Chris Jericho - Fozzy (25/07/2014)
On the cusp of releasing his sixth studio album as front man of hook-driven metallers Fozzy, Chris “Y2J” Jericho spiritedly took time out from a relentless touring schedule to chat to The 59th Sound about all things music, wrestling, and geography that fifteen swift minutes allowed. Born in New York, raised in Canada, currently residing in Florida, and speaking from Montreal, Jericho is quick to establish that he isn’t as close to home ground as this interviewer had initially presumed.
“Yeah, not even close. I live in Tampa, Florida, so if you like living in Perth and saying Sydney is your home base, yeah…”
Swathing geographical assumptions aside, Jericho has indeed been trekking significantly on a global scale for the last two years, all while Fozzy’s tour schedules, discography, and popularity have all grown in equal measure. Squeezing the elaborate task of writing and recording an album amidst that life style would appear insurmountable to most, especially with Y2J’s schedule extending to a regular podcast, autobiography writing, and a recent return to professional wrestling with the WWE. Jericho, evidently, has taken it all in his characteristically confident stride.
“Well it wasn’t really squeezed in, it was all planned. We’d been writing since Sin & Bones come out back in August 2012. You never really stop writing when you’re in a band, especially when you get all this momentum behind you. The buzz that Fozzy has been getting over the last few years, we just wanted to keep it rolling. You get your foot in the door and you want to kick that fucker open!”
“Our plan was to do a record every two years. We had the ideas for it and we were ready to go, so it was a pretty painless process to get through to do another record as quote-unquote ‘quickly’ as we did.”
With regard to the specifics of their recording process as a band, Jericho is happy to elaborate of how a Fozzy album collaboratively comes together, particularly Do You Wanna Start A War?, Fozzy’s latest.
“The majority of the songs are written by Rich Ward our guitar player, and I write the lyrics for the majority of the tunes. So Rich and I will pass lyrics back and forth and he’ll start shotting these ideas of what he’s got melody-wise, and song-wise, and that’s basically how it all starts. I think (Rich) is a very diverse song writer and a very diverse lyric writer, and I think the biggest goal or ‘rule’ for this record was just to not have any rules.”
The new record’s title itself seems a call to arms of sorts, something in to which Jericho and his band mates have put in a not insignificant amount of thought.
“It’s not starting a war with bombs and guns, it’s starting a war against things that oppose you. It’s threatening things that are bringing you down, and things that aren’t right. Start a war with it! Beat it! I kind of envisioned it to be very anthemic. Something you could play at a festival and have every one jumping up and down and singing at the same time. (Do You Wanna Start A War lyric) “Throw your hands to the sky, say goodbye to bad times” is kind of something we can all relate to.”
“I think that’s the secret to writing lyrics. I mean, it’s fun to write Dungeons & Dragons fantasy lyrics sometimes, but the ones that really strike and resonate with people are the ones every one can relate to. Believing in your relationships, believing in yourself, dealing with adversity and getting over it, and getting better because of it.”
Let it be said that regardless of whether you like Fozzy or not, their crowds are a passionate lot. At the various Fozzy gigs this interviewer has attended over the years, there isn’t a mouth in the crowd from go-to-woah that isn’t belting out every damn lyric along with Jericho; himself a shiny and unstoppable force on stage. WWE’s first ever Undisputed champion (yep, he was that, too), is happy to elaborate on what he thinks makes Fozzy fans almost inscrutably loyal.
“We’ve got a great fan base because of our back story. Sometimes people have a certain idea about what we are, and might not like the band without ever really even hearing it. The don’t give the band a listen or a chance because of that. We’re very much like a little band called Iron Maiden, who back in 1982 had a huge groundswell of fans all saying “This band rocks!” Radio wasn’t playing them, video stations weren’t playing them, people were all “Oh, it’s Iron Maiden… what’s that all about?” The fans were so loud and so loyal, and so rabid that they suddenly became very, very popular.”
