How Chris Jericho Built His Own Brand of Heavy Metal

When Chris Jericho first launched Fozzy, he was just looking to have some fun. But after a couple of years, he realized it was something more serious than just a covers band.

“Everything’s changed to a much bigger perspective than we ever thought about when we first started out,” the wrestling legend tells UCR now.

Fozzy is currently in the midst of their 25th anniversary tour, while Jericho continues to dabble in a variety of projects outside of his time in the ring for AEW, including his return to the silver screen this week (Oct. 11) in the latest installment of the gory slasher film series Terrifier.

During a recent conversation with UCR, Jericho shared his thoughts on the Fozzy milestone, along with some of his favorite underrated Kiss songs and a bit of wrestling talk.

It’s hard to believe we’re sitting here talking about the 25th anniversary of Fozzy. I’d love to hear your memories of the early days and how it eventually crossed a line and became something else for you.
So I’ve always been playing in bands since I was about 13 or 14 years old. Way before I ever got into wrestling, I was playing in rock and roll bands. My high school band was called Scimitar, you know the curved sword that Sinbad uses. We played [iron] Maiden, Metallica and Megadeth covers and we also had a lot of our own original stuff. I always loved playing. I was a bass player in [the band] and I sang. I still continued to always dabble in music. About ‘97 or ‘98, I really started thinking that I wanted to put together something and do a tour and play some shows and focus more on my band stuff. I missed it, because wrestling came along and that kind of kept me really busy, but I still liked playing. There’s nothing like playing with other musicians and playing a song that you wrote or a song that you note. It’s like, “Wow, that sounds really cool.”

I just happened to meet Rich [Ward] backstage at a WCW show in San Antonio. He was there doing some work with Diamond Dallas Page and Stuck Mojo. We just started talking and really hit it off. I was like, “Man, I really want to do something and put together a band.” So he was like, “Why don’t you come to Atlanta? I’ve got this side project thing I do with anybody that’s in town called Fozzy Osbourne and we just play covers and have fun. That’s basically how it started. We did a couple of shows [using that name] and it really worked. Right out of the gate, it was something that had interest, because Stuck Mojo was really popular on the underground scene and Jericho was popular in WCW. I was just about to jump to WWE, so it was really good timing to put together a band. For the first couple of years, obviously we had the storyline, which was kind of a Spinal Tap / Blues Brothers / Traveling Wilburys type of thing. I remember the day we decided to switch. We did the Howard Stern Show and at the time, Howard [had a band] called the Losers and he claimed that his band was better than any celebrity band.

That’s when I was like, “We’ve got to go in there as ourselves. We can’t go in there as characters and we’ve got to play an original. So that’s the day we decided, “Let’s do all original stuff, drop the storyline and characters. That was 2002, so for two years out of 25, we had a different kind of vibe. Then we started doing all of our original stuff. 2010 is when Rich and I said, “Let’s make this a full-time thing and really go for it. Fast forward to 2017 when the Judas record came out, that’s when we became a radio band. Here we are now with seven top 10 radio singles and a gold record. Suddenly, everything’s changed to a much bigger perspective than we ever thought about when we first started out.

I wondered how much you had it in your sights at the time that Fozzy could ever be something like that.
I mean, you never do anything half-assed. Right out of the gate, we did a mockumentary about Fozzy that was on MTV that ran, I don’t know, 20 times. Ozzy [Osbourne] and Zakk Wylde and those guys, when they were on tour, loved watching it. So we always kind of had some mainstream acceptance going on. But when we really started getting played on the radio — when Judas broke on the radio and went to number 5 — I never realized how important rock radio was, until we started getting played. Suddenly, it changed everything and became this really big, massive success. We’d done well, but before that, it was a completely different thing when Judas began. I think that’s when the modern era of Fozzy started, which is where we are right now, where the band is bigger than ever. I mean, we just drew the biggest crowd we’ve ever had on our own, the most tickets that we’ve sold ever as a headlining band, in England. It blew us away, how the band continues to build.

