Help

Album: Crooked Teeth (2017)
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Songfacts®:

  • The second single from Crooked Teeth, this finds Jacoby Shaddix laying down vocals about getting the support he needs to see him through tough times.

    I think I need help
    I'm drowning in myself


    Jacoby Shaddix told Kerrang: "It really is about that raw moment where you make the decision that you need help. And that decision to throw yourself out there and go 'Hey, I'm not OK, can you point me in the direction of safety?', can change the whole direction of your life."
  • The cry for help was first released as a single on February 17, 2017. By April, the track had climbed to the top of Billboard Mainstream Rock Songs chart giving Papa Roach their third #1 on the tally.
  • Crooked Teeth finds Papa Roach revisiting some of the band's "rap-rock" roots. Shaddix said:

    "We like to say that the album itself is like if 2000's Infest had sex with 2004's Getting Away With Murder and they had a child, this would be the record.

    With a track like Help, that song kind of harkens back to 'Scars,' but it's a little bit more uptempo and upbeat that 'Scars' is. But it's just a dark anthem, and I like that juxtaposition.

    "We tapped into that on a track like 'Scars' back in the day, and we were, like, 'All right. Let's see if we wrote something in a major key again.' We've done that with songs like 'Lifeline' in the past."
  • Speaking with Matt Sprackle, Music Editor for @London Instagram, Shaddix said that "Help" was a song that he didn't feel like writing - and he composed the track without even realizing it.

    "Everything lined up with that one," he said. "I think the music is very uplifting. But I didn't like the song when we wrote it. I was, like, 'Goddamn! The music is too pop.' It's, like, 'Ehhh.' And then Tobin [Esperance], our bass player, was, like, 'Remember when we wrote 'Scars', we felt the same way about that song. Approach this one in the same way — take your darkness that your carrying around with you.'"

    "I wasn't in a good place in the process of making this last record, mentally," he added. "I suffer from depression [from] time to time in my life - it comes and goes, ebbs and flows."

    "I was sitting in the room with the producer as we were talking about writing this song, and he was, like, 'What the f--k is going on with you right now?'" Shaddix continued. "And I was just, like, 'I think I need some f---ing help, man. I just feel like I'm drowning in myself, like I just can't get above water.' And he was just, like, 'You just wrote the chorus right there.'"

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