Charting the Meteoric Rise of Sacramento’s LAUNCH Festival

When the Canadian duo Chromeo unleashed their brand of electronica-imbued funk on the masses at Cesar Chavez Plaza last year, it was like a shockwave of electrofunk energy surged through the crowd, sending thousands into a music-induced trance as the hoard heaved in time with the synth-laden beats.

It was at that moment that Sacramento’s LAUNCH Music Festival appeared poised to join the music festival glitterati. And now, after five years on the summer music festival circuit, the little festival that could appears ready to take on the mainstream.

“The basic ethos [of LAUNCH] is celebrating the overlaps of art, architecture, fashion, music—music really being the backdrop of it all—and celebrating the creative culture,” says LAUNCH founder Michael Hargis. “And really, since we’ve grown into this, it’s really about creating a culture that keeps the local creators here in Sacramento.”

Hargis says LAUNCH was born out of a passion for all things creative and a commitment to expanding the reach of the Sacramento brand. Through his experience as an architect and fascination with the entirety of the local creative culture, Hargis’ “Why not here?” mentality is what inspired him to bring a little bit of the Coachella magic, a source of his inspiration for LAUNCH, back to Sacramento.

With major buzz surrounding the event, LAUNCH has also become a major talent magnet, bringing in acts that are blowing up on the national and international scene. Case in point: this year, Hargis is flying in Van She from Australia to complement this year’s already stellar lineup, which includes indie-rock powerhouse Imagine Dragons..

“This year…bands started coming to us,” says Greg Patterson, one of the LAUNCH partners and co-founder of the ticketing and concert logistics company Ground(ctrl). “So, Blonde Redhead is a prime example of where, it’s a band that I wouldn’t even have thought that we could have gotten, but their agent reached out to us.”

“This is the top agent, the owner of The Windish Agency, which is one of the biggest independent booking agencies,” Hargis adds. “He’s the owner and the personal contact for that band, [and he] reached out to us, and that’s kind of a big deal.”

In just five short years, LAUNCH has grown from a single-day event exhibiting the talents of local creative types to a few hundred attendees, to a multi-day, multi-venue collaboration of local and international artists exposing their talents to a few thousand voracious music, art, fashion and design enthusiasts. Proving that last year’s surging crowds wasn’t a fluke, Patterson says this year’s event is on track to sell as many tickets as it did last year. And with a budget in the high six-figures, you know this year’s event is going to bring it.

Riding the wave of success from 2012’s behemoth of an event, after which the festival was nominated for a 2012 V.I.B.E. (Visionary Innovators in Building Excellence) award by the Downtown Sacramento Partnership, the worlds of music, design and fashion blasts off again on Sept. 4. And its partners are convinced that this year’s festival will prove that Sacramento can hang with the festival big boys.

With the meteoric rise of the festival, Hargis realized that in order to really pull off an event that could top last year’s spectacle, a team of local producers, booking agents and technicians had to be employed. This year, Transmission Events is managing the fencing and some of the other logistics once managed by Hargis and crew. Eric Rushing, owner of Ace of Spades, took on the role of booking the bands. Rushing says the process of developing the lineup was like assembling a dream list of acts.

“We basically sat on a committee and kind of put together a bunch of acts that we’d like to see,” Rushing explains. “LAUNCH has a certain demographic and art about it that Michael really wants to bring across, so it started as more of an electronic and art festival and it’s kind of evolved a little bit, but [we’re] still keeping a lot of the creativity of the festival intact now that there are a lot more partners involved in the festival.”

Local multi-media company Ground(ctrl) also proved to be a major asset to the LAUNCH team, handling some of the other logistical details like ticket sales, website design and helping the LAUNCH team realize their staggering vision to transform the park into something that would top last year’s staging.

“You’re not going to believe you’re in Cesar Chavez Park,” says Patterson. “You’re not going to believe what you’re going to witness. It is going to be freaking incredible.”

From its humble beginnings, including a heavy personal investment from its founders—yes, even Hargis had to dip into his 401(k) to make it all happen—this year’s party in the park promises to deliver big.

“I feel like, from my perspective, it grew from a very organic, really small arts and fashion and music festival into a multi-day, multi-location festival,” Rushing says. “We have the MARRS location with the kick off on Wednesday, Thursday night we have a pre-party at Ace of Spades, Friday night we have the fashion show and then Saturday and Sunday we have the big blowout as well, and we have after-parties planned. It’s one of the biggest things Sacramento has ever seen when it comes to music in the inner city.”

So, if you think that you have to caravan down to the dust bowl that is Coachella or jet out to Austin for South by Southwest to see some of the best music acts to hit the scene, then think again, and prepare to unpack your bags, because LAUNCH is about to jump off, again.