Watch Fozzy’s ‘Spotlight’ Video

Each time I talk to Bruce Kulick, he is over the moon about what you’re doing with your Kiss tribute, Kuarantine. Fans appreciate that you’re out there keeping that era of Kiss music alive. For you, what’s a song or even songs from that era you’d consider underrated?
We’ve recorded so many of them. “Heart of Chrome” is amazing. “Turn on the Night” would be a huge hit, but Paul said that in the ‘80s, radio considered Kiss to be dinosaurs and they didn’t play Kiss on the radio a lot. I think “Heaven’s on Fire” is one of the best written songs of the ‘80s, period. But if you just go through the records, Revenge, “Heart of Chrome.” Hot in the Shade, “Silver Spoon,” we’ve done both of those songs with Kuarantine. Crazy Nights, “Turn on the Night” and “Good Girl Gone Bad,” which just went Top 10 for us, is a great tune that no one really knows. “Who Wants to Be Lonely” is amazing. “Uh! All Night” is amazing.

The list goes on and on. “Under the Gun,” I mean, you can just throw some out there and they’re probably pretty good. People don’t realize how technical Kiss is as well. Those songs from the ‘80s have a lot of pretty difficult parts. There’s been some of them that we’ve dropped, because they’re hard to play live. “Love’s a Deadly Weapon” is hard to play. “Thou Shall Not,” a great Gene [Simmons] song that no one really knows from Revenge is hard to play live. Then we added “All Hell’s Breakin’ Loose,” “Let’s Put the X in Sex,” what a fun and goofy song that is, but it’s f–king great. It’s so much fun to play live. Kuarantine’s a whole other thing and we love doing it, because it’s just fun and the music is great and there’s unlimited resources. We could record another 50 songs from those records and still have some left over to do.

On the wrestling side, when you develop a gimmick like the Learning Tree, how long do you fight the temptation to change or abandon it?
It’s not really temptation, it’s just knowing when to do that. I think the temptation is to try to hold onto it a little bit longer, because it’s always hard to reinvent, but you have to do it. You know, Learning Tree happened, kind of as a f–k you to internet haters that then caught on and the people that hated it, now they love it. Some of them that hated it, hate it even more, but that’s okay. That’s the idea, right? I never have a problem taking a chance and reinventing.

It’s Kiss, it’s the [Rolling] Stones, U2, Led Zeppelin, Guns N’ Roses, any band that has that longevity changes. You’ve got to change up your stuff and try new things, unless you’re AC/DC, in which case you can play the same song a hundred different times and they’re all great. I’m a huge AC/DC fan. But most bands and performers can’t last 40 or 50 years by doing the same thing. You have to change it up. I’ve never had a problem doing that and I don’t have a problem doing it now. I know when to do it — my gut instinct tells me — and then you come up with something different. That’s the challenge.

Watch Chris Jericho and the Learning Tree

How much do you think AEW needs something like The Bloodline, a gimmick that hits nationally to take things to the next level? How close do you think the Devil was to being something like that?
Everybody needs a story like that. You know, we’ve had versions of those stories that really resonated. I think the Swerve Strickland / Hangman Page story is a great example of that. But that’s the secret. You write a story and people like it and it connects or it doesn’t. But the ones that work, you focus on them. The ones that don’t, you come up with new ideas. That’s the secret of wrestling. It’s storytelling. It’s not about flashy moves, bangers and all of that sort of stuff, it’s about telling stories and about creating something that people feel and people relate to. If you can do that, they’ll be super-interested. That goes for anything. It goes for a great movie, a great rock and roll band, you name it in entertainment and show business. If you can connect with the audience, you’ll always have a gig, if you can make people feel something and get excited about what you’re doing, they’ll always be there to support you.

In WWE, the little guys almost never got over. In AEW, it seems to be the opposite. Why do you think guys like Brian Cage, Powerhouse Hobbs, Lance Archer, even Wardlow, for the most part, are not finding themselves featured? Meanwhile, people like Brian Danielson, the Young Bucks and Orange Cassidy have all had huge pushes.
The guys you just mentioned all really know their characters and they all connect with the audience. The guys you mentioned prior to that, it’s not that they don’t connect with the audience, but the business has changed. Size really doesn’t make a difference and it never really did. In the early days when I first started, maybe it did. But I was [doing] Main Events everywhere i went and I’m 5”11. I was 220 at the time and this was the days of your six foot eight behemoths. It’s fine to be big, but you have to be entertaining and understand. Hulk Hogan was the best for that, but Randy Savage was my height and he was even more exciting. It’s always been about storytelling, character and connecting with the audience. Now, it’s just more prevalent. Guys aren’t as big anymore, it’s just the way the business has changed. It’s still the same as it’s always been though. You have to connect with the audience and if you can do that, you’ll get over.