Rich Ward - Fozzy (06/11/2012)
The 59th Sound recently spoke with Rich Ward of Fozzy, before they head to our shores for Soundwave Festival 2013.
Hey Rich
Hey Ryan, what’s going on my friend, How are ya?
I’m not bad, how are you and where are you calling from at the moment?
We’re in Albany, New York tonight. Just had dinner about an hour ago and we are on stage in a couple of hours.
Awesome! Are you guys doing anything big for Halloween?
No. No big plans, we got the day off tomorrow night. I know that it’s Halloween already for you guys but its tomorrow for us. We will probably just sit on the bus and watch horror movies all night. We are in clubs and theatres almost every day of the week and you know the last thing you want to do when you are out every night is to go out again. So, we will probably find a good meal and watch horror films.
So how is the tour going so far?
It’s been amazing you know. We just came off seven weeks of a touring festival called the Uproar festival with Shinedown and Godsmack, Staind, Papa Roach and P.O.D. It was a great line-up and when we finished that we went out on a short East Coast 2 week run to hit the markets that didn’t get on uproar. Then we were home for two weeks and then we go to Europe for a month, so we’re real busy and blessed to be out here working.
Is this your first Soundwave tour and what are you looking forward to about coming to Australia?
Yeah it is our first Soundwave tour. We have done two club tours of Australia and it’s always been some of the most memorable gigs we’ve ever done. Just the fans are amazing and we always have such a great time. We’ve always wanted to be asked to be on Soundwave, we actually campaigned to get on and we were so excited when we heard that we were invited to be on this year. It’s a dream come true for us. Metallica are the headliners and you have 75 of the best bands of the world, in the middle of the summer with the heat. We are gonna come and bring Fozzy’s A-game.
How different is it playing with Fozzy compared to Stuck Mojo and your other bands?
Well, it’s a different approach. Stuck Mojo is more of an aggressive band. Musically they’re not too terribly different because I am the primary song writer on both bands, so the bands aren’t going to be incredibly different. Obviously it’s a delivery mechanism. You’ve got the original Stuck Mojo vocalist Bones and Chris Jericho are just completely different people and their approaches to running the band is completely different. For fans that have seen both bands, I think they would tell you that’s the big difference.
How is being in a band with Chris Jericho, I imagine his WWE schedule would have been very heavy with travel?
It is, it’s difficult. You know we have been in a band for 13 years and we’ve made five records, probably played 1000 or so shows together. It’s been great. You know Chris and I are friends first and foremost and out of that friendship we grew a good partnership in our song writing and being band mates. We builded the chemistry of what it means to make a good band on stage and in the studio. He is a great guy and loves music. The rest of the guys in Fozzy have been making records since the early 90’s and that’s what we’ve done our whole lives. Chris is a little newer to making music for a living because he spent 15 years on the road wrestling before he actually joined the band. I think he brings a sort of freshness to us and a different enthusiasm to the band, which has been good for us. Chris has always been able to energise us.
When Fozzy started you were a mock-metal band. How has Fozzy changed since 1999?
We weren’t really a full time band. As you said, at that time we started off as a cover band doing kinda what Steel Panther does now. We were doing that 13 years ago and having a good time, but we were only playing 5,6 or 7 shows a year. Now here we are 13 years later, we have done 3 original records that are amongst the best records I have ever made in my career. Especially the new one Sin and Bones I think it’s an excellent album. It took us a little longer than you would imagine that it would take to get things right, one of the reasons is we only got together so often because we were just a part time band. It would be like a professional sports team that got together only 2 months a year. At some point you aren’t allocating the amount of time to make it right. A lot if it comes down to Chris because he’s been the world champion 6 times for the WWE, he’s met all of his goals, he’s climbed the highest mountains in his profession and I think he was ready to try some new things. He is taking more time off from wrestling and prioritising more of his time as a musician which has allowed us to become a much better band.
Can you tell us more about your latest album Sin and Bones? I understand that you recorded with M.Shadows from Avenged Sevenfold.
Yeah he worked with us on one of the songs and we just had an awesome time because he is a great artist in his own right. I didn’t really know much about Avenged Sevenfold, I’ve seen them play a few times and I’ve met Matt Shadows a couple of times but I didn’t really know him that well. He has such an amazing passion for music and he is a really talented guy and also a really talented song writer. It was a really great experience working with him.
What did you do differently with this album, apart from dedicating more time for it?