2009

• In 2009, the inaugural Launch event featured local music heavyweights Sister Crayon, electronica maestro Tycho, family trio Dusty Brown, DJ Mike Diamond and Must.Not.Die.

• A contingent of out-of-town bands ripped through the Green Hotel enclave, including L.A. Riots, Wallpaper and Dances With White Girls.

• Set up like an interactive wonderland, the Greens was transformed into a three-stage, mid-century modern homage to Sacramento’s vibrant artistic community. The main stage, poolside deejay station and electro lounge provided booty-bumping grooves while the hotel rooms served as vignettes for vendors and artists to showcase their wares and talents. Adam Saake also helped plan
the event.

2010

• The fashion set included designs by several local design mavens, including Adrienne Cheng’s Reject Clothing line and the futuristic designs of Van Der Neer, Velvet Leaf and Artifacts.

• Invigorated by the success of Launch’s first year on the scene, Hargis set up shop at The Artisan Building, a premier, multi-use facility in Del Paso Heights.

• Live musical performances from visiting artists included a deejay set by The Faint’s alter ego, Depressed Buttons, out of Omaha, Neb.; Woodhands, an outfit out of Toronto specializing in ambient electro-pop tunes; Oakland’s HOTtub; and Los Angeles’ RESA.

• Bands representing Sacramento included The Generals; New Humans; Shaun Slaughter’s project, D.A.M.B.; Sea of Bees; DoomBird and Exquisite Corps.

• DJ sets throughout the night featured the turntable prowess of Jon Droll, Mike Diamond, Sex and Weight, DJ Whores and John Michael Michaels.

2011

• The runway oozed with styles from Krazy Mary’s boutique, R. Douglas Custom Clothiers, Van Der Neer, Fringe and YSJ Vintage.

• The spacious venue also provided ample gallery space to a slew of local and not-so-local artists, photographers, stylists and furniture designers, including Los Angeles-based illustrator, painter and digital artist Brady Tuazon, who also plays in the band RESA; Seattle’s John Horton and Joel Lee; ISO50’s Scott Hansen, aka Tycho; and Sacramento artist Alexa Wolfe.

• Completing the artistic circle, furniture designers David Tracy of Lego, Steve Hamm of Urban Design, Mike Whisten of 12mm Design, Marvin Maldonado of Inform Design, Scott Tiesing of Tiesing Design and Brian Fuller of Brian Fuller Design converged on the scene to display their creations.

• After Neon Indian unexpectedly bowed out of the 2011 Launch lineup, an unfettered Hargis forged on without ruffling a hair on his perfectly coiffed head and invited the reverb-laden Ganglians to join the bill when the festival returned to the Greens Hotel, billed as “Back to the Hotel.” At this point, local promoter Clay Nutting stepped in to help Hargis, and has contributed to the festival ever since.

• Music was front and center when Juli Lydell of the Dreaded Diamond opened the annual fete. The robust cast of musicians also included Chain Gang of 1974 (fresh from Lollapalooza), Sister Crayon, Who Cares, Little Foxes, Exquisite Corps, Favors, Evrika, Sam I Jam, Adam J and Taylor Cho.

• Swimming-pool shenanigans cooled down party-revelers and bathing beauties chilled out poolside while soaking in DJ sets by Mike Diamond, My Cousin Vinny and Jon Droll.

• Local vintage virtuosos Citizen Rosebud and Fringe boutique joined furniture designers Reclamation Art + Furniture and Tiesing Design.

2012

• In its fourth year, the Launch organizers unleashed a fury of events on the Sacramento scene by busting out the heavy guns and showcasing a selected discipline at different locations throughout the grid, concluding with an all-day music festival for its 2012 extravaganza.

• One of the festival’s highlights included a raucous performance by King Tuff at Harlow’s, with equally engaging performances by rockers Jaill and the Coathangers.

• The festival kicked off at Hot Italian with a pop-up shop by Model Citizens NYC, an independent collection of furniture and industrial designers. The crew over at Bows and Arrows then commandeered the reins with a screening of three independent silent films with original scores performed by live musicians.

• The ultimate block party at the MARRS building block erupted as Exquisite Corps set the corridor on fire with a free album-release party. Local architectural group SacDigiFab, longtime partners and collaborators with the Launch squad, created interactive installations constructed out of recycled cardboard that littered the street. The brew team at Ruhstaller was also on hand.

• The festival’s finale, at its new home in Cesar Chavez Plaza, brought the crowd of nearly 6,000 to its collective feet as Chromeo, Grouplove, Chk Chk Chk (!!!), DJ Shadow and others performed throughout the day.

