An Interview with Papa Roach’s Jacoby Shaddix – HuffPost 12.7.09
Back in 1977, singer-songwriter and activist Harry Chapin co-founded the organization World Hunger Year with Bill Ayers, a famous DJ of the era, because, as his daughter Jen explained, “He saw hunger and poverty as an insult to America.” When Chapin passed, his organization lived on mainly with the support of his friends, family, and rock and pop musicians that have taken up his cause as their own. The alt-rock band Papa Roach is one of the more recent and dedicated foot-soldiers in the ongoing war on hunger, and its lead singer Jacoby Shaddix took some time from his tour to explain his group’s involvement with the World Hunger Year organization.
Mike Ragogna: When did your band start helping the needy?
Jacoby Shaddix: It began in April 2009, and we worked with a local charity called Loaves & Fishes in Sacramento. When we were working on our record Metamorphosis, we were paying attention to what was going on in the world around us and directly in our community of Sacramento. There were a lot of home foreclosures, so we started to really dig-in and research the homeless population and what was going on there. There was so much desperation and hopelessness. 55-65% of each state’s homeless population is made up of Korean War, Vietnam, Iraq, Desert Storm, and Kosovo war veterans. A lot of these guys go serve our country and then have a real tough time getting back into society.
That’s exactly where I came from. My family was once homeless, my father was a Vietnam veteran. It’s what helped destroy our family unit because he had way too much wreckage and baggage and issues and a drug problem. He just didn’t know how to connect back into society as a normal, hard-working American apparently.
So we started working with Loaves & Fishes, and people were tripping out. People were going, “Oh my God, there’s a rock star serving us food. We’d never seen this before!” Seeing smiles on people’s faces, I was like, “Alright, that’s cool. I like the fact that I can go down there and cheer people up and serve them plates, but what can I really do. How do I really put food on their table ’cause that’s what I want to do.”
MR: Do you remember your homeless years?
JS: I don’t remember, it was the first year of my life. My mother showed me pictures that one of her friends took of how we were living. My crib was an apple box. But we were living in the mountains, not the streets of a city. That was the difference between being homeless in downtown Chicago or L.A. versus being in the sticks where people aren’t looking at you and being so judgmental of your lifestyle.
MR: When did you first become involved with the World Hunger Year organization?
JS: We researched it and found World Hunger Year to be, pretty much, the most effective in America as far as putting food on the table, you know, talkin’ the talk’ and walkin’ the walk. Bruce Springsteen and Aerosmith are a couple of the bigger artists (associated). I asked our management, “You know, Bruce Springsteen is always about giving back to his community. Who’s he working with?” They asked why and I was like, “I want to see what we can do.” That’s how it started, and over the last few weeks, we’ve put over 13,000 meals in people’s bellies.
MR: What kinds of events are you participating in or creating to generate funds?
JS: We’re just doing something really simple right now. We’re auctioning off a V.I.P. package where a fan can watch our soundcheck, hang out with the band, and interview us, which has been interesting over the last few weeks since there are all kinds of characters that we’ve been meeting. Also, they get to watch us from sidestage. So it’s a cool experience for the people who want to throw down and help out in their community. They get something out of it too, you know? I wish we could have been doing that all the time, all the money is going to a good cause.
MR: Is this a short term or long term commitment?
JS: For us, it’s just the beginning. We’re going to keep getting creative with new ideas to raise money for WHY and get those plates on the tables so people can eat. When we got involved with Loaves & Fishes in April, that was the realization because I sat down with Sister Lydia at the homeless shelter in my hometown in Sacramento. She was like, “People don’t realize that, okay, it’s Christmas Eve, and everybody wants to be givin’ to the homeless during the season, but guess what? Being homeless is not seasonal. It’s a year-round issue, it’s been around in America for a long time.” A lot of them are war veterans, and those are the people we are hyped about supporting. But are we really willing to support them when they’re down and out? Those are the people that are fighting for our country.
MR: What’s the education that the public needs regarding this?
JS: That not every homeless person is a junkie or a drunk. There are a lot of middle class families in Sacramento with workers in their homes that are out there living in tents. They’re not drug addicts, they’re just trying to get a leg up, trying to find a job in an economy that’s so horrible that it’s not just the perception of people goin’, “Oh, he’s just a f***in’ homeless bum junkie.” There are those, and it is what it is. But there are people out there that want to make their lives better for themselves. But people are unfortunately put in this position more and more because of the economy and the state of affairs.
MR: After spending time interacting with this country’s homeless and hungry, naturally you’re learning more and more about the crisis and what their needs are. What do you believe we should be focusing on as a nation politically to help end hunger?
JS: I’d say first and foremost, take the ten million dollars that we’re spending on the war on drugs and redistribute some of that money toward the rehabilitation of soldiers that come back from war, straight up. Mentally, physically, psychologically, spiritually–all of the above. I think that’s a responsibility that our government should hold.