The Story of 'Last Resort' by Papa Roach

[Music] [Applause] [Music] every song is a snapshot of where you are as a band or as a person as a lyric writer but then the same song can take on a whole different meaning [Music] i remember one day we were at tobin's house and i remember hearing him play the riff on piano [Music] i knew something was there from the first time i heard it dave and i just looked at each other like holy dude [Music] at this point you know as a songwriter and as a lyricist i'm really trying to dig in to the dark corners of my life was like cut my life into pieces what does that mean cut my life into pieces this is my last resort we went from being unknowns to being known by the entire world cause i'm losing my sight losing my mind wish somebody would tell me i'm fine everything was fun it wasn't until like later is when it started to get dark when i first heard the lyrics i really didn't know that they were about a friend of ours something was terribly wrong with mark that was mark's room right there see up there it was frightening to be honest for a few days here this is my last resort that's where i saw my friend i can't that was the thing that i loved about music was that you could tell any story that you wanted to tell what's up man good to see you dude and this was the story we chose to tell cut my life into pieces this is my last resort right all right here we are energy studios right here come on into the live room i guess probably been almost 20 years since i've been in this room damn this is where we did it in fest in its entirety right here in this space this place was the beginning of my life changing dramatically i have my music stand right here and i'm just cutting vocals just going crazy there was a lot of blood sweat and tears that we put into this project and you know it was time for us to get in there and like throw it down prove it you've been dreaming about this moment your whole life and now it's here music was just an escape for me you know and being a you know young kid with some madness in my mind it was a great way to just kind of go somewhere else early years was pretty shifty and all over the place you know just my family was going through a lot of upheaval and my parents split up when i was younger and my family was really really poor so when i was born they were my family was homeless you know finally landed in a town called vacaville california we are headed from sacramento over to vacaville back to the main stomping grounds of pete roach a lot of great memories here man i had a lot of my firsts in this town i could take you to where i lost my virginity nah that'd be weird [Music] now we're pulling up on vacaville high school all four of the founding members of papa roach we all met in vacaville this is where it started yeah i met kobe on the football field at football practice in high school he's like i play bass you know like i play drums you know it's like dude let's like start a band we'll jam he's like cool man pretty soon after that his base was stolen and so he's like what how are we going to start a man i don't have a base and i'm like dude just sing it's free after that i was really just like all right cool we need a guitar player that's when we recruited jerry it was 93 and they had been together i think a month jacoby called me up and said hey i heard you play guitar you know why don't you come and play with us and i was just thinking nah i'm good i just hounded him dude you got to come check it out man he's like i don't know if it'll fit dude i'm like man it dude like we got to lose i just said fine just to shut him up okay i'll come over thank god jerry was willing to show up to band practice one day and see if he could save these group of ratchet ass because we did we didn't have it figured out before we had him thank you jerry thank you jerry our bass player tobin jacoby was actually in band they were like seniors and i was a freshman so i'm like the young one 14 years old playing this three-quarter scale pearl bass but he just slapped this bass like a madman at the age of 13 known in that local scene to be a badass bass player tobin you want to come play bass for the band been in the band ever since we were looking for a band name and we had written a bunch of names down and out of all the names like there was one suggestion i had about naming the band papagatto and which was like daddy cat you know and i was like that's kind of cool you came back at me like what about papa roach he was like that's like your grandpa's name i was like i know but it's kind of cool right the only thing was they spelled their last name with a t so roa tch and i was like what if we took the t out and then you know it could be about like bugs or it could be about a little mary jane at you know angle you know what i mean like you know double meanings it's cool kind of using the cockroach is like our mascot in a sense of like it could just go through hell and still survive you know as a kid that kind of went through the ringer i identified with that you know like i kind of been through some man like this fits and there we were papa roach [Music] i remember one day we were at a tobin's house he would always play piano i just would sit there for hours and come up with little simple little things i i kind of figured out okay so the right hand will be like the riff on the guitar and my left hand will do a bass thing [Music] he had this idea he comes to me he's like dave check out this this thing i was riding on the piano and he sits down behind the keys and starts playing this arpeggio [Music] dave and i just looked at each other like holy dude felt so good you know to have something that i was really excited to show the rest of the guys it was a very inspiring piece of music you know to say the least [Music] last resort let's see is this in tune here almost jerry who's our guitar player transpose it onto electric guitar it went from this kind of classical sounding thing this hip-hop thing to definitely metal [Music] that's how it sounds heavy kobe brought in the lyrics and melody it was actually a different song that we were working on cut my life into pieces i've reached my last resort the lyrics and whatever weren't working on that song so he he's like i'm gonna try him on this song little did i know this song that jacoby had these lyrics for like they were about our friend mark here we are dude this brings back memories at this point you know as a songwriter and as a lyricist i'm really trying to like dig in to the dark corners of my my life and my feelings this is crazy i ended up moving out when i was 17 ended up moving in with another friend of mine mark parham that was mark's room right there see up there right there that pitch that's mark's room we really bonded as friends and like we clung to each other and we helped each other out and we cooked for each other and we you know it was a it was like our little two-dude family you know and like we were just doing it at this time you know started dabbling in some drugs it wasn't like a regular thing but we experienced we tried it and it really brought up some deeply suppressed issues in both of us this night it was either mushrooms or acid i just remembered something was terribly wrong with mark mark's in his room and he's talking gibberish and mumbling it was like three or four days you know i'm looking at my friend going i can't even i don't even know how to help you like i don't even know what to say i don't know what to do it was frightening to be honest for a few days here you know we knew he he struggled with some of his feelings and whatnot and you know his family he'd been through some heavy in his life you know he had some trauma maybe he had been holding down brought it all to the surface and through this suicidal downward spiral he was hospitalized and it was like i just never had my friend back [Music] it was like a like a bomb kind of exploded in a sense the old mark died and there was a new mark that was reborn and i just didn't understand how to like relate to the new mark so we kind of went different on different paths [Music] and i felt so guilty for bringing the drug you know bringing the drugs into the scene um in the process of writing that was one of the things that was sitting there you know waiting for me to like write about and i wasn't singing it in a first person's point of view so i could like all of a sudden be the victim and get attention that wasn't what this was about it was just about telling the story people were really taken aback and surprised at like how direct the messaging was in the song i'm contemplating suicide don't give a if i cut my arm bleeding at first i kind of was taken back like we want to put that in there that's kind of crazy like but you know he jacobi was just going look man this is like this really happened the only way for him to really deal with it was to write it down and and put it into song and kind of just get it out and as soon as we heard that like it was it was game on my brother [Music] it just was one of those tracks that we knew we had something that was just raw authentic real and needed to be heard [Music] this is the stage this is where it all started right here man it trips me out i just gotta look at it for a minute playing last resort in this building for some of the first times this is where we saw the connection and the excitement with the people like really falling into that song with us real audiences started coming like it wasn't just our group of friends it was like other kids from around town we started packing the house you know 400 kids 600 kids 800 kids to the vacaville community center and once we started doing that we're like let's see if we can get a gig playing clubs we started playing more and more of these club shows san francisco sacramento berkeley bay area slowly gaining some traction and getting some attention and then putting out independent eps when larger bands would come through the area and play if we didn't have a show book that night we would go to their show and sling our cd to their fans jacoby would have a boombox on his shoulder playing our cd and he'd be like what the papa roach five bucks what the papa roach five bucks we were sending our demo tape out to anyone and everyone rock labels metal labels pop labels and we were just getting rejection left and right every major label had passed you know they had heard our music nope not feeling it as different groups of people told us no like it was like fuel for the fire for us we just kept going and finally got a record deal and then it just it all changed like dramatically i'll take you guys on a little journey this is something really cool right here this is a it's got dust all over it this is a old 24 track tape so this is 99. this was the demo that got us the demo deal with warner brothers finally we get a bite from warner brothers man jeffrey weiss at warner brothers he was like i think i could do something with you guys i would like to offer you guys a demo deal which basically means they give you a budget to go into a real studio and then they decide if they want to sign you after basically going from somebody's home studio to one of the nicest studios in l.a we couldn't believe it like we thought like this is it you know we made it [Music] that was how we met j von gardner and he owned nrg and he ran in the first time i heard last resort the lyric it's so sort of raw and i was like oh this is really cool so many people just don't want to talk about real i knew it was special i didn't know how special okay good to see you man see you oh