FOZZY Frontman Talks Wrestling, 'Chasing The Grail'

Elliot Levin of the New York Hard Rock Music Examiner recently conducted an interview with FOZZY singer and WWE wrestling superstar Chris Jericho. A couple of excerpts from the chat follow below.

New York Hard Rock Music Examiner: All things considered, what's more fun? Being a rock star or a pro wrestler?

Chris Jericho: Well, they're both dreams I had when I was a kid, when I grew up I wanted to be either a rock star or a wrestler, and those were the two things that, even though I started wrestling when I was 19, I still started playing in bands when I was 12 years old, so I've been playing music a lot longer than I've been wrestling, so I've wanted to do both, and been given a chance to do both which is very fortunate and gratifying, so I can't really say which one is more fun because, obviously, wrestling is the thing I've been doing predominantly, and that's kind of top of the ladder, but the band is growing with each record and every show we do and each and every song that we release gets more and more accolades and fans so it's kind of cool to see the band growing as well, so they're both very satisfying in different ways.

New York Hard Rock Music Examiner: Do you think that one has longer term potential than the other?

Chris Jericho: I think you can take both as far as you want. Obviously I've been wrestling for 20 years and been playing in FOZZY for 10 years, and FOZZY's still growing whereas Chris Jericho is probably about as big as you can, as far as wrestling goes I'm on top of the ladder sort of thing, so I guess you don't want to be wrestling when you're 60 but you can still be playing music when you're 60…

New York Hard Rock Music Examiner: Would FOZZY ever play a WWE event?

Chris Jericho: We have in the past, but I have to very specific in how I do that, because I'm such a hated character on the show that I can't bring FOZZY into the WWE world because people automatically assume they're supposed to hate the band because they hate me.

New York Hard Rock Music Examiner: Your vocals sound noticeably like Ozzy, probably more than any other musician. Is that intentional, or is that just how you sing?

Chris Jericho: No, it's not intentional, I never set out to do that, when I first started singing, like I said I sang in bands when I was in high school, and into the bar scene and battle of the bands and all that stuff, and I always tried to be more of a, I always fashioned myself like more of a Bruce Dickinson type guy, although I don't really sound like him, but that's what I was always going for, and I guess on the last record this Ozzy tendency kind of came through and when people say that I take it as a compliment because Ozzy obviously, especially in the early days, was one of the most unique, greatest metal vocalists of all time, and there is definitely that quality but it's nothing I ever really tried to do, it just happens. Which I think makes it even better, it's not like I ever wanted to sound like him, because then it's just a copy, it's just kind of a natural style of my voice, especially when I get into higher ranges. Another reason why I think is when Rich [Ward, guitar] and I recorded my vocals, I double-tracked them, the same way that Ozzy does, not just one track, I sing it once, and then I sing it again as closely to the first take as I did, put one on top of the other and double track it, it gives it more of a ghostly-like, haunting feel, which is an Ozzy trademark. So by using it, that lends itself to being a little more Ozzy as well.

New York Hard Rock Music Examiner: A lot of artists don't like labeling their music, or being tied to a specific subgenre, but I guess speaking broadly, would you consider FOZZY hard rock or heavy metal?

Chris Jericho: It's definitely heavy rock, kind of in the middle. We're very, we kind of created a little niche for ourselves, which I think is one of the reasons why "Chasing the Grail" was so successful, which is that not a lot of bands play the style of music we play, which is very heavy but with a lot of melody and a lot of harmony. I think the reason is that we love IRON MAIDEN, we love PRIEST and DIO, and obviously STUCK MOJO, and there's some PANTERA-type influences, but we also love the bands from the '70s like JOURNEY and STYX and FOREIGNER, that were really great vocal bands. THE BEATLES in the '60s, obviously, QUEEN, so you can really hear a lot of those influences in our music, a lot of vocal harmonies, a lot of guitar harmonies, but yet it's still very heavy as well, so it really is kind of a little of a style that not many bands are doing right now so it's metal, but it's also very based in the '70s rock, '80s rock as well, so maybe I'd say heavy rock is the best way to describe it.

Read the entire interview from the New York Hard Rock Music Examiner.