On Monday, May 2, hometown heroes Deftones announced a Sacramento show at Ace of Spades on Tuesday, June 14 that will benefit Chi Cheng, the band’s injured bass player who is currently under the direct care of the International Brain Research Foundation in New Jersey for injuries he sustained from a horrific car accident in late 2008. As you can imagine, Cheng’s medical bills are not cheap, so every little bit helps. Buy a ticket and watch some rock for a good cause! Also performing at the benefit show will be none other than The Dillinger Escape Plan! Hit up Aceofspadessac.com for more info and to buy tickets. To learn more about Cheng and his progress toward recovery, visit Oneloveforchi.com

Dance Gavin Dance moves past another bout of offstage controversy and releases epic new album

Considering everything Dance Gavin Dance has been through (or has put itself through, depending upon how you look at it), Downtown Battle Mountain II is a fitting title for the band’s latest album. Released March 8, 2011 it sees the band pick up where it left off after its arguably most successful effort, 2007’s Downtown Battle Mountain. Five of the band’s original members–guitarist Will Swan and drummer Matt Mingus welcomed back bassist Eric Lodge and powerhouse vocal duo Jon Mess and Jonny Craig in 2010–reunited to enter the studio late last year. Despite their years apart, DGD’s put forth similarly remarkable results as they had in the past, in more ways than one.

“Writing started in the fall of last year around September,” says vocalist Jon Mess from San Antonio, Texas, a day prior to the band’s scheduled performances at the 2011 South by Southwest Music Festival. “Prior to that, Will had already started writing new songs. All of November and December was the recording. Tracked drums, bass and guitar through all of November and some of December, and most of December was vocals. I was there for almost a month recording, so was Jonny.”

It may sound like things came together rather quickly. Mess didn’t rejoin the band until summer 2010. His arrival was quickly followed by a tour and soon after the recording process for Downtown Battle Mountain II began. However, for Mess, it seemed much more laid-back as compared to when the band hit the studio for Downtown Battle Mountain, which was recorded in just two weeks.

“On this one [the sequel], we had two months,” Mess explains. “Last time we were in this shitty hotel, and it was freezing cold. I think I was a little sick then, too. This time we were in this house, and we had all this time. It was a lot more relaxed and there wasn’t as much time pressure–at least for me. Jonny came off a tour with Emarosa, so he came in a little later, but it was way more relaxed than prior experiences.”

Life in DGD post-recording has been anything but laid-back. Controversy sprang up once again surrounding Craig’s substance abuse. This time around, he allegedly defrauded his fans by offering to sell his Mac Book to his Twitter followers. When checks were sent, and no laptops were received, the band was once again forced to play damage control. Craig was sent into a seven-day detox program, which he just recently emerged from. Mess spoke with Submerge about DGD’s seemingly perpetual state of turmoil and Downtown Battle Mountain II, which, despite the all the backstage hullabaloo, is perhaps the brightest post-hardcore gem the band has produced to date.

I caught your recent Fuel TV performance. How did that go for you?
I was sick when we did it, so I wasn’t too happy with it. It was in Los Angeles. It was right before our first show. That was interesting. We had a studio audience there cheering and stuff. It was fun, I guess. I tried to have fun even though I was sick.

Was that a different experience for you guys?
Yeah. I’d never done that before. That was awkward. We had to do the songs multiple times and they came in with different angles. Afterwards they were shooting a comedy special with a bunch of people from VH1’s Best Week Ever–those different panelist shows where they have different comedians talking about stuff. A bunch of those people were there doing some little skits, and they asked DGD to be the backing band and play a little jazz riff. I don’t know where people can see that. It might be on Fuel. We’ll probably announce that when we find out.

You just came up with something off the cuff?
Yeah, they wanted us to play some kind of jazz, walking bass line–little flow thing that the comedians could do their little skit over. The guys came up with something pretty quick, and it ended up sounding pretty cool.

On the new album, did you and Jonny collaborate on lyrics or did you mostly write separately?
We talked about some themes, but it was mostly separate. A very small percentage of the lyrics go together. It was more of a scattered thing. That’s been our style since the beginning.

What sort of themes did you discuss? What were you personally trying to express on this record?
I like to write about all sorts of different things–snippets, fragments of ideas or dreams I have, various little stories. I kind of break them apart and put them together in different songs. One line might relate to another song later, so it’s not a cohesive body of material per song, more fragments of things that range from talking about food to being mad about something. Broad topics–nothing real specific. I don’t want to pigeonhole into having any limitations on what I want to write about it.