my god i came in yesterday and took a walk around the room and i hadn't been in here in quite some time and it's just all the memories flood back when i first met paparoach they had been very popular in northern california but they hadn't really done any seriously good recordings you know coming into the big hollywood studio like a fish out of water in a sense and he challenged us a bit more than we thought he was going to for me it was like i didn't want to change anything i remember you're like let's just change like the tempo of us of the chorus i'm like you you trying to change our band i would change like technical things but i never wanted to change what you guys were about is you know what i mean no absolutely not yeah he knew how to work with us he knew how to get under my skin and push me to a point without breaking me you know [Applause] [Music] [Applause] that's brutal that is savage yeah that's a really incredible vocal i mean that whole thing you know it's like thank you that was a really cool feeling to have you know somebody in the industry that's believing in us there was a lot that we learned working with jay as far as arrangements song structure these types of things that we really didn't have experience with before so there's there's the main ref and then you add jay has great ears and we got the best tones really great mixes and then we have this thing too oh there we go that's really all the production was those three the three tones so it's just the straight ahead guitar tone it's that crunchy nasty one underneath and then the high one it's simple it's simple it's so simple and the place hasn't changed one bit still got the same carpet yeah that needs to be uh we're putting a new carpet next week he better put that probably got some hepatitis in it or something i don't know it's got the itis right when it was finished i had done like a rough mix and sort of turned that into warner brothers and the uh the anr guy there got fired and then they they turned they they passed on pop roach [Music] when we got the rejection letter from warner brothers like we're our souls were crushed dude this is it's just over man we keep trying and trying and we just keep running into these road blocks and it was just really kind of a defeating moment they're really upset they thought oh man it's over and i was like you guys don't understand like you're great it's not going to be a problem remember looking at the band just going you know what like it like fine if they passed on it if this guy got fired like we're just going to put it out independently we'll go down to nrg we'll finish up with jay we'll finish up like a full length record i think we just had that hustler spirit like no matter what we're like that's all right we're just going to keep going and something else will come along and pretty much immediately we got a call from from dreamworks this guy named ron handler from dreamworks had caught wind that warner brothers had passed on it when i heard about the warner's thing it was just shocking that something so good was just like let go for the person across the street to take you know ron handler came down and heard the demo and was just blown away he didn't show it to our faces there he was like you know just vibing on it [Music] that started a whole new experience for us i got the cd i met the band we got the contracts going and next thing you know i think we were back in the studio to make the record there wasn't anything that was going to stop him if this label passed and my label passed somebody would have got him eventually you know it was just like undeniable we thought we were gonna get a record deal with warner brothers but we ended up getting the deal with dreamworks which changed our lives i remember when we started talking about it being a single there was a moment of hesitation for this song to be the single after we heard the radio edit version of the song [Music] i was like how many words are you gonna chop out of the song it wasn't just the cuss words they started taking other stuff i couldn't say the word suicide and we're just like that you know this is what the song is it's stupid i mean when you look back on it especially now when you listen to music now you're like really right when last resort was starting to crack off the hinges we got the call to jump on warped tour we were originally added to the second stage in the middle of the day and on the very first show in fresno so many people came to see our set that day that they broke the barricade so literally the next day they upgraded us to the main stage and then our single went to the radio and it shot up being played everywhere and we were losing our minds and next thing you know we're like headlining warped tour and like a matter of like weeks you know when we released this record our whole entire hopes and dreams was that maybe we could sell a hundred thousand records like in our wildest dreams so the first week the album dropped we sold 30 000 records the next week after that like the numbers just kept like doubling and tripling and it just went it was like unbelievable i couldn't believe it you know i just never had anything that fast and powerful with that kind of like upwards momentum yeah i think i think infa sold uh 5 million at least once that video came out and the song came out it was you couldn't not hear it going from like this band that's in a van really good at budgeting our band fund and saving a certain amount for gas money and saving a certain amount for food to all of a sudden we're traveling all over the u.s and buses and limousines and private jets and penthouses and all this like stuff that was just totally foreign to us we went from being unknowns to being known by the entire world like literally overnight i wasn't ready for that bananas