Jacoby Shaddix isn’t here to gatekeep.
It’s been 20 years since Infest landed Papa Roach a spot in the alt-rock history books, powered by the immortal scream-along therapy session Last Resort. Now he’s standing shoulder to shoulder with TikTok-born rocker Jaris Johnson, who reimagined the song with a sleek, future-facing update that’s part nu-metal, part cyberpunk, part Gen-Z war cry. It's called Last Resort Reloaded, and somehow, it doesn’t suck. In fact, it rips.
The two connected after Johnson posted his own take on Last Resort to TikTok and called his shot—“Just imagine if I got a Papa Roach collab out of this.” That clip landed in Shaddix’s inbox. “We were like, ‘Oh s**t, this kid’s legit,’” he tells Kyle Meredith. “So we flew him out.”
From there, things moved fast: studio hangs, mutual head-nodding, streaming numbers spiking into the millions. “Jacoby’s like my really cool uncle that lets me break all the rules and eat junk food,” Johnson jokes. “That’s the energy.”
The unlikely pairing makes more sense the longer you sit with it. Johnson is everything Infest-era Papa Roach was—loud, bratty, emotional—but with a musical ADHD that reflects the TikTok generation’s need for immediacy. Songs clock in at under two minutes, bridges are optional, and genre is just a suggestion. “It’s gotta sound like it came from 2030,” Johnson says. “Not like your mom’s Metallica record.”
Still, Shaddix sees the past bleeding into the present. “You listen to Motown—those songs were short as hell too,” he says. “This ain’t new. We’re just cycling back with different textures.” He’s not clutching pearls about what rock should be. He’s throwing gasoline on whatever it’s becoming. “We don’t need to hear Led Zeppelin again—we already got 'em. Who’s next?”
What makes their connection feel real, not manufactured, is that both artists have lived through darkness and come out sharp on the other side. Last Resort, then and now, has always been about survival. Shaddix originally wrote it in the aftermath of a friend’s suicide attempt, not realizing it would become a generational anthem for mental health awareness. “We were confronting the dark s**t and bringing it to light,” he says. “Now, people are ready to talk about this stuff. It’s not taboo anymore.”
For Johnson, who approaches the song from a place of triumph, it’s about reclaiming that pain and throwing it in the air like confetti. “I’m in a good place now,” he says. “I wanted this version to have that confident energy, like ‘Yo, life is worth living.’”
Their collaboration is one of several Shaddix has cooked up for Greatest Hits Vol. 2 – The Better Noise Years, a career-spanning retrospective that also includes re-recorded versions of fan favorites and remixes featuring Asking Alexandria’s Danny Worsnop and, in Johnson’s case, Chad Kroeger of Nickelback. If that sounds like a grab bag of 2000s hard rock madness—well, yeah. That’s kind of the point.
But for Shaddix, these aren’t nostalgia plays. They’re check-ins. “It’s a way to celebrate the music,” he says. “We’re not done. We’re not going anywhere.” Papa Roach already has a new album finished, set for release later this year. “We got more to say.”
And Johnson? He’s just getting started. With his debut EP My Sword out now and collaborations stacking up like Warped Tour bingo, he’s planning for rock and roll domination. But on his terms. “Rock’s been too safe,” he says. “It used to be the thing that pissed your parents off. I want to bring that energy back.”
It’s a handoff, not a swan song. Shaddix is well aware of how rare it is for legacy artists to embrace their successors instead of ignoring—or worse, mocking—them. “In hip-hop, it’s expected that you pass the torch,” he says. “In rock, we’re too busy putting things in boxes. We gotta stop that.”
He smiles. “I’m not trying to be the old guy yelling at the clouds. I’m trying to be the guy that helps light the next fire.”
Watch the interview above and then check out the videos below.
