Papa Roach Responded To Joke About Paul Ryan Listening To “Last Resort”
“When we feel defeated we listen to Paul Ryan. 🙃”
After news broke yesterday afternoon that the bill to repeal the Affordable Care Act had been withdrawn by House Republicans who failed to secure the necessary votes, the internet was alight with joy and memes. While most of the jabs at Speaker of the House Paul Ryan, who personally went to the White House to break the news of the bill's impending failure to President Trump, were easily understood as jokes, one from comedian Justin Halpern was widely interpreted as fact as it made the rounds, garnering thousands of retweets in the process.
Halpern's tweet contained a doctored screenshot of a New York Times article titled "In Major Defeat for Trump, Push to Repeal Health Law Fails," in which he inserted a report that, as Paul Ryan was seen leaving the White House, alt-metal rock band Papa Roach's 2000 hit "Last Resort" could be heard blaring from his SUV.
While this might have seemed believable to scholars of Speaker Ryan's musical tastes, as he once claimed Rage Against the Machine as one of his favorite bands in a New York Times profile, it was in fact a joke, as confirmed in Halpern's subsequent tweets. But that didn't stop the image's proliferation, eventually causing Papa Roach to trend on Twitter, and, late last night, prompting a few barbs at Ryan from the band itself.
To their credit, the band also took the opportunity to share that the song is about suicide, and there's help out there for anyone feeling actually defeated, jokes aside.
Papa Roach's ninth studio album, Crooked Teeth, arrives May 19.