Well I think the biggest difference was instead of Chris singing in the studio with a microphone on a stand with perfect posture, we got him a microphone that he could actually hold. So for an entire session Chris is actually performing the songs as if he was singing live.
So it was more natural?
Absolutely, you know the thing about Chris is that as a performer he is second to none. Whether he is wrestling or singing that is where he really excels and we really wanted to try and harness that and focus that onto the album. The hand held microphone was really the trick.
How do you think metal has changed since you started playing to now? Has it lost or gained popularity?
You know I have no idea. Bands were playing arenas when I was younger and bands are still playing arenas now. Probably less bands play arenas now than there used to be. I wanna say that it’s probably just because there is more bands. When I was growing up there was probably only 30 metal bands you could name and half of those were underground metal bands that you read about in a fanzine. I’m talking about early mid 80’s, when I first discovered heavy music as a kid. Now there are a million bands, you don’t even need a record deal. You can make your own CD on a laptop computer and upload it to a website and gain success. I don’t think that’s a bad thing, it’s a good thing, but I graduated high school in ’87. I am 43 now and I’m not ashamed of that because I think that’s what makes me apart of who I am. This is my 18th record and I am still as passionate today as I was when I was 12 years old. The difference is when I was a kid you went to the movie theatres and there were only two theatres! They didn’t have multiplexes where you could see 18 movies in the one theatre and so there was less competition. With less competition, people would see Raiders of the Lost Ark or they would go see Star Wars. There wasn’t 10 thousand movies coming out and I think that it’s the same thing with the music business. People say that the reason that the industry is dying and is down in sales is because people are downloading songs for free. I think that’s a part of it, but could it also be that there are 10 thousand bands out there and some are giving their music away for free and some are selling directly for 99 cents a download via PayPal? There are so many ways of doing things now it’s hard to judge if something is more popular or if something is less popular. It’s just different.
What are you guy’s going to do when you finish touring?
We are gonna make another record and we are gonna tour some more (laughs).
Just one last question, are you guys doing any sideshows for Soundwave?
Yeah we are. I think two or three sideshows. I haven’t heard where or who with, but I heard that was the initial conversation with the Soundwave people. The deal was we would do five shows of the festivals and two or three sideshows.
Thanks for that, I think that’s all we have time for. Have fun playing your gig tonight.
Thank you so much, you have a great Halloween! Take care of yourself.
Ryan Hyde
Follow me on Twitter! - @RyanHyde93
Hey Rich
Hey Ryan, what’s going on my friend, How are ya?
I’m not bad, how are you and where are you calling from at the moment?
We’re in Albany, New York tonight. Just had dinner about an hour ago and we are on stage in a couple of hours.
Awesome! Are you guys doing anything big for Halloween?
No. No big plans, we got the day off tomorrow night. I know that it’s Halloween already for you guys but its tomorrow for us. We will probably just sit on the bus and watch horror movies all night. We are in clubs and theatres almost every day of the week and you know the last thing you want to do when you are out every night is to go out again. So, we will probably find a good meal and watch horror films.
So how is the tour going so far?
It’s been amazing you know. We just came off seven weeks of a touring festival called the Uproar festival with Shinedown and Godsmack, Staind, Papa Roach and P.O.D. It was a great line-up and when we finished that we went out on a short East Coast 2 week run to hit the markets that didn’t get on uproar. Then we were home for two weeks and then we go to Europe for a month, so we’re real busy and blessed to be out here working.
Is this your first Soundwave tour and what are you looking forward to about coming to Australia?
Yeah it is our first Soundwave tour. We have done two club tours of Australia and it’s always been some of the most memorable gigs we’ve ever done. Just the fans are amazing and we always have such a great time. We’ve always wanted to be asked to be on Soundwave, we actually campaigned to get on and we were so excited when we heard that we were invited to be on this year. It’s a dream come true for us. Metallica are the headliners and you have 75 of the best bands of the world, in the middle of the summer with the heat. We are gonna come and bring Fozzy’s A-game.
How different is it playing with Fozzy compared to Stuck Mojo and your other bands?
Well, it’s a different approach. Stuck Mojo is more of an aggressive band. Musically they’re not too terribly different because I am the primary song writer on both bands, so the bands aren’t going to be incredibly different. Obviously it’s a delivery mechanism. You’ve got the original Stuck Mojo vocalist Bones and Chris Jericho are just completely different people and their approaches to running the band is completely different. For fans that have seen both bands, I think they would tell you that’s the big difference.
How is being in a band with Chris Jericho, I imagine his WWE schedule would have been very heavy with travel?
