FOZZY Members Discuss Making Of 'Chasing The Grail'

Aniruddh "Andrew" Bansal of Metal Assault conducted an interview with FOZZY members Rich Ward (guitar),Sean Delson (bass) and Frank Fontsere (drums) on April 7, 2010 at Club Nokia in Los Angeles. An excerpt from the chat follows below.

Metal Assault: What is the reason for the long gap since the previous album "All That Remains" [2005]?

Sean: I think we've been doing records in cycles, in stages, like we had the DUKE record in 2005. Then we had "All That Remains" come out and we had STUCK MOJO records. We toured the world for both those releases and then the cycle came around for a new FOZZY record. Here we are!

Rich: It is true that we probably would have done a FOZZY record sooner, but someone just has to say we are going to do it. It's kind of like, your favorite movie is in the movie theatre but you won't go see it unless someone just says, "We need to go and see the movie." That's the problem with having multiple projects. You get so caught up in the momentum of one that you need to be able to say, "OK, it's time to slow this down," but one day you wake up and it's five years later because you've toured so much and worked on all these other projects. But we finally said that we have to make the time to do this FOZZY record, or it's never going to get done. "All That Remains" took about seven months to write and record while "Chasing The Grail" took nine months to write and record. In order to do it you have to able to put everything aside and prioritize it. That's what we did for STUCK MOJO. We put FOZZY aside and really worked on it. The other thing too is that Chris [Jericho, vocals] had twin daughters. So his family was growing, so not only did he have a crazy wrestling career, all of a sudden his family life is flourishing and becoming more complex. So we had so many things going and like I said, sometimes you just have to take the flag and say, "Time out! We need to do this, and let's set the time aside for everyone and make a conscious effort to do it."

Metal Assault: You [Rich] produced this album yourself. How did that whole process go and what difference do you think it makes when a band member is also the producer?

Rich: Because I recorded so many albums with other producers, I had the benefit of looking over Andy Sneap's shoulder for five or six albums. We've been close friends for years. Then we did SHINEDOWN and a few other bands. It's a learning process like anything else. It's like when you pick up a guitar and learn to play it, there has to be somebody in your neighbourhood who can play good and you go like, "How do you do that?" So I started learning and part of the process for FOZZY is, because we can't do a traditional album where we all get into a studio for a month and record, it's impossible to hire a producer. If I wanted to hire Andy Sneap to produce the new album, how would that be possible? It's not that I'm insecure about my producing abilities. It's just that I became the producer of the band based on necessity. It's like when STUCK MOJO first formed, the only bands I had ever played in were two-guitar bands and then I met these guys. We said, "OK, let's do this really cool rap/rock/metal band." The other two guys in the band said, "I don't want to have two guitar players!" I said, "I'm not a lead guitar player," and it was like, "Oh you are now then!" Sometimes life is best when you are forced into it like the mama bird kicking the little baby out of the nest. That's the best way to say I'm going to do this. "Have to" is a good thing in life. Otherwise we'd just sit in bed all day long, eat pizza and watch crap TV.

Sean: I think his production is the best really. I've watched him over these records. I've watched him work with Sneap and steal from all these guys he just mentioned! But you know it's a learning process. You can't do album after album year after year and not learn these things. One thing I always said about Rich is I don't know how he does it, but he sits in front of those amps and recording machines for 10-plus hours at a sitting. How can you stand it? You do it, though, and just like anything you get better and better! This has been a great evolution. Objectively I've watched it over the past four or five years and I think it's a great achievement. It's just an amazing-sounding record. I'm just throwing in the fact that I didn't really turn the bass up.
Rich: Which is the success of the record! It's the selling point of the album (laughs).

Metal Assault: I knew about your friendship with Andy [Sneap] and I was actually expecting to see his name in the production credits. But it's good that this worked out well for you guys.

Rich: Yeah. I talked to Andy yesterday on the phone for a while. We're going to the U.K. to do a tour in May and he's going to ride with us the whole time and come to play all of the encores on the guitar and stuff. Again, I feel kind of weird about it because we're such good friends. He was such a big part of my early music career, it feels weird not doing records with him but at the same time I think he recognizes that the music industry has changed so much. Record companies don't give big advances to make albums like they used to. If the band is going to make a living, you're going to decide. You're going to give every dime to the producer and everybody else makes nothing? In the old days the band made some money, the producer made some and everything was good. The advances are so small now because the sales are down, the downloading and a million other reasons. That's why Andy built his own studio. In the old days Andy would come to your studio. It's easier for him to make a living knowing that he has apartments there and bands come to stay there. We were just laughing about how awesome it is that Andy and I both worship Wolf Hoffman [ACCEPT] who's one of our favorite guitar players of all time. Having Wolf stay at Andy's house, him getting a chance to record that is a dream come true. That's why we are a lot alike. We do it just because we love it.

Read the entire interview at Metal Assault.

On Friday, March 26, two days prior to his WWE world heavyweight title defense at WrestleMania XXVI in Glendale/Phoenix, Chris Jericho — along with his FOZZY bandmates Rich "The Duke" Ward (guitar),Sean Delson (bass),and Frank Fontsere (drums) — played the group's first show since releasing "Chasing The Grail" (Riot! Entertainment). The all-ages concert at Club Red in Tempe, Arizona was the first U.S. show for FOZZY in four years. Support at the gig came from RAZER, SUITE 88, FACELESS and UNFORESEEN.

Fan-filmed video footage of FOZZY's performance can be viewed below.