CHRIS JERICHO On FOZZY's 25th Anniversary: 'You Really Have To Give And Take When You're In A Band'

In a new interview with Jacksonville, Florida's First Coast News, FOZZY frontman Chris Jericho spoke about the band's 25th-anniversary tour, which launched Thursday night (October 3) at Madlife in Woodstock, Georgia. He said (as transcribed by BLABBERMOUTH.NET): "It's our 25th anniversary, and it's a rock and roll party, man. It's been a great quarter of a century, and here we are now with eight Top 10 radio hits and a gold record and all the fun stuff that goes along with that. So we just started the tour last night in Atlanta and we're here in Jacksonville, so it's gonna be a blast."

Asked how FOZZY has managed to stay a band for 25 years, Chris said: "You really have to give and take when you're in a band, and you have to kind of do what you do best and let your partners do what they do best. It's like being on a team. And if you get on each other's nerves, you just go kind of sit in the back of the bus or you go for a walk somewhere or whatever it may be. But it really is, at this point in time, it's a very cohesive, symbiotic teamwork. And it's been going great, man. So we've had a lot of — we're very fortunate to be able to tour the world playing rock and roll. So you really can't complain too much about that."

FOZZY's 25th-anniversary tour will run through October 21 in Cleveland, Ohio. Support on the tour is coming from THE NOCTURNAL AFFAIR and CLOZURE.

FOZZY's latest standalone single, "Spotlight", was released last October via Madison Records/The Orchard. The track was helmed by FOZZY's longtime producer Johnny Andrews (THREE DAYS GRACE, ALL THAT REMAINS, HALESTORM) and sonically refined by mixer Jacob Hanson (VOLBEAT, AMARANTHE, ARCH ENEMY).

FOZZY's latest album, "Boombox", came out in May 2022 and featured "I Still Burn", which has more than three million views on YouTube. It also included the Top 10 singles "Nowhere To Run" and "Sane".

In the spring of 2023, FOZZY spent time on the road with UGLY KID JOE as part of the latter band's first tour of the United States in 27 years.

In January 2022, FOZZY parted ways with longtime drummer Frank Fontsere and replaced him with Grant Brooks (THROUGH FIRE).

Fontsere was a founding member of FOZZY, having formed the group in 1999 with Jericho and guitarist Rich Ward.

When FOZZY announced Fontsere's departure, the band said that he was "stepping down to focus on his family and other projects."

FOZZY is Jericho, Ward, Brooks, Billy Grey (guitar) and P.J. Farley (bass).

Speaking to Neal Brennan of the "Blocks" podcast about his decision to launch FOZZY 25 years ago, Chris, who is best known as a professional wrestler, said: "I've been playing in rock and roll bands since I was 14 years old. 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? … [IRON MAIDEN's] 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 fucking 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."

Jericho continued: "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."