Fozzy

Professional wrestling star Chris Jericho's alter-ego is an accomplished vocalist in the metal band Fozzy. Jericho, guitarist Rich Ward and drummer Frank Fontsere of Stuck Mojo and bassist Sean Delson have created a mature and "real" metal effort on the band's fourth release, "Chasing The Grail."

Fozzy formed as a cover band in 1999, but with each subsequent release, the band has recorded all-original material, starting with their last release, "All That Remains."

I spoke with the metalhead grappler as he drove from Texas to Kansas for a wrestling match.

Metal Mayhem: Is it true that you took the name Jericho after the Helloween album "Walls of Jericho"? We're they a big influence on you?
Chris Jericho: I did take the name from that. I don't know if they're a big influence on me, but I was a huge fan of the band and I still am. I was looking for a cool name and the only one I could come up with was Jack Action, which, in retrospect, is a horrible name of course. So I tried to think of something and "The Walls of Jericho" just always stood out with me as a cool album cover name, so I thank Helloween for the assist on that one.

MM: "Chasing The Grail" is a great album. It has tons of melodic parts, hooks, great choruses, guitar solos, a ballad and an epic concept track. What was your mind-set going into this one compared to the last Fozzy album?
CJ: We didn't really have much of a mind-set, but we knew we wanted to do an epic song. When I wrote the lyrics to "Wormwood," I ended up with 10 pages of stuff. It just kind of fell together organically. Rich Ward is the guitar player of Fozzy and the riff-writer, and he used the lyrics I'd given him to inspire the music. Musically, it's very much a Fozzy record, especially because the band have been together for 10 years now and all the gigs we've played and the experiences we've had just added to the flavor of the record.

MM: So you were always into heavy metal before you did pro wrestling?
CJ: Yeah, I've always been a musician since I was 12 years old. I was in bands all through high school and did the bar scene and the Battle of the Bands and all that sort of stuff. It's something I've always wanted to do. I wanted to be a rock star or a wrestler when I was a kid, and now I'm fortunate enough to do both.

MM: What do you love about metal and what makes you want to perform in a band? Did you know you had this awesome metal voice before you started wrestling?
CJ: Like I said, I've been playing in bands since I was 12 years old. Even when I started wrestling, I still continued to record music and play in bands and jam. It's not like I just woke up one day and said, "Hey, I'm a wrestler, now I'll just become a singer." I've always had to do that, and I've never stopped doing that during my time with WWE and right just before that.

MM: What do you hope to achieve with "Chasing The Grail," and are there any tours or festivals planned?
CJ: We're just hoping to continue to grow. This record is our highest- charting record since starting the band. We've done a lot of very successful tours, especially over in the UK: Ireland, England, Wales, Australia, and we definitely want to go back to all those places on this tour. Obviously, my time restraints are there and if we can, still make time to do it. We're going back to the UK in May and we're going to do shows in New York, Phoenix, New Jersey, and we have a whole bunch of stuff coming up. We'll do the shows that we can do that are more of a special one-night thing instead of playing across the country. I just don't have the time for that right now. We're still going to do select shows for sure.

MM: Can you tell me how Fozzy formed and how your friendship with Rich developed?
CJ: I met Rich at a WWF show. He was working for the company and we just started talking. We're kindred spirits and have a lot of the same influences and a lot of the same favorite bands. He had a cover band in Atlanta called Fozzy Osbourne and I went and played a couple of shows with them. Rich was also in Stuck Mojo. We were signed to Megaforce Records by the same guy that signed Metallica (Jon Zazula). We signed as a cover band, then morphed into playing all originals, and here we are.

MM: With the last Fozzy release and now the new one, it has become abundantly clear that Fozzy isn't just a joke band or a cover band. When did you and Rich decide to really get serious and create some mature metal?
CJ: The first record was all covers and we had the comedy story line. I thought just being a cover band was nothing interesting, so we wanted to do something creative with this. And then when we did the second record, we did half covers/half originals and we decided, leave the gimmick and the covers and just tour. We didn't want to stop playing because we were enjoying the band's period and we had great players, so that's when we decided to do all-original stuff. It was a bit of a transition, we figured we could do it with the material and the songs we had. Although it was a huge step forward for us getting that so-called credibility to validate "Chasing the Grail." The first couple of albums we had have kind of been forgotten about. Even Pantera had three or four records as a glam band before they came out as the Pantera we all know. And after awhile, if the music is good, that's all that matters.

MM: Now that Fozzy is still going, does wrestling come first?
CJ: It does come first, it's my "day job." But when I'm doing Fozzy, then Fozzy is first. Like I said, I've been very fortunate that I've gotten to do the two things in my life that I've always wanted to do, one of them for 20 years and the other for 10 years. So building the band is very important to me, as is gaining more fans. The cool thing about it is, what's been happening with us is, with each release and each show, more fans are checking us out. That's all you can ask for. If we didn't have a fan base or nobody cared about what we were doing, then maybe we would stop doing it, but it's the exact opposite of that.

MM: How was the experience as a guest on That Metal Show? Did you guys sit around and bullshit about music during commercials? I assume it takes longer than the alloted 30 minutes to do the show. What was the whole experience like?
CJ: Well, it's funny because I've known Eddie Trunk for years. Actually he and I and Mike Portnoy from Dream Theater basically created the original concept of That Metal Show, just on Eddie's radio show, which was basically just a view for heavy-metal fans ... a bunch of guys just talking about metal. We did that probably a dozen times on his show, and he took that concept and got a TV gig with it, even though Mike and I were the brains behind it! (laughing). No, we had a great time with it. That show could easily be an hour, there's a lot of stuff to talk about. We're all kindred spirits and we all know and love heavy metal in all it's forms. It's great just to sit down and debate about which bands are better. It's a great show and it's a lot of fun.

MM: Any last words, comments or plugs you'd like to get in?
CJ: I'm just excited that I have great and loyal fans after being in show business for 20 years who support pretty much everything I do, and I appreciate that. I don't put my name on anything that I don't feel is 100% quality, and that's what I feel our band is. One of my favorite quotes is from Dave Mustaine: "The only people that don't like Fozzy are people who have never actually heard the band." Because every time they would listen to it they would say, "Wow, that's great. I really like that." If you haven't heard Fozzy, give it a listen, if you're a fan, stick to it and I'll see you soon.

www.fozzyrock.com

Article by Kelley Simms

Catch them at:

FOZZY + Forever Never + Halcyon Way + The Jokers
Thursday, May 13, 2010
THE GARAGE,
490 Sauchiehall Street,
Glasgow, G2
0141 332 1120
£ 12.50
Doors 7:00pm
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FOZZY + Forever Never + Halcyon Way + The Jokers
Friday, May 14, 2010
ROCK CITY
8 Talbot Street,
Nottingham, NG1 5GG
08713 100 000
£ 12.50
Doors: 6:30pm
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BUY TICKETS

FOZZY + Forever Never + Halcyon Way + The Jokers + Nightvision
Saturday, May 15, 2010
The Relentless Garage (Matinee Show)
20-22 Highbury Corner,
London, N5 1RD
020 7619 6720
£13.50 Matinee 2:00pm
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FOZZY + Forever Never + Halcyon Way + Death Valley Piledriver
Saturday, May 15, 2010
The Relentless Garage (Evening Show)
20-22 Highbury Corner,
London, N5 1RD
020 7619 6720
£14.50 Evening 7:00pm
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