It is, it’s difficult. You know we have been in a band for 13 years and we’ve made five records, probably played 1000 or so shows together. It’s been great. You know Chris and I are friends first and foremost and out of that friendship we grew a good partnership in our song writing and being band mates. We builded the chemistry of what it means to make a good band on stage and in the studio. He is a great guy and loves music. The rest of the guys in Fozzy have been making records since the early 90’s and that’s what we’ve done our whole lives. Chris is a little newer to making music for a living because he spent 15 years on the road wrestling before he actually joined the band. I think he brings a sort of freshness to us and a different enthusiasm to the band, which has been good for us. Chris has always been able to energise us.
When Fozzy started you were a mock-metal band. How has Fozzy changed since 1999?
We weren’t really a full time band. As you said, at that time we started off as a cover band doing kinda what Steel Panther does now. We were doing that 13 years ago and having a good time, but we were only playing 5,6 or 7 shows a year. Now here we are 13 years later, we have done 3 original records that are amongst the best records I have ever made in my career. Especially the new one Sin and Bones I think it’s an excellent album. It took us a little longer than you would imagine that it would take to get things right, one of the reasons is we only got together so often because we were just a part time band. It would be like a professional sports team that got together only 2 months a year. At some point you aren’t allocating the amount of time to make it right. A lot if it comes down to Chris because he’s been the world champion 6 times for the WWE, he’s met all of his goals, he’s climbed the highest mountains in his profession and I think he was ready to try some new things. He is taking more time off from wrestling and prioritising more of his time as a musician which has allowed us to become a much better band.
Can you tell us more about your latest album Sin and Bones? I understand that you recorded with M.Shadows from Avenged Sevenfold.
Yeah he worked with us on one of the songs and we just had an awesome time because he is a great artist in his own right. I didn’t really know much about Avenged Sevenfold, I’ve seen them play a few times and I’ve met Matt Shadows a couple of times but I didn’t really know him that well. He has such an amazing passion for music and he is a really talented guy and also a really talented song writer. It was a really great experience working with him.
What did you do differently with this album, apart from dedicating more time for it?
Well I think the biggest difference was instead of Chris singing in the studio with a microphone on a stand with perfect posture, we got him a microphone that he could actually hold. So for an entire session Chris is actually performing the songs as if he was singing live.
So it was more natural?
Absolutely, you know the thing about Chris is that as a performer he is second to none. Whether he is wrestling or singing that is where he really excels and we really wanted to try and harness that and focus that onto the album. The hand held microphone was really the trick.
How do you think metal has changed since you started playing to now? Has it lost or gained popularity?
You know I have no idea. Bands were playing arenas when I was younger and bands are still playing arenas now. Probably less bands play arenas now than there used to be. I wanna say that it’s probably just because there is more bands. When I was growing up there was probably only 30 metal bands you could name and half of those were underground metal bands that you read about in a fanzine. I’m talking about early mid 80’s, when I first discovered heavy music as a kid. Now there are a million bands, you don’t even need a record deal. You can make your own CD on a laptop computer and upload it to a website and gain success. I don’t think that’s a bad thing, it’s a good thing, but I graduated high school in ’87. I am 43 now and I’m not ashamed of that because I think that’s what makes me apart of who I am. This is my 18th record and I am still as passionate today as I was when I was 12 years old. The difference is when I was a kid you went to the movie theatres and there were only two theatres! They didn’t have multiplexes where you could see 18 movies in the one theatre and so there was less competition. With less competition, people would see Raiders of the Lost Ark or they would go see Star Wars. There wasn’t 10 thousand movies coming out and I think that it’s the same thing with the music business. People say that the reason that the industry is dying and is down in sales is because people are downloading songs for free. I think that’s a part of it, but could it also be that there are 10 thousand bands out there and some are giving their music away for free and some are selling directly for 99 cents a download via PayPal? There are so many ways of doing things now it’s hard to judge if something is more popular or if something is less popular. It’s just different.
What are you guy’s going to do when you finish touring?
We are gonna make another record and we are gonna tour some more (laughs).
Just one last question, are you guys doing any sideshows for Soundwave?
Yeah we are. I think two or three sideshows. I haven’t heard where or who with, but I heard that was the initial conversation with the Soundwave people. The deal was we would do five shows of the festivals and two or three sideshows.
Thanks for that, I think that’s all we have time for. Have fun playing your gig tonight.
Thank you so much, you have a great Halloween! Take care of yourself.
Ryan Hyde
Follow me on Twitter! - @RyanHyde93