LAUNCH kicks off Sept. 4, 2013 with LAUNCH X MARRS, a free block party at 20th Street between J and K, and features a kickass event every day of the week (LAUNCH X Party Sept. 5, LAUNCH X Fashion Sept. 6) before culminating in LAUNCH x Music at Cesar Chavez Plaza Sept. 7 and 8. All events are all-ages. For tickets, the full lineup and more info, visit LAUNCHsacramento.com.

Horseneck: Born out of Booze and Ready to Rock Your Face

Most of us would agree that bars are wonderful places. They’re great places to go with your friends or significant others, or to meet new friends or significant others (at least significant for a night or so). And, hey, if you go alone, your bestest buddies Jack Daniels and John Jameson are already there waiting for you. Besides sources of booze, bars can also be houses of inspiration. Artists, writers and musicians have flocked to bars for as long as they’ve existed hoping to find their muse—either at the bottom of a glass, or hidden in the cacophony of overheard conversation. As Sacramento heavy music purveyor Anthony Paganelli tells us, his newest band Horseneck owes a lot to local bars.

He had known bandmate Lennon Hudson through their mutual manager, Eric Rushing. Paganelli and Hudson were both entrenched in the music scene as members of other bands (Paganelli as part of Tenfold, Shortie and Will Haven, and Hudson as part of Still Life Projector). The two got together one night at Golden Bear with Hudson’s longtime friend Matthew Ison, and the conversation eventually turned toward the three playing music together.

“We weren’t doing anything else but drinking and having fun,” Paganelli says. “We were like, ‘Might as well start jamming, kill time that way.’ We started a band. It wasn’t this band. Then we changed it to Horseneck and it just felt right.

“Will Haven wasn’t really doing much. They’d put out a record and did a little bit of touring in Europe, and that was it,” he goes on to say. “I was getting really bored and I wanted to start something new. I had all these riffs and ideas, so I called Matt and Lennon and said let’s do this.”

Paganelli says that he formed Horseneck because “there weren’t very many heavy bands out in Sacramento that I could relate to.” A counterpoint to the many scream-o and metalcore bands on the scene, Paganelli wanted Horseneck to hearken back to a different, blues-based era of metal.

“I was drawing influences from all the classic rock like Led Zeppelin and stuff like that…blues-driven rock stuff,” says Paganelli, who says he first started playing blues when he picked up the guitar, inspired by the music his father would listen to, before he got into punk and metal later in life.

The music got heavier, though, when the band decided to put Paganelli behind the mic. He says Horseneck felt right as a power trio, and they really didn’t want to go out and find a vocalist that would possibly stir the pot.

“None of us could really sing, so I just grabbed a mic and started yelling and it just worked,” Paganelli explains. “We became this heavy band, but that was what we wanted anyway. We wanted to do what everyone else wasn’t doing.”

Their vibe must have been right as the band released two EPs in 2013. The first, Belly Full of Blood, is the heavier of the two—a low, throbbing, grungy, Melvins-esque five-song EP with similarly gruesome song titles like “Dirt Turkey” and “Hooker Toilet.” The second, The Worst People Ever, is still heavy but is less pure brute force and has more of a calculating attack.

“The first EP, we had just started playing. That was the first five songs we wrote. I was trying to figure everything out,” Paganelli says of the difference between the two EPs. “I feel like it was a little bit harder of a record, too—more metal influence. With The Worst… EP, we were a little bit more organic about writing. We were jamming more, and I felt a little more confident with my vocals. With the new stuff we’re writing, it’s getting more organic, and I’m even more comfortable with my voice.”

The differences between the two was one of the reasons why Horseneck ended up having two separate releases as opposed to one full-length album.

“We never planned on releasing anything,” Paganelli says. “I gave it to Eric Rushing, because he’s a longtime friend of mine, and I thought he could help me get on shows or just network and stuff, and he told me to hold on to it and not release it. He said, why don’t we go back and record more songs, and we’ll talk to the label, Artery Records, and maybe release it through Artery.”

Horseneck has a distinctly different sound than many of the bands in Artery’s stable; however, both Rushing and Paganelli thought Horseneck could help the label diversify.

Both EPs were recorded at Pus Cavern with the help of Matt Pedri, who’s worked with Armed for Apocalypse and Will Haven in the past. The Worst People Ever was mixed by Dance Gavin Dance’s Josh Benton.

“We went back and recorded seven tracks, which became The Worst People Ever EP, but they sounded totally different,” Paganelli says. “We recorded them in a different process and spent more time… We weren’t going to put them both together as a weird sandwich, like, we don’t care if they sound weird. So I said, why don’t we release them as they were recorded? That sounds better. It makes more sense. We felt comfortable with that approach, and Eric thought it was a better idea as well.”