man everything was fun everything was fun and funny and it wasn't until like later after success and everything had gone on what is when it started to get dark [Music] you know you go from just having like live in this amazing life and then when it slows down and everything's quiet and you have to deal with everything that you ignored for so long yeah that's when that voice in your head just is knocking at your door [Music] you know this rock and roll thing kind of i really gave myself to it and it it didn't give me back what i necessarily always wanted you know what i mean jacoby is very open about who he is and and the struggles that he has in his life it's been a wild ride for me man the the battle with alcohol i just came to a point where it's just rock bottom fast forward to some years later my grandfather committed suicide because he had lou gehrig's disease and i was just like i fell apart it sucks dude suicide is terrible you know i had found myself years later in my own struggle with suicide and being suicidal it was a really really really tough time in my own life i'm going the is it it's like is my life just a parody of a joke on me now like what the you know like because i was really at a deep dark place and this didn't have to do with my grandfather or mark this had to do with my own issues and the things that i had been burying for years [Music] hey yo what up marcus kobe hey are we cool to come through now yep all right man well i'll see you in a little bit it's crazy how the relationship with the song had changed from being about my best friend mark then to being about you know my papa suicide then to ultimately to my own struggle with suicide you know i was like heavy man all right so here we are here we are what's up man bandaido dude good to see you can we what are we doing are we pounding good to see you dude how you been man he's good dude give me a hug dude come here man so i get this phone call and he's like hey uh i just wanted to pass something by you you know we kind of wrote this song and i just kind of want to make sure it's okay with you if and what not i just kind of thought to myself it's your music it's your song who am i to tell you what not to feel or think with regard to this stuff so i'm just like whatever but i always thought to myself when you did that i thought that's awesome that was really respectful really kind on your part and so i do i do appreciate that hey man well you know it's like i just kind of walking through that period of time in your life with you like and it was it was really you know it was really it was just hard it was hard to see you struggle and it was like a traumatic it was a traumatic experience for me you know i think even though i experienced uh you know a breakdown and what i dealt with it was harder for me to watch my friends watch that happen right yeah you're sitting there watching the situation occur and just there's nothing you can do yeah i just found out i just saw you struggling to deal with that circumstance yeah you know as i as i look back i feel like not that it was my fault in a sense but just i was bringing that influence in yeah you know we i let it in too though yeah you know what i mean like so i don't no one ever i look and go i blame you sometimes i look back on this song and i go like was it good that we that we wrote this song and we were like tackling this really heavy issue i wrestle with it a little bit you know to be honest with you i hated that i was a bad influence on you in a sense that i had this space available you know my but you weren't brother that's not no i know that's not what it would i understand that yeah what it what it was yeah at all but just that's funny how we both walked away feeling the same way yeah last resort is it's a conversation it's a conversation that people are willing to have more and more it's opened up a dialogue for some of these people to like really put themselves out there and let the people around them know that they're struggling i think that's what's really special about the song and the way that it's stood the test of time every song is a snapshot of where you are as a band or as a person as a lyric writer but then the same song later on down the road can take on a whole different meaning and a whole different relevance to what's happening in your life then what he wrote was about the experience of crying out for help it's not a song about suicide right because i'm still here yeah right and it's not about that it's about the response how do you help someone who's in crisis how does person in crisis respond to their own crisis the story of last resort to me is the story of struggle it's about falling into the darkness it's about finding your way out and especially with what happened here at this house and what the song was inspired from it's you know it's about life it's about it's about coming through the other side and i've met thousands upon thousands upon thousands of people out there on the road and that's the story i hear from people is that this song was was it was a beacon of light and some darkness and that's that's awesome [Applause] [Music] [Applause] this is my last resort [Music] [Applause]

Channel: VICE

Views: 1,814,988

Keywords: culture, internet, story of, vice, journalism, documentary, interview, film, movies, vice videos, lifestyle, independent, vice guide, exclusive, vice magazine, vice.com, world, documentaries, short films, docs, yt:cc=on, last resort, papa roach last resort, last resort reloaded, jeris johnson, tiktok, papa roach jeris johnson, papa roach last resort jeris johnson, last resort remix, papa roach remix, last resort 2021, papa roach 2021

Id: XO7Xb-OvQXA

Length: 26min 52sec (1612 seconds)

Published: Fri Jan 01 2021

Reddit Comments

[u/ec_on_wc]

wow. What a flood of memories