I Went to a Papa Roach Show and Actually Had a Good Time (And I Didn't Get Mouth Herpes!)

The hapless author. All photos via the author's iPhone.

“Are you two together?”

This is what the security guard asks my business manager Juan Perez and I as we roll up to the Wiltern Theater in Los Angeles last Friday night. Dude is wearing a fluorescent yellow shirt and has one of those Secret Service-style earpieces. Or maybe he’s just listening to music on his phone. In any case, Juan doesn’t miss a beat: “Not exclusively.”

The security guard looks puzzled as he processes the reply. Then he flashes a toothy grin. “Oh, yeah. Not exclusively. Good one!”

I’ve told Juan that we’re going to a secret Red Hot Chili Peppers show tonight. They’re his favorite band. But the band we’re really going to see is Papa Roach. This becomes clear to him when I pick up our tickets at will call. “Papa Roach?” he asks. “Aren’t they the band that does that Michael Jackson cover?” He launches into an impromptu version of “Smooth Criminal” in the Wiltern lobby.

“No,” I tell him. “That’s a different band.”

“Who’s playing again?”

“Papa Roach.”

How did we get here? Easy: I told one of my editors at Noisey that I’d interviewed Papa Roach frontman Jacoby Shaddix for a hard rock magazine last month. I wasn’t kidding. Prior to our interview, Shaddix had told a tent full of British journalists that he’d contracted mouth herpes from his uncle. So of course my first question was, What’s up with the mouth herpes? As it turns out, he’d made the story up because he was sick of answering dumb questions. But he did have herpes, he clarified. He just didn’t get it from his uncle. And by herpes, he meant canker sores. Then he turned the tables on me:

“Do you have herpes?” he asked.

“Not yet,” I replied.

“You will when this conversation is over.”

When I repeated all this nonsense to my editor at Noisey, he immediately asked me if I wanted to go to a Papa Roach concert. I said I was busy that night. Had to take my sister to get circumcised or whatever. But he called bullshit on that.

So Juan Perez and I walk into the Wiltern just as Papa Roach go on. I head up front to take some crappy photos of the band with my phone while Juan swills nine-dollar beers at the bar. For reasons that have escaped me during the 12 years I’ve lived in Los Angeles, the Wiltern is the only venue in the city that doesn’t let photographers in front of the security barrier. Instead, they corral all the unhappy snappers onto this raised terrace about 50 feet from the stage. Unless you’ve got one of those National Geographic zoom lenses, you’re not gonna get any good shots. But I knew that going in. I feel bad for anyone shooting here for the first time.

The author's business manager, Juan Perez (left), with some Papa Roach fans.

When I rejoin Juan at the bar, Papa Roach are well into their third song. “I already like this better than most of the shows I’ve seen here,” he observes. “I will say that the clothing people are wearing here has a lot going on. There’s a lot of those all-over-print Affliction shirts. But I would also like to point out that there are girls here. I can’t remember the last time I was at a show with girls at it.”

He’s right, of course. The last show Juan and I saw here was the Swedish death metal band Amon Amarth. For reasons that have everything to do with the phrase “Swedish death metal,” there were very few women present. So Papa Roach certainly have the advantage in that department. Also, their light show is much better than I remember Amon Amarth’s being. On the other hand, Amon Amarth had a 20-foot-tall Viking ship onstage with them, which is tough to beat. I think Papa Roach’s show—or any band’s show, if we’re being honest—could only be improved by the inclusion of a 20-foot-tall Viking ship. But maybe that’s stating the obvious.

I have a confession to make: The 22-year old elitist metal asshole still lurking somewhere inside my fragile psyche thinks coming to a Papa Roach show was a very, very bad idea. What if the roof caves in, killing everyone inside? I might die here. At a Papa Roach show. And my poor, sweet mother will think that this is what I meant when I said I loved heavy metal and she’ll write something in my obituary like, “My son died doing what he loved: Attending a heavy metal concert by a band called Papa Roach with his business manager, Juan Perez.” Or worse, she’ll have it etched on my tombstone. And that’ll be how I’m remembered: As a 38-year old man drinking nine-dollar beers at a Papa Roach concert. I mean, try explaining the difference between Papa Roach and Metallica to a woman in her 60s who enjoys singing along to John Lennon. And then having to qualify that explanation by stressing that you like old Metallica, Mom, not new Metallica. And then getting grossed out by what a self-righteous prick you are. And then needing a drink. Or five. Because let’s face it: To most of the population, there is absolutely no difference between Papa Roach and Metallica. Or Papa Roach and Slayer. Or Papa Roach and whoever your favorite metal band is.

Jacoby Shaddix onstage

And that’s the heart of the petty cultural war being waged via bitchy slap-fight in my reptilian brain. Because metalheads don’t get their panties in a bunch over Britney Spears or Miley Cyrus. If they’re like me, they probably don’t even give most pop stars a passing thought. But they get worked up about Papa Roach because it’s a little too close to home. A perfect example of what I’m talking about is this: Katherine Ludwig, the former editor of the now defunct but much beloved Metal Maniacs magazine recently passed away after a lengthy battle with lymphoma. When the sad news hit the Internet, readers and members of underground metal bands (often one and the same in this case) posted all kinds of thoughtful tributes and nice memories about her. But at least one prominent underground musician felt compelled to mention that one of the reasons Katherine was so cool was because she didn’t cover “mediocre and forgettable crap like Papa Roach, etc.” Which I’m sure is a sentiment shared by plenty of Metal Maniacs readers. But it doesn’t change the fact that he used a eulogy for a fallen friend to publicly dis a band that really poses no threat to his own. I mean, really, dude? You hate Papa Roach that much? (Full disclosure: I know the guy who posted that comment. He’s a good dude and an excellent musician. I just disagree with his decorum here.)

Even though most people familiar with my musical tastes might expect me to, I’m not going to make fun of Papa Roach. Mostly because going to their show was like holding a mirror up to my own petty prejudices. For instance, I had assumed the audience would be full of shirtless bros looking for fights. Don’t get me wrong: There are plenty of shirtless bros here. But the ones I interact with are all exceedingly polite. Everyone who bumps into me apologizes immediately. Sadly, I can’t say the same about the folks at most of the metal shows of this size that I’ve attended.

Another weird thing I never expected in a million years: The bartender bought us shots. I’ve been going to shows at the Wiltern fairly regularly over the last dozen years, and not once has a bartender even looked at me twice, much less bought me a drink. I’ve been trying to figure out why this happened at a Papa Roach gig as opposed to any of the other shows I’ve been to here, and I think I figured it out: Everyone—including the bartenders—was having a good time. That might seem like an obvious thing to say about a show that people (aside from the bartenders) have paid good money to attend, but do you know how many grumpy motherfuckers there are standing around with their arms folded at your average metal show? Way too fucking many. Because if there’s something to complain about—the opening bands, the music being piped over the PA between bands, the set list of the band they came to see, the line at the bar, etc.—they’ll complain about it. At length. And instead of, you know, watching the fucking show.

At one point, Shaddix leaves the stage and wades into the crowd with his cordless microphone. Maybe we’ve been going to the wrong shows, but Juan and I agree that we’ve never seen anyone do this at the Wiltern. That might be because many of the bands we like can’t afford cordless microphones or are playing an instrument while singing or are simply afraid of injury—or afraid of their own fans. But maybe they’re worried about getting a communicable disease. When you HAVE a communicable disease, the worry is everyone else’s. As if reading my mind, Shaddix climbs back onstage and reminds everyone that he’s got herpes. Then the bass player launches into the bass line from Dr. Dre’s “Let Me Ride.”

Which brings me to my only real criticism of Papa Roach: White people rapping. Shaddix doesn’t do it that much, but he definitely does it. Yet even this gripe is rooted in my own deep-seated prejudice. The reason I cringe when white people rap—except for Gypsy Thys, she rules—is probably because some of the first white rappers I heard were Vanilla Ice, Snow (remember “Informer”?) and Scott Ian from Anthrax on their “Bring The Noise” collaboration with Public Enemy. Sure, the Beastie Boys and 3rd Bass were in there somewhere, but when you hear those other clowns attempting to drop rhymes or whatever at an impressionable age, you’re ruined forever. These people are the reason I can’t take Eminem seriously. They’re the reason I still haven’t heard Macklemore. But again, that’s my problem. A few million Eminem fans—and Papa Roach fans, for that matter—would probably disagree with me.

If there’s a point here, it’s this: Say what you want about Papa Roach, but you’ll never catch me talking shit. Because anything I say about them will tell you more about me than it will about them.