You and Jonny have radically different vocal styles, is that also the case lyrically, and is it difficult to get them to mesh from song to song? Is that something you work on closely together?
I think as long as the delivery is good, and you’re hitting the right notes and it’s flowing well, then the lyrical content doesn’t have to mesh in that sort of sense. First we go for the musicality–something that’s melodic or rhythmic or exciting in terms of phrasing and rhyming rather than we need to have these lyrics go together or we need a concept. That comes second.

There definitely seems to be a lot of hip-hop influence in your delivery this time around. You have this growling sort of rap cadence going on in a lot of the songs. Is that something you’ve been working on a lot on this record?
Yeah that’s definitely intended. I like all my parts to rhyme, and when I write them, I think of them as sort of a rap, like if you could rap that part, it would still fit. I’m not into so much the long, drawn-out, heavy screams over the entire thing. I’m more interested in trying to make it not necessarily as complicated as possible, but as unique and interesting that I can think of. It does come across it sounding like a rap because it pretty much is. It’s just a screamed voice rapping.

The record has gotten some good responses so far. Are you happy with the reviews or do you not bother reading those?
Yeah, I read the reviews. The one thing with some reviews is that people who write reviews are English majors, or they’re into writing and they’re not musicians themselves, so they sometimes clutter up the review with colorful verbiage or whatnot instead of actually giving content or criticizing or talking about different parts of the album. For the most part, it’s been good reviews, and I’ve liked what the people have said. Every review has something that I’ll read and I won’t understand how they perceive that about the album, but to each his own. I did watch this Youtube video of someone who hated the album, and his reasoning behind it, it was so funny because it was the antithesis of what Dance Gavin Dance is. The reasons he disliked everything was because, well, you really just don’t like what our band is about, not the album itself.

Jonny just got out of detox. How is everything going with that?
It’s going really well, actually, and I’m saying this as someone who’s not necessarily positive about the situation. He’s being really honest and real about it for once. It’s actually a little surprising to me. We’ll see how it keeps going. So far so good.

South by Southwest is basically a big party. Is that something you’re worried about as far as Jonny is concerned?
He’s doing Narcotics Anonymous. He’ll drink. He’s not getting wasted or anything, but if people are expecting him to not drink, I don’t think that’s what he’s doing currently. I’m assuming after this tour he could go into an actual 30-day program, which would be nice, instead of just a seven-day detox, because that’s not going to do it, obviously. Yeah, Austin’s going to be a huge party, but we’ve got our manager, label guy, all the people who are looking out for him are going to be there. I’m not saying we’re going to babysit him like a little kid, but at the same time we kind of are.

I read the interview you did with Alternative Press, and you later apologized to your old singer Kurt Travis and Jonny on Twitter for some of the comments you made. Given what you said that you’re not always the most positive about the situation, was it difficult for you to rejoin the band and get back into that frame of mind?
First off, that interview was a phone interview, and he relayed what I said in a sort of manner that wasn’t necessarily what I was saying. He asked me why Kurt got kicked out, and there was no real reason. I listed a bunch of reasons and he [the interviewer] picked the one about cigarettes… I said that Will and Matt said that, and then Will and Matt were like, “That’s not necessarily what we said. You spoke for us.” And I was like, “Sorry, I wasn’t trying to speak for you.” Me and Kurt are good friends, so I felt like saying, “Hey man, it came across incorrectly.” It made it look like I was divulging a story that wasn’t my business.

In regards to coming back, I was skeptical. Since I left the band, I reconnected with Jonny. We were skeptical of how the album would go down. We were just thinking, hopefully we’ll get the album recorded and see what happens from there. It wasn’t really a high-risk situation for me, because I could just do the record and if something went wrong, I could just go back to what I was doing before. There wasn’t really a lot to lose.

You mentioned the interviewer misconstrued what you said. Do you think that happens a lot regarding this band?
I think to an extent, yeah, and I think there are things that I said that I might not exactly feel, but I just said them at the time. I think that happens to everyone. It’s half and half. Some things get misconstrued, but that happens. Sometimes we feel optimistic about the situation, sometimes we feel pessimistic. If we were interviewed one day, there might be different responses. I’m not saying we’re bipolar or anything, just normal changes of emotions that people have.

Dance Gavin Dance’s Downtown Battle Mountain II is available now through Rise Records. The band is also currently on a U.S. tour with I Wrestled a Bear Once, In Fear and Faith and others. The tour will bring DGD and company to Ace of Spades in Sacramento on April 8, 2011.

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.

The club formerly known as Empire, which for a brief time became Venue, has now morphed into Ace of Spades. They’ve got some impressive shows already lined up for early 2011, including Andre Nickatina, Rob Zombie, Papa Roach, As I Lay Dying and plenty more which you can see listed on page 17 of our current issue (#75). Check out www.aceofspadessac.com for tickets.