Paganelli says the band is currently writing new material for a possible full-length, hopefully to be released early next year. He says that the confidence in his songwriting that he built coming into The Worst People Ever is continuing to grow on the new material.

“I feel like I’ve thought it out a little more than I did in the past,” Paganelli says of the new material he’s working on. “Having more confidence in my ideas helps.”

Paganelli also has a new songwriting partner, his 1-and-a-half-year-old son.

“I play guitar for my son, and when he likes it, he dances around. So sometimes I actually bounce riff ideas off of [him],” he says. “We play guitar all the time at home and sing songs and stuff. It definitely changed a bit of my songwriting.

“It’s more difficult being in a band as a parent, because, obviously, you have a lot more responsibility,” Paganelli says of being a rock ‘n’ roll dad. “Touring is a little harder, practicing is a little harder, but it’s still doable, and it’s still fun. We still do it. I don’t think I could not do it. He enjoys it. He watches me do it, and maybe when he’s a bit older, I could play with him, or he could play with me. It would be rad.”

It’s funny to think that the good chemistry and momentum Horseneck has going probably started with a simple conversation between colleagues over drinks at a bar. The opening track on The Worst People Ever, “The Birth of the Neck,” is actually an homage to the band’s booze-y beginnings. It’s a short track featuring ambient bar noises—conversation, people fiddling about. In fact, the whole EP is based on the bar that Paganelli, Hudson and Ison usually hang out at, Cheaters.

“Most of the songs on that EP are reflections or stories or things that we went through hanging out there all the time,” Paganelli says. “It’s a bunch of inside jokes, well, not just inside jokes, but things that happened to us there. That whole EP is a little story about that bar…a little Cheaters storyline, I guess.”

So what is it that makes bars so inspiring?

“I love bars,” Paganelli enthuses. “I was a bartender for like four years. We collectively love to drink. Love beers and whiskey. I live on 32nd and Matt and Lennon live on 35th so Cheaters is smack dab in the middle and that is our home base. I love bars! I love bar noise. I love meeting people and the social interaction you get at a bar. It is different than any other place.”

So get out there and go to a bar. You never know. You might even become inspired. As if you needed another reason to go out drinking… 

Check out Horseneck as they blow the doors of the place at Blue Lamp in Sacramento alongside Armed for Apocalypse and Death Valley High on July 12, 2013. Horseneck’s EPs are available via iTunes. For more on the band, go check ‘em out at Facebook.com/horseneckmusic.

Our good friends at the downtown Sacramento all-ages music venue Ace of Spades recently celebrated their one-year anniversary, which made Submerge think, “Damn, it’s only been a year?!?” We literally cannot count how many amazing shows we’ve seen there in the past 12 months! The venue’s debut on Feb. 9, 2011 with Rob Zombie was a sold-out show, a term the venue would get used to. From there they hosted everyone from Tesla to Deftones, Snoop Dogg to Mastodon and countless local and regional acts as well. Pollstar, the concert tour industry’s leading trade publication, recently named Ace of Spades No. 52 on their 2011 year-end worldwide ticket sales top-100 club venue list. “What? There’s 51 clubs ahead of us? We got work to do!” joked Ace’s co-owner Bret Bair. “In all seriousness, we’re extremely proud of what we have been able to accomplish in our first year and to be the No. 52 club is awesome and feels very rewarding.” Only a few California venues beat out Ace on Pollstar’s list, most notably San Francisco’s The Independent, which snagged the No. 30 spot. Bair mentioned that they weren’t surprised with the accolade for two reasons: They pride themselves on booking artists from a wide range of genres, and Sacramento is a top 25 market. “Eric [Rushing, co-owner] and I always felt that the city and its passionate music fans would support a larger music venue if we could get the talent, and they have!” Looking back on the venue’s first successful year, Bair mentions that the most memorable moment for him was when the Snoop Dogg show came together perfectly. “I actually stopped for a moment to reflect and thought to myself, ‘Holy shit, Snoop Dogg’s on our stage rappin’ ‘Gin and Juice!’” “I would like to give the City of Sacramento and its suburbs a shout-out!” Bair said, continuing with, “We love the fact that fans keep coming to the shows and having a good time, and that’s what it should be about at the end of the day, getting lost in the music and having a good time. We also want to thank all the local artists who have played our local shows or have supported some of the bigger national shows; without them, we would be out of business by now!” Learn more about Ace of Spades by visiting Aceofspadessac.com

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.