#Cut my life into pieces full#

#Cut my life into pieces full#

“That wasn’t the mission, but it’s funny how things work out, man.” Before the COVID-19 pandemic kicked into full gear, he and Papa Roach were touring in Europe behind last year’s Who Do You Trust? since his quarantine started, he’s been holed up with his wife and three sons while building a home studio, making crawfish boils (“It was so hot that it was almost miserable, but you eat through the heat”), and perfecting his barbecue chicken recipe. “It kickstarted this 20-year dialogue about how our music’s been a beacon of hope to people,” the 43-year-old Shaddix states during a phone conversation. The last decade of both indie and mainstream musical culture has seen an increase in discussion of mental health awareness, but at the turn of century Papa Roach were practically at the forefront of the FM dial when it came to getting real about how we feel.

Much of this music teemed with angst and apathy, but few songs were as direct about its subject matter as “Last Resort,” which featured frontman and co-songwriter Jacoby Shaddix explicitly referencing self-harm and suicidal ideation. When “Last Resort” first appeared on the soundtrack to the David Arquette wrestling comedy Ready To Rumble in 2000, modern rock was awash in a grey-sounding post-grunge miserabilia that had coalesced into the oft-derided rock subgenre of nü-metal.

But Papa Roach’s most culturally impactful single to date (which notched the band’s first chart-topping Billboard entry on the Alternative Songs list and turns 20 years old this month along with Infest the album it was featured on,) made a mark in ways that transcend kitsch. Pizzas, leashes, Reese’s, Jesus - all things that have been cut into pieces as the deathless chorus to the Cali rockers’ hard-charging hit has, as with so much late-’90s and early-’00s pop cultural artifacts, been refracted in cyberspace to the point of absurdity twice removed. If you’ve come into contact with Papa Roach’s “Last Resort” in the last decade or so, it’s likely been in meme form.