FOZZY's CHRIS JERICHO: 'If You Don't Expect To Be The Biggest Band In The World, You Shouldn't Be Doing It'

FOZZY frontman Chris Jericho recently spoke with Metal Wani. The full conversation can be streamed below. A few excerpts follow (as transcribed by BLABBERMOUTH.NET).

On how he'd describe the group's live concert experience:

Chris: "From note one to note done, it's just a high-energy, high-impact show. There's always 'FOZZY' chants happening; there's always energy, always electricity; and that's why we've structured our shows to be like that. We have a great reputation as a live band as a result. We are the show. We leave everything we have on stage every night, and that's reflected in the amount of people that have been coming to see us over the last year and a half. Tickets have been going through the roof. We've been playing a lot of places that we haven't played before, or haven't played in a long time."

On whether he expected the group's latest album, "Judas", to do as well as it has:

Chris: "Yes. If you don't expect to be the biggest band in the world, then you shouldn't be doing it. We knew that the band had what it took to get to the next level and to build to where we are now. It was just a matter of time, and the time has come. We're really excited, and we're ready. You've got a band that has probably a combined hundred years of stage experience in the band, so we know how to put on a great show, we know how to connect with the audience, and now that we're having these hit songs backing us up, it's just makes for a completely different world for us. It's a good time to be in FOZZY right now. We're very excited, and very honored to be at this point. It's been a lot of hard work to get us here, and the sky's the limit at this point. Our strength is in the live show and the live performance, and when 'Judas' exploded and we got all of this radio play and all of these hit singles, suddenly the live show — which we've been crafting and refining for years — we were ready for it. When we started touring on it, I think a lot of people were coming to see us for the first time [and thinking], 'Who the hell are these guys? They're great!' They say that success is a combination of luck and preparedness, or something like that — whatever the hell it is, that's what we did. It's been a long time coming, but we're very, very ready for it, and we weren't going to let the lightning out of the bottle when it hit."

On the band's future plans:

Chris: "I think the idea is to keep the momentum rolling. When we get this lightning in a bottle, you want to continue building on it. When the tour is done, we're already starting to write to give us some ideas, and we'll be back in the studio next year putting together the next record to continue building on what was done."

On persistence:

Chris: "It was very hard to get to WWE. It took me nine years of being in the [wrestling] business, and here we are with FOZZY, basically about the same time frame to get to this point. It's show business – there's so many people that want to do this, and you have to be good at it. If you are good at it, you have to really focus on it and don't give up. Making it in WWE made it even more clear what we had to do with FOZZY. You've got to really put in the time, you've got put in the sacrifice and you've got to continue building, and that's what we've been doing. Don't take no for an answer."

FOZZY is continuing to tour in support of "Judas", which was released last October via Century Media.