long-time drummer Dave Buckner in 2008. It wasn’t a smooth split. Buckner, who in the early ‘90s co-founded the band with vocalist Jacoby Shaddix, filed suit against the band saying that they owed him money. They ultimately settled out of court. Papa Roach has since continued on with new drummer Tony Palermo of the San Diego rock group Unwritten Law.

Through all the ups and downs, there have been a number of things keeping P-Roach pushing ahead, Shaddix explained during a recent interview with Submerge. “I would say our relationship with our fan base, the kids that are coming out to the shows being affected by the music,” he said. “We’ve just got that drive inside of us as a band. We’ve got this heart that just fucking pops. It’s all we got and it’s all we need. We all are living this dream, which sometimes can seem like a nightmare, but I’d sound like a bitch if I were to complain. We just love it.”

As for the incalculable hardships that always seem to creep their way into the picture, Shaddix said that after a career like theirs, he and his crew are ready to take on anything. “It’s always a challenge. You’re always up against a challenge,” he said. “But the members of this band are always up for it. I think it makes it easier for us as time goes by too because we’ve just seen so many genres come and go and so many trends come and go.” He chuckles. “We almost came and went.”

In the following interview, we chat with Shaddix about his band’s deep Sacramento roots, how making music is like a drug, their plans for a new full-length record and more. Be sure to catch Papa Roach live in Sacramento for their first time in years when they headline Ace of Spades two nights in a row on Feb. 25 and 26, 2011.

What are some of the first thoughts that come to mind when you think back to Papa Roach’s humble beginnings when you were gigging in and around Sacramento all of the time? Do you ever trip out on how far you’ve come?
For me it’s a daily kind of realization, more so when I’m home around the people that I was with. Not only am I with my band on the road, but then it’s like we’ve got sound guys and light guys, a whole crew, you know? I never had that back in the day. Then I come home, and I’m back around my wife. She’s been with me since I had Papa Roach in the very beginning. We’re old school. We go through our old photos, and we see pictures of me and my wife and my band from way back in the day. My band was in my wedding way back. It’s a trip, you know, especially when I come back home.

I used to go watch you guys in the late ‘90s at this little club near where I grew up, the Gaslighter Theater in Gilroy, Calif. Do you remember that place? That was right on the brink of when you guys were getting the major label deal and whatnot I think.
Fuck yeah, dude! That was a really cool time for P-Roach.

I tripped out when talking to Eric Rushing, longtime Sacramento music enthusiast and promoter, the other day about that era of P-Roach because he was like, “Yeah those were my shows even down there. I was at most of those shows!”
Yeah for these upcoming shows that we’re doing in Sacramento, just to interject on that point, it’s kind of a full circle for us 10 years later. Eric and Brett [Bair] have been very successful. Brett used to manage Papa Roach; we split the sheets, we’re still OK, and we’re friends and such. But it’s cool to see that people who started in Sacramento are all still around here killing it. That’s even kind of why we wanted to put the type of bill together that we put together.

Yeah that’s cool. It’s all Sacramento cred-bands.
Yeah, bring it on home!

So the first night it’s Track Fighter, Will Haven and you guys. The second night it’s Lonely Kings, MC Rut and you guys. So many good Sacramento-based bands! I’m especially digging MC Rut lately. They’ve got a crazy work ethic. Are you familiar?
Fuck yeah, dude. That record is one of my favorites. I mean you’ve got to work hard in this business no matter what. If you want to make it, you’ve got to go in and slug it out in the trenches and build a fan base by playing rock shows. That’s the proving ground for rock music is touring. If you come with a hot song for a minute, that’s all good, but can you go out and tour and pack houses and rock audiences throughout America? Not just like San Francisco and New York, I’m talking, like America, you know what I mean?

Bringing it back to Sacramento for a second, don’t you guys own a studio space downtown? What’s that space all about?
Yeah right now it’s just pretty much essentially a demo studio for Papa Roach, and we’ll have some bands go in there. Like Dance Gavin Dance is going in a few days. They’ll be in there making some noise. Michael Rosen, he used to run out of J Street Recorders, Brian Wheat’s studio, he’s been bringing down some of his gear. He’s got really good gear, and he’s pretty much running it like a proper studio at times with bands. So that’s cool as well. We just don’t want it to collect dust while we’re out on the road.

Must be nice to just to get new riffs and song ideas recorded fast?
Yeah, exactly. I just got a new jam from Tobin [Esperance, bass] today actually. He programmed it on his computer, did the beats himself. There’s no guitar on it yet. It’s just keyboard sounds right now, but it’s like Papa Roach meets…I don’t know, it’s real good though.

So it’s sounding like there’s going to be another full-length ready for release sometime when? Next year?
Pretty much what we’re doing is this, Doomsday Radio, 2012, Papa Roach.

Oh really? I didn’t see that anywhere in any of my research! Is that a working title?
Yup. Working title, Doomsday Radio. There you go, print it.

Throughout the years Papa Roach has morphed quite a bit musically; it always seems like you’re progressing your sound. Can you talk a little about the many phases of your band?
I think for us it’s always been, “Go where the music takes us.” That’s the goal with Papa Roach: If it moves us, we think it will move our fans, and sometimes that’s true and sometimes it’s not. I think more times than not it has moved our fans. That progression that you speak of, we’re still in it. The track that Tobin just sent me, I was like, “Oh shit here we going again, we’re flippin’ it up.” But I’m into it, man. Music is this drug, and you want to try all different types of them. It’s like sex, you know, it’s like you do it the same way over and over and it just gets boring, so you’ve got to flip it up, put a wig on her, hit it doggy style. Switch it up.

What sort of vibe does the new song that Tobin sent you have? I read somewhere that Jerry [Horton, guitar] said the new record will have more electronic elements or something like that?
Oh yeah, for sure. It’s like somewhere between Prodigy meets Nine Inch Nails meets Papa Roach. It’s still got our sound to it, though, like when you hear the groove and the vibe, it’s still us, it’s just sometimes we want to use that texture in the music. I think we started to dabble in it with songs like “Burn” and “Kick in the Teeth” [off of 2010’s Time for Annihilation…On the Record and On the Road]. I think that it’s fun and our fans are receptive to it, and we like it because it opens up a whole new floodgate for us. I think it can make our music more beat-driven at times, which will be fun.

What’s one big goal of yours for the next record?
I don’t want to make a record that sounds like I’m a 35-year-old man, because I am a 35-year-old man, or I’m going to be, but I’m an exciting motherfucker when it comes to making music. I don’t want to make music that sounds compromised. That’s the goal for the next record is to kind of–and we’ve discussed this together–is to make a record that’s a little bit more experimental at times and a little bit more progressive. The last couple records have been song, song, song, etc. If you look back at one of our first releases, Old Friends from Young Years, there was a whole concept behind the way the record was laid out. I think we want to do something like that again.

Like as far as flow and transition tracks and whatnot?
Exactly, just to kind of dig deeper and make it more of an experience this time around. Not really a concept record, but something that is more than just song, song, song, song.

Even to the way that we’re going to do music videos in the future and the way that the band is imaged as well. For us, it’s a goal to kind of evolve all elements of what we do just a bit.

You might be getting older, but I sense that you are just as hungry as ever to succeed.

Yeah, look at the Chili Peppers. You don’t think of it that way. You think it’s just timeless. That’s what we’re going for. We’ve got a long, long road ahead of us. This is just another step in the path for us.

Papa Roach has heavy staying power in the music business, doesn’t it? It’s been so many years, but you guys remain relevant.
We definitely don’t take that shit for granted. But the fight is not over, dude. You look at a band like Green Day, they made that record, you know what I’m saying? For us, we still feel like we have that record in us. We still feel like we haven’t made the record of our career. Maybe it’s just that junkie inside me.

Papa Roach will play live in Sacramento for the first time in years at Ace of Spades (1417 R Street) on Feb. 25 and 26, 2011. Tickets are available at Dimple Records, The Beat, Armadillo (in Davis) and online at aceofspadessac.com. Grab their latest album, Time for Annihilation…On the Record and On the Road, a collection of nine live renditions of P-Roach hits and five newly recorded tracks, at record stores everywhere or through any major online retailer.