“You can start to see the same kind of vibe with Fozzy now because people believe in us. They know we’ve never been handed anything and never done anything the easy way so as a result I think (fans) feel like they’re a part of something cool, and something that’s growing.”
Growing Fozzy indeed is, having recently graced the main stage at the UK’s mammoth 2014 Download festival, shoulder-to-shoulder with the likes of Aerosmith, Linkin Park, and Rob Zombie.
“Again, you’re gonna get critics who downplay the band because “Oh, Jericho’s in it, it’s just a wrestling band”, or whatever. Screw those critics, to me the biggest critics are the fans, and the reaction at Download was off the charts. Playing in front of 40,000 people at 12 noon, man, that’s a pretty cool thing. We take that very seriously, and never take it for granted. The fans are going crazy and really digging what we’re doing, so like I said it’s a really, really cool vibe.”
With Jericho’s aforementioned schedule tying up great deal of time in the definitely near, and undoubtedly distant future, the question of fitting in a tour down under to sate the huge amount of hype already generated around Do You Wanna Start A War’s release is no doubt paramount to any Australian fan. If nothing else, at least Y2J is scheduled to light up wrestling rings around Australia with a mid-year WWE tour.
“I actually don’t think I’ve wrestled in Australia since way back in 2009! I think I’ve definitely been there more with Fozzy than I have with wrestling. I’m excited to get the chance to come back and wrestle, and hopefully I get to come back with the band there again soon, too. I can’t juggle wrestling and music at the same time, it has to be one or the other, as it just gets too hard to do both. You have to give 100 percent to each. So hopefully, maybe Soundwave next year.”
Jericho departs with some wise advice for aspiring musicians, or folks with any larger-than-life aspirations in general. Coming from a man who has soared to accomplishment after accomplishment so spectacularly in rings, on stage, and behind the cameras and crowds for two decades, it may be worth taking heed. Either way, it’s plain to see Jericho is a man far beyond driven.
“My goals in life were to be a musician and a wrestler, other wise the other things have just happened as a result of those things or an offshoot of that. If projects that come up to me seem interesting and I have time to do them, then I’ll do it. If not, then my goal is to make Fozzy the biggest band in the world right now. We’re doing this, and you have to have that attitude, and if don’t? Quit right now. I want Metallica’s job.”
Todd Gingell
“Yeah, not even close. I live in Tampa, Florida, so if you like living in Perth and saying Sydney is your home base, yeah…”
Swathing geographical assumptions aside, Jericho has indeed been trekking significantly on a global scale for the last two years, all while Fozzy’s tour schedules, discography, and popularity have all grown in equal measure. Squeezing the elaborate task of writing and recording an album amidst that life style would appear insurmountable to most, especially with Y2J’s schedule extending to a regular podcast, autobiography writing, and a recent return to professional wrestling with the WWE. Jericho, evidently, has taken it all in his characteristically confident stride.
“Well it wasn’t really squeezed in, it was all planned. We’d been writing since Sin & Bones come out back in August 2012. You never really stop writing when you’re in a band, especially when you get all this momentum behind you. The buzz that Fozzy has been getting over the last few years, we just wanted to keep it rolling. You get your foot in the door and you want to kick that fucker open!”
“Our plan was to do a record every two years. We had the ideas for it and we were ready to go, so it was a pretty painless process to get through to do another record as quote-unquote ‘quickly’ as we did.”
With regard to the specifics of their recording process as a band, Jericho is happy to elaborate of how a Fozzy album collaboratively comes together, particularly Do You Wanna Start A War?, Fozzy’s latest.
“The majority of the songs are written by Rich Ward our guitar player, and I write the lyrics for the majority of the tunes. So Rich and I will pass lyrics back and forth and he’ll start shotting these ideas of what he’s got melody-wise, and song-wise, and that’s basically how it all starts. I think (Rich) is a very diverse song writer and a very diverse lyric writer, and I think the biggest goal or ‘rule’ for this record was just to not have any rules.”
The new record’s title itself seems a call to arms of sorts, something in to which Jericho and his band mates have put in a not insignificant amount of thought.
