Fozzy's Chris Jericho

Interview by Brendan Crabb

World Wrestling Entertainment (WWE) star and actor Chris Jericho has spent the past decade establishing heavy metallers Fozzy, the band he fronts and which also features Stuck Mojo guitarist/chief songwriter Rich Ward. Following two predominantly covers-oriented albums, the band released the excellent All That Remains in 2005 and followed it this year with the even more impressive Chasing The Grail (out now through Riot!). Jericho kindly took some time out from his extremely busy schedule (at approximately 3am his time!) following a taping of WWE’s flagship Raw program in Jacksonville, Florida to talk to Brendan Crabb about the success of the new album, fitting his music career around his wrestling and acting schedule, his favourite newer bands and much more.

Q: Following the two primarily covers albums, you decided to ditch the back-story and solely write originals for All That Remains. As a result, does Chasing The Grail essentially feel like your true “second album”?

A: Yeah, absolutely. I mean, in a lot of ways it’s definitely our second album, because I think All That Remains was the bridge between old Fozzy and new Fozzy and that’s why we took our time to make this record as special as we could get it. Because we knew that it could take us to a whole different level of prominence and we worked hard at it. It has been by far our best-received record and had the best reviews; the buzz for the band is bigger than it’s ever been and after ten years that’s pretty cool, to be able to say that we’re still growing.

Q: What was the conversation like with Rich when you decided it was time to remove the more comical elements of the band’s image and become a more mature, or for lack of a better word, “serious” outfit?

A: It’s just a natural progression. I mean (for) the first record we were signed as a cover band by Johnny Zazula, who signed Metallica in ’83. So I mean, we had some big backers that wanted to do this and we thought, “okay, it’s strange, but let’s do it, let’s give it a try”. Second record we were kind of half originals, half covers and that was kind of when we knew that we wanted to do more original stuff because the people that were into Happenstance, most of them were saying, “listen, we love the covers but the originals are really good on this record”. We just showed up at the Howard Stern Show, we had a battle of the bands against Howard’s band and we said that we can’t play this show with wigs and costumes on - they’ll blow us out of the water. And that was kind of the end of the gimmick that day and then two weeks later we said, “listen, we want to continue on as an all original band and let’s go for it, let’s do it. We’ve got great players, we’ve got great chemistry and there’s no reason not to give this a try”. So we did and we knew we really had to make a statement with All That Remains and then all that kind of worked out as well as it did, in fact even better than we thought. It’s the same thing with Chasing The Grail, it took us to the next level and just turned the corner of how people think of what our band is.

Q: A few early reviews – and I remember one publication here in Australia used almost exactly these words – wrote the band off as, “oh, this some new joke band with the wrestler and the rap/metal guy”. How difficult was it to shake that stigma?

A: At first (it was difficult), yeah. But I mean it’s the same thing… I’m sure Kiss when they first came out with the make-up; “hey, those guys are wearing make-up”. I mean, after a while it gets old, so there’s no way we’d have been able to survive ten years and four records if we didn’t have the songs to back it up. I think at this point in time that what people are hearing, they don’t really care who’s in the band, they just know that it’s good music and they like it. That’s the most important thing.

Q: There is a rather wide cross-section of influences on this album – everything from Maiden and Priest to Journey and Styx. Was that the aim, to try and include the wide-ranging tastes that the band members collectively have?

A: There really wasn’t any aim, it was just what we were going to do is what we were writing and where we were coming from. I wrote 14 sets of lyrics, gave them to Rich and he just started interpreting those lyrics and writing riffs that he was inspired to write by my words. As a result, it’s like, you know, we have obviously the Priest and Maiden influences and Journey and Styx. There’s also Metallica, Pantera, The Beatles, Pink Floyd, Queen and everything in between. So we definitely take pride in the fact that we do something a little different than most bands out there today. We play very heavy music, but it’s very melodic, with a lot of vocal and guitar harmonies, that it kind of has carved out a real niche for ourselves in what we’re doing that a lot of people, that a lot of bands aren’t playing right now. And I think that’s a result of our influences, but you also have to have your own style as well and that’s something that really comes through on the last record for sure, more than ever.

Q: Definitely. The album certainly incorporates those older influences, while morphing them into your own style and with more modern production values as well. Was it a conscious effort to sidestep some of the elements and trends that currently “in” within heavy music at the moment?

A: Well, I mean, the thing is, what is “in” in metal? You know? The bands… to me, (one of) the best two bands of the last ten years is Avenged Sevenfold and they’re just as a classic as it gets. I mean, their music’s very heavy, but there’s a great singer involved in M. Shadows. And bands like Maiden are bigger than they’ve ever been. So it’s just kind of funny how what’s old is new and then the cycle turns around and Metallica is huge. So it’s not really like, what’s trendy, it’s not like (we’re) going to because a death metal band or turn into Nickelback or something like that. We just do the sound that we play and it’s heavy and it’s fast sometimes, there’s great guitar work and interesting harmonies and intricate parts. I mean, this record has the most keyboards we’ve ever had out of any record and it’s like, are keyboards in? I don’t really know, I just know that we have an idea of what’s going to sound good with the songs that we’re writing and the music that we play and I think we’ve kind of cultivated a great fan base that’s going to follow us and trust our judgment. So far, so good!

Q: The ballad ‘Broken Soul’ is one of your more radio-friendly songs, even considering your previous releases and seems to be picking up some steam in terms of airplay both here and in the US. How did that song come together?

A: It’s funny, because I actually wrote that song and the lyrics were much heavier. I actually had to re-write the lyrics, because I never expected that Rich would create that type of… I mean, it’s a ballad, it’s got a lot of kind of 70s Skynyrd-type vibes to it, there’s a little bit of a Beatles section in there. So it’s interesting that he came up with that, based on my lyrics. It’s funny too, because that’s getting the most Top 40 airplay that we’ve ever gotten. I think it’s been played on like 20 stations across the States right now on Top 40, so you’re like, here’s Nickelback, Beyonce and Fozzy. Which is an area that we never thought we’d be in, but hey whatever it takes that’s going to get people to listen to our music. That’s the most important thing and I was really surprised with ‘Broken Soul’ and how it turned out, how great of a song it is, because we have never had a ballad before and we didn’t really expect to have one on this record either. But that’s kind of just naturally what came out of Rich when he saw my lyrics for it.

Q: What inspired you to write lyrics these days?

A: (Pauses) I don’t know, I mean I always just think of a song title and work backwards. ‘Broken Soul’, ‘Martyr No More’, ‘Grail’, obviously ‘Paraskavedekatriaphobia’, ‘Pray For Blood’, ‘New Day’s Dawn’. They’re just ideas that pop into my head and I’m like, “okay, well what would make an interesting subject to write about based on the song title?” I’ve always been a song title guy, I always liked that song titles that had a bit of originality to them or some kind of extra spin that you could learn something from, you know? Like ‘Paraskavedekatriaphobia’ which is a fear of the day Friday the 13^th. It’s the best (part) that he’s ever written, such an Iron Maiden-style song and you see that you instantly want to know what the hell it means, (then) you have to go look it up on Google or in a dictionary or whatever. I like that – it’s much more interesting to me than writing about cars and girls. Not that there’s anything wrong with that; there’s times you want to do that too, but for me I like the more intricate ideas.

Q: Interesting. Now, you were quite vocal on Twitter recently with regard to fans asking you about illegal downloading and fans saying they had no problem stealing from seemingly greedy label executives. Your response was, “I am the record label exec” (Jericho co-funded the record). What’s your view on where that aspect of the industry is headed?

A: It’s unfortunate, but it’s just the way that the way it is now and I think there’s a real sense of entitlement where people just think, “man, I’m just going to steal this music because everyone else does and why should I pay money to buy music?” It’s sad, because it’s making it harder and harder for musicians to earn a living. That’s why you just have to really focus on live shows and we’ve done so many in-store signings for Chasing The Grail because people get a chance to say hi and get an autograph. And hey, if that’s what it takes to get people to buy the record, then I’m willing to do it because that’s the world we live in now. Whether it’s ringtones or whether it’s people buying merch or whatever, it’s like whatever revenue streams bands can do now, they’ve got to explore it because the old version of selling 500,000 records or a million records, I mean unless you’re at the top of the top it just doesn’t work that way anymore. It’s sad, because it’s going to kill bands from developing, because they just won’t be able to afford it. It kind of eats our young with this one, so it’s interesting to see how the business is going to recover, because I don’t know if it can at this moment.

Q: Did you take it personally when you had fans directly telling you online that they’d stolen your music and they think it’s some creepy major label guy who’s the one they’re stealing from, when it was the band, especially yourself?

A: Yeah, you take it personally, that’s because of the record exec, but also because of being a musician in the band. I mean, you don’t get into music to make the money, but if there’s money to be made then you want to make it. And I just don’t see… stealing is stealing, man. Whether I grow bananas on a tree then put them for sale and people come and steal my bananas and eat them because they’re entitled to have free bananas… it doesn’t make any sense. It’s the same thing for a musician creating art, you know? If I draw a picture and put it on the wall of the galley and charge you 15 bucks and you just steal it and walk out the door, it’s exactly the (same) concept that’s going on online. I’ve never stolen a song in my life. When I was a kid I would record songs off the radio, but if I liked it I would go buy it. I understand that that’s just the way it is, but for me personally I’ll buy every song that I ever want to listen to because it’s only fair. If I want to go buy gas I’ve gotta pay for it, if I want to go buy music I’ve gotta pay for it.

Q: What do you think of the long-time comparison between the current illegal downloading and the tape-trading that was so popular in the 80s?

A: There are a lot of similarities, but tape-trading was different because you would record… it was different then because you’d buy an album to get the album cover, to get the lyrics and all that sort of thing. There was a real sense of, it was a collection, you had your collection. I think every Iron Maiden album that ever came out I bought it because I wanted to look at the cover and see the stuff that was on there and read the lyrics. You could just record it off your friend, but then you’d be stuck with an empty cassette. I just never liked that; having all these cassettes with like handwritten song names on it and stuff. You know, maybe there was a band that you might not like so (much), you might just listen to the band if you’d recorded it. And I guess maybe if it’s a marginal band, stealing it online is maybe acceptable, but I’m talking (about) bands that you love, like Metallica. I wouldn’t dream of stealing a song from Metallica because they’re my favourite band and I wouldn’t dream of sneaking into a Tampa Bay Bucks game because they’re your favourite team or whatever it is. Now, it’s not just bands that you kind of marginally like, it’s every band that’s out there and that to me is where the real problems are starting to arise.

Q: That’s timely you mention Metallica, seeing as I bought tickets this morning to see their next tour (laughs).

A: I heard about that, it’s going to be great. Great, man.

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