CHRIS JERICHO Says FOZZY ‘Had To Work Twice As Hard To Get People’s Respect’

During a recent interview with Neal Brennan of the “Blocks” podcast, Chris Jericho spoke about his decision to launch FOZZY 25 years ago.

“I’ve been playing in rock and roll bands since I was 14 years old,” he said. “This is not something I just woke up one day and went, ‘Hey, I’m gonna get into a band.’ And another block in the music world was trying to convince people this wasn’t just a vanity project. And also too — I experienced it with wrestling, [people saying], ‘Oh, you’re too small.’ I experienced it with FOZZY: ‘You can’t sing. You’re a wrestler.’ It’s, like, why? What does that have to do with anything? … Bruce Dickinson is an airline pilot. And it’s like saying, ‘Well, you can’t be an airline pilot ’cause you’re a singer,’ or, ‘You can’t be a singer ’cause you’re an airline pilot.’ It makes no f**king sense. You can either do it or you can’t. So we had to work twice as hard to get people’s respect with FOZZY, but now we just had our sixth Top 10 hit … and a gold record and world tours and all this other stuff. So you’ve just gotta stay with it. And if you know it’s gonna work, don’t listen to people who tell you you can’t do something, because everybody — not everybody, [but] the majority of people who don’t understand something will just say you can’t do it. And don’t buy in to it.”

“I’ve written a bunch of books, but the fourth book I wrote was called No Is A Four-Letter Word. And what I meant by that was, people throw around ‘no’ as a failsafe. It’s like a curse word; it’s like a swear word. ‘Hey, can I [do this]?’ ‘No.’ ‘Why?’ ‘Well, it’ll never work.’ ‘What do you mean it’ll never work. Let’s figure out a way that we can make it work. Don’t just say no for no reason.’ And I find that’s another good kind of model for my life, is don’t tell me why something won’t work. Let’s figure out a way to make it work, ’cause there’s always a way. Always.”

In a recent interview on the On The Road To Rock podcast with Clint Switzer, FOZZY guitarist Rich Ward reflected on the success of the band he started 25 years ago with superstar wrestler Chris Jericho.

“We’re really blessed,” he said. “The FOZZY band started as a side thing for myself and Chris, and it just kind of evolved into this passion project, which then we take as seriously as you would anything else you do in your life. I mean, Chris is not going to do anything unless he feels like it’s gonna be successful, because he’s an apex predator, he’s a great white shark. Everything he does is incredible.

“The fact that he’s at his age and is still at the top in his industry, and he’s got four New York Times bestsellers and one of the most popular podcasts in the world and he’s one of the greatest frontmen that’s ever lived in rock and roll, and I’ll stand by that.”

Ward lamented the rise of “V.I.P. packages” as the seemingly only way for fans to get close to their favorite bands. These packages, often carrying hefty price tags on top of regular tickets, offer a range of perks – from autographed memorabilia and photo ops to soundcheck access and exclusive lanyards.

Rich said: “For a lot of fans, especially for old-school rock fans, there’s this kind of weird thing about V.I.P.s, charging fans to meet the band, and I would feel very odd about that as well. But we actually do a separate concert. So it’s kind of a mini-concert that we cap at a certain level, so it’s almost like a house party concert. And we use all of that money — nobody in the band gets to touch the V.I.P. money. All that money goes into production and the operation of the business. So it doesn’t enrich any of us. We set that aside as a way for us to buy new lights and to upgrade equipment and stuff.

“So we reinvest in the live experience that we give to the fans. And from the very beginning, we felt like that was important for us to do, is to figure out a way for us to reinvest in things that we need and also at the same time… It’s really cool for us, ’cause we get to we get to meet people. And it’s not just a grip-and-grin where you [go], ‘Hey, nice to see you,’ and it’s a line. We actually get to play songs in front of 20 people every day at soundcheck and have conversations and hang out, and I think those are really cool.”