NYROCK: Can you give me a little background on the band?

TOBIN:
We come from Northern California, a little town called Vacaville. We were fortunate enough to build up our own hometown scene and then branched out: Sacramento, San Francisco. They're like our second homes. Then we moved on to LA.

I'm the youngest one. I'm 20. The oldest one, Jerry [guitarist], is 25. The rest of the guys are 23.

We've been doing this for a long time. The band started in '93 at a talent show in high school. I wasn't in the band then. I've been with the band for five and a half years.

It was pretty funny, when they first started out they just had a bass player, a drummer, a singer and a trombone player. Like Chili Peppers style.


NYROCK: When did it become full time?

TOBIN:
When we got to quit our day jobs. That was when we got signed back in October [1999]. Everything happened pretty quick. They threw us in the studio and got the record out like boom.


NYROCK: Tell me about the name "Papa Roach"?

TOBIN:
It doesn't have anything to do with weed, just so you know. A lot of people think it does.

Our singer's grandpa, his last name was Roach. And they called him Papa Roach. They were fumbling around with names way back in the day… There was this old jazz album from this cat named Poncho Sanchez called Papa Gato. I guess they wanted to name the band that, but our singer was like, "No, no, name it Papa Roach. That was my grandfather's name." So, that's where they got it from.

And we just kind of made our own meaning out of it over time.... The cockroach being the symbol of longevity. Cockroaches can survive anything, a nuclear holocaust. They'll always be around.


NYROCK: You have a lot of heavy themes going on in your lyrics: suicide, alcoholism, greed, betrayal. Tell me a little about the thought behind the lyrics. Do you think it's important to address such issues?

TOBIN:
I think it's important because kids can connect. They don't feel so alone. When they hear those lyrics they realize there are other people out there who have been through the same stuff and are getting through it. I don't think it's anything consciously done. We write about things that have happened to our singer, specifically, and friends around us. It's real life stuff. We're not writing about shit that we don't know about, like girls and cars and money – sex, drugs, and rock and roll. We only know real life bullshit that happens.

We like the fact that kids come up to us and are like, "We totally connect to the lyrics in this song. That's my life."

We're always going to write music that is true to ourselves and the people around us, not making up bullshit just to sell records.


NYROCK: Anything you want to say to fans, critics, and readers alike?

TOBIN:
We've been doing this for a while. A lot of people think that we just came up in the scene. Like some over-night sensation. It wasn't like we just got lucky. We worked our asses off for this. We're grateful for our loyal fans.

It's like, you're living your life. You have a normal life. You do your 9-to-5 job – that you hate – and you deal with all the drama around you. And all of a sudden your band gets signed and you're on the road and you're in a tour bus and you're playing shows in every city. I mean, we're totally happy because this is what we love to do but our lives have been totally turned upside down. There's always going to be that fine line between good and evil. We're always going to recognize what's good and what's not.

We're just trying to have fun. Make good music. Play good-vibe rock shows and entertain people.


NYROCK: How is DreamWorks Records treating you?

TOBIN:
The label is great. We love DreamWorks. We found a great home. The cool thing is they let us do whatever we want. Whatever we want. They didn't have any say.

We didn't expect all this to come, at least so quickly. We're really grateful for everything. We just hope that people don't think we're selling out. A lot of people don't realize that we don't have control over success or what happens. We're just out there doing our thing, doing what we love, making the music that we want to make. If people like our music, what's wrong with that?

So we're just gonna keep on going. We strive for longevity. We're not trying to get up in this game and out – just make a quick one-hit wonder. We want to do this for a long time because this is what we love to do. I'm actually quite curious to see what's going to happen.