The Best in the World

by Chris Jericho

  “The Stones have almost fifty years of longevity,” he continued, packing a large pinch of weed onto the top of the apple. “No other band in history can say that. The Beatles didn’t even last for ten years. That’s pretty unimpressive.” With that he ignited his lighter in the middle of the apple and inhaled deeply. I, however, was quite impressed, both with his pro-Stones arguments and his use of an apple as a bong. I’d never seen that one before.

  When he was finished, Charlie and I looked at each other, our Beatle bubbles burst. For the first time ever, somebody had put the shadow of doubt in our minds that the Stones might be better than The Beatles or, at the very least, could give them a run for their (you never give me your) money. That made us mad.

  Still does. To this day whenever I see Charlie, if I want to make him laugh, all I have to say is “Fuckin’ Andreas Kisser.”

  As the ride continued, the conversation turned to the night Cliff Burton died in a bus accident in Sweden in 1986. Anthrax was on that tour with Metallica and it was mesmerizing to hear their stories about Cliff (one of my all-time heroes), since they came through the ranks together and were very close.

  Charlie’s favorite Burton story came from when he was watching Metallica’s set from the side of the stage (like I had watched Anthrax’s in Lucerne). Every night before the guitar solo in “Master of Puppets,” Hetfield always yelled something into the mic, but Charlie could never figure out what it was. (It’s “FIX ME!”) When he asked Cliff what it was, he responded, “It’s PANCAKES.”

  I guarantee the next time you listen to “Master of Puppets,” you’ll think James says “PANCAKES!” too. It’s all I ever hear at this point.

  Cliff’s death in the bus crash was traumatic for all that survived and the Anthrax guys still thought about it every tour. Joey even checked with the driver every night to make sure the guy was awake and feeling OK before he went to sleep. How could he not? Think about it: Part of being in a traveling rock band involves putting your life in the hands of the bus driver, who basically is a total stranger.

  He (or she) drives through the night while the band is fast asleep and we don’t know what he’s been doing or what his personal habits are. He could be a drunken junkie, or maybe he hasn’t slept in five days, who the fuck knows? But we have no choice but to trust him if we want to get any sleep and that’s a scary concept.

  It was almost five A.M. and we wanted to get some sleep, so we wound down the conversation, and I crashed in one of the empty bunks. When the bus stopped a few hours later, I checked my phone and saw that even though it was only ten A.M., I already had a text from Fozzy’s manager, Mark Willis.

  “Fozzy bus in a crash. Bus is totaled, gig in Denmark is canceled. Everybody is OK.”

  WTF???

  I called Willis and found out that at four forty-five A.M. Fozzy’s spare secondary driver fell asleep at the wheel and drove up a raised median, turning it into a makeshift ramp. The bus went up on two wheels and skidded at an angle for fifty feet like something out of Speed before slamming back down on all four wheels. The impact shattered the panoramic front windshield, ripped off the side bus door (almost beheading our primary driver, who was sleeping in his bunk next to the door), and smashed the big-screen TV in the back lounge when it fell off the wall. It was amazing that in the midst of all the wreckage, even though the guys were shaken up, nobody was hurt and none of our gear was ruined. Even more amazing was that the Fozzy crash happened at almost the exact same time we were discussing the crash that killed Cliff Burton on the Anthrax bus.

  Fozzy’s bus was totaled after the crash in Germany. The door was completely ripped off its hinges and ended up in a ditch forty yards from the bus.

  I was relieved that my brothers were OK, but they were still stuck on the side of the road somewhere in Germany, waiting for a replacement bus to come collect them. Since the gig in Aarhaus was off, I was going to have to take a train to Hamburg to meet them, and the only direct one left in twenty minutes. I had to haul ass to the station and I was still wiping the sleep out of my eyes when I sat down in my seat eighteen minutes later with only a bag of McDonald’s, a toothbrush, and a pair of flip-flops to my name.

  The train was crowded. I sat with one person beside me and two more facing me, all of them smoking and reeking of sweat. I had nothing to read and after three hours I was bored out of my skull, stomach-growlingly hungry, and my back was killing me when the conductor came down the aisle checking tickets. He gave mine a glance and told me I was sitting in the wrong seat. Where was I going to move? The only seat worse than mine was the toilet in the bathroom and that one was probably more comfortable with a better smell.

  “No, sir, you have a first-class ticket. You should be sitting up in front.”

  I’d traveled all over the world, but I was a European train virgin and had no idea what the little 3 meant in the corner of my ticket. I mean, great Caesar’s ghost, couldn’t it have at least said FIRST CLASS on it somewhere??

  I took my proper seat and my complaining back gave me a short reprieve for the next ninety minutes, until we finally reached the Hamburg station. As I was walking off the train, a businessman in dress shoes stepped on my toe, tearing the plastic strap off the flip-flop and leaving me half-barefoot. I found some tape and tried to MacGruber it together, but it didn’t work and I had to just tape the whole thing to my foot.

  I walked onto the street past a homeless man holding a tin cup, begging for change. His clothes were filthy and torn, his hair matted into natty dreads that half covered his dirty face. He was a complete shipwreck, except for the fact that he was wearing a pair of new tennis shoes that were nicer than the footwear I was sporting. He held up his cup and motioned for me to drop in a few coins. Then he glanced down at my shoes and said in a heavy German accent, “Never mind.”

  —

  We played the show in Hamburg the next night in a dumpy little club, but it didn’t matter because I was excited to be back in the city I’d spent six weeks in back in ’93. After the gig, I went to check how much things had changed in the last eighteen years since I’d lived there. I headed over to my old stomping grounds, the Triangle of Decadance on the Reeperbahn, which consisted of a concert hall called Docks (which was still there), a strip club called the Cat Meow (which was not), and a Burger King (which also was not). It was a surreal experience to see how different everything was, like going back to your childhood home and seeing it painted a different color.

  I was surprised how small and dead the Reeperbahn seemed, for I remembered it being much bigger and livelier as a twenty-two-year-old. It reminded me of when I returned with the WWE to the Knoxville Coliseum in 2010 after last wrestling there with Smoky Mountain sixteen years earlier. The night I worked the match with a broken arm (the full story can be found in my renowned medical thriller, A Lion’s Tale, available at a doctor’s office near you), the sold-out building had seemed like a stadium, but when I returned, it was like somebody had put the entire arena into the Death Star trash compactor and shrunk it.

  I got the same feeling about Hamburg with the exception of the red light district. It was bigger than I remembered and populated with twice the girls lining the streets, waiting to be chosen like they were at an X-rated sock hop. I wandered down the avenue as ladies of the night in all shapes and sizes propositioned me in German. When I told them I only spoke English, they yelled down the street, “American! American!” (I’m from Winnipeg, you idiot.)

  That was the cue for all of the English-speaking women to reposition themselves strategically in my path and ask, “Won’t you come into my room? I wanna show you all my wares.”

  Some of the girls were gorgeous and some weren’t, but since I was only browsing, like Monty Capuletti, I continued walking until one persistent lass (who resembled a chubbier Janeane Garofalo) blocked my way.

  “Hello, would you like a date?” she said with a smirk. “We can go
upstairs. I’ll take you in front of the fire and drain your balls.”

  I’d never heard it described like that before.

  “I will drain your balls. No need to waste time, right? If you meet a girl and take her out to dinner, you could spend one hundred euros and still not have sex. Give me fifty euros and I’ll drain your balls, guaranteed.”

  Can I get that in writing?

  Now, I’ve never been into prostitutes, but if I was, I would’ve put her first in line due to her amazing sales pitch. With lines like those, she could’ve sold rehab to Rob Ford.

  Three Derelicts

  Things were really coming together for Fozzy in every way. We were getting booked on bigger shows, our fanbase was growing, our reviews were improving, and our future was so bright we needed to wear shades (I do onstage), but there was one remaining problem. Whenever I watched our live performances on YouTube or saw pictures of us onstage, I realized something ain’t quite right. Like on Sesame Street, one of these guys was not like the others and that guy was Sean Delson.

  He’d never fully adapted to our new-image philosophy and stood out like a sore thumb with his average Joe look, baggy T-shirts, and unorthodox stage moves that made him look like a stalking praying mantis. I tried to act as his stylist, banning him from wearing watches or Levi’s onstage and Googling rock ’n’ roll clothing stores to help him find proper-fitting clothes. But I could tell his patience with my fashion requirements was growing thin. The other issue was he was a very good technical player in the Geddy Lee/Tony Levin