“It’s not starting a war with bombs and guns, it’s starting a war against things that oppose you. It’s threatening things that are bringing you down, and things that aren’t right. Start a war with it! Beat it! I kind of envisioned it to be very anthemic. Something you could play at a festival and have every one jumping up and down and singing at the same time. (Do You Wanna Start A War lyric) “Throw your hands to the sky, say goodbye to bad times” is kind of something we can all relate to.”
“I think that’s the secret to writing lyrics. I mean, it’s fun to write Dungeons & Dragons fantasy lyrics sometimes, but the ones that really strike and resonate with people are the ones every one can relate to. Believing in your relationships, believing in yourself, dealing with adversity and getting over it, and getting better because of it.”
Let it be said that regardless of whether you like Fozzy or not, their crowds are a passionate lot. At the various Fozzy gigs this interviewer has attended over the years, there isn’t a mouth in the crowd from go-to-woah that isn’t belting out every damn lyric along with Jericho; himself a shiny and unstoppable force on stage. WWE’s first ever Undisputed champion (yep, he was that, too), is happy to elaborate on what he thinks makes Fozzy fans almost inscrutably loyal.
“We’ve got a great fan base because of our back story. Sometimes people have a certain idea about what we are, and might not like the band without ever really even hearing it. The don’t give the band a listen or a chance because of that. We’re very much like a little band called Iron Maiden, who back in 1982 had a huge groundswell of fans all saying “This band rocks!” Radio wasn’t playing them, video stations weren’t playing them, people were all “Oh, it’s Iron Maiden… what’s that all about?” The fans were so loud and so loyal, and so rabid that they suddenly became very, very popular.”
“You can start to see the same kind of vibe with Fozzy now because people believe in us. They know we’ve never been handed anything and never done anything the easy way so as a result I think (fans) feel like they’re a part of something cool, and something that’s growing.”
Growing Fozzy indeed is, having recently graced the main stage at the UK’s mammoth 2014 Download festival, shoulder-to-shoulder with the likes of Aerosmith, Linkin Park, and Rob Zombie.
“Again, you’re gonna get critics who downplay the band because “Oh, Jericho’s in it, it’s just a wrestling band”, or whatever. Screw those critics, to me the biggest critics are the fans, and the reaction at Download was off the charts. Playing in front of 40,000 people at 12 noon, man, that’s a pretty cool thing. We take that very seriously, and never take it for granted. The fans are going crazy and really digging what we’re doing, so like I said it’s a really, really cool vibe.”
With Jericho’s aforementioned schedule tying up great deal of time in the definitely near, and undoubtedly distant future, the question of fitting in a tour down under to sate the huge amount of hype already generated around Do You Wanna Start A War’s release is no doubt paramount to any Australian fan. If nothing else, at least Y2J is scheduled to light up wrestling rings around Australia with a mid-year WWE tour.
“I actually don’t think I’ve wrestled in Australia since way back in 2009! I think I’ve definitely been there more with Fozzy than I have with wrestling. I’m excited to get the chance to come back and wrestle, and hopefully I get to come back with the band there again soon, too. I can’t juggle wrestling and music at the same time, it has to be one or the other, as it just gets too hard to do both. You have to give 100 percent to each. So hopefully, maybe Soundwave next year.”
Jericho departs with some wise advice for aspiring musicians, or folks with any larger-than-life aspirations in general. Coming from a man who has soared to accomplishment after accomplishment so spectacularly in rings, on stage, and behind the cameras and crowds for two decades, it may be worth taking heed. Either way, it’s plain to see Jericho is a man far beyond driven.
“My goals in life were to be a musician and a wrestler, other wise the other things have just happened as a result of those things or an offshoot of that. If projects that come up to me seem interesting and I have time to do them, then I’ll do it. If not, then my goal is to make Fozzy the biggest band in the world right now. We’re doing this, and you have to have that attitude, and if don’t? Quit right now. I want Metallica’s job.”
Todd Gingell