Papa Roach frontman Jacoby Shaddix planned to commit suicide as he failed to cope with alcoholism and marriage problems.
But he decided against it at the last minute after realising the move would be a “selfish act.”
The singer, who was recently forced off the road with voice problems, tells Classic Rock’s sister title Metal Hammer: “I went to Sausalito to hang myself. I was in a fucking place, man.
“The booze, my lifestyle, this woman I’d been with since I was 16 – I’ve never been that fucking broken. I was seriously going to finish it.”
He reveals he’d had a drink problem for over a decade, and faced the end of his relationship with spouse Kelly which had lasted twice as long. “There was a point where she wanted to experience life without me,” he reflects. “That was the moment I feared in life the most.”
But as he sat in a hotel room and prepared to take his own life, he realised he couldn’t face “that last conversation with your family on the phone.”
Shaddix continues: “Suicide – that’s the most selfish act. I decided I had to endure the pain I was going through. I fucking wrote a song instead.”
It took him a while to allow Papa Roach to take his lyrics and work up the track Before I Die, which appears on the band’s seventh studio album, The Connection.
He says: “They were like, ‘You’ve got to do that. Every time we make records you’re always brutally honest about what you’re going through.”
The Connection is released on October 1, with a European tour beginning in November. Shaddix recently told Loudwire: “What ‘The Connection’ means to us – it’s our connection to the music, the connection from fan to fan. It’s like when Facebook fans start to get to know each other, they come to shows and meet each other and make friends. The connection Papa Roach makes is bigger than us sitting in a room jamming. We’re just the facilitators for that.”
The singer is currently recovering from surgery on his vocal cords and reports doctors are pleased with his progress.
-Classic Rock Magazine
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