Jacoby Shaddix isn't alarmed by AI in music. He's watching the response to it, and he likes what he sees.
Speaking to LA Lloyd on the nationally syndicated "Rock 30" show — his 20th appearance on the program — Shaddix laid out his actual position on AI, which is more grounded than the usual panic or dismissal you get from people in his position. His take starts with a simple observation: rock culture can detect it. "I think that a lot of people in rock culture can smell it. They can hear it in the song, they can see it in the art, and they're, like, 'Ah, that ain't it.'"
That instinct isn't a cultural accident. It's the product of a fanbase built on authenticity as a foundational value — a scene that developed partly in opposition to overproduced, manufactured pop. That the same audiences would develop a sensitivity to AI-generated content makes sense. It's the same detector that separated genuine heavy music from its imitations in the first place.
Shaddix pointed to Will.i.am's organic versus GMO framing as the closest analogy to how he thinks about the choice. "When you go to the grocery store, you can get the organic or you can get the GMO. What do you want? So if you want music, do you want fake music or do you want the music that's coming from a human being? And we have a choice." The analogy works because it removes the moral panic and puts it on a practical axis. Consumers are deciding. The market will sort it.
His read on what AI actually does isn't mystical. "A.I. is really essentially studying us. It's a study of us. And how does it regurgitate us back at us in a generic way?" The word generic is doing real work there. AI output trained on existing music will produce something that resembles music without the friction — without the decisions, the failures, the dead ends, the arguments in the room about whether the riff is actually the riff. Shaddix is explicit that the human element he values most is collaborative: "I love collaborating with people. I love the humanness of it. I love the push and pull in the relationship of creating with another person and having to have a conversation in a room, creating a song."
That creative philosophy has a direct production consequence for Papa Roach. The AI conversation pushed the band toward stripping back their approach when they went into the studio. "It prompted us, when we go into the studio, to kind of dial back some of the tech and the overproduction of things." The result is their current single, "Wake Up Calling", which came out in late January via New Noize Records/ADA — Papa Roach's own label — with a music video released in March.
The production choice is deliberate and audible. "There's no samples on the drums in that song. It's just raw drums. It's just a recording of a drummer playing drums." That's the whole intention. Not a nostalgia play. A statement about what the song is made of, and what the band is made of.
Shaddix also provided context for why Papa Roach has the foundation to make that kind of decision. When the CD market collapsed, the industry didn't protect them. "When CD sales went away, that was a really bleak moment for the music business. I was seeing a lot of the record companies just fall apart and crumble and bands getting dropped." Papa Roach — a band that had sold millions of records worldwide — was playing rooms of 500 to 800 people. That's not a side note. That's the period where the band's actual identity was built or not built.
They stayed. They leaned into the music and the people who kept showing up. That's the direct ancestor of a band that now makes decisions like "no samples on the drums" — not because they're making an aesthetic argument, but because they know what real means and they know how to do it.
The album is coming later in 2026. More singles are planned throughout the year, with full coverage as they drop on Metal Mantra. "Wake Up Calling" is the current statement. It says what it needs to.
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You can stream and purchase the new single via Amazon Music.
Stream Wake Up Calling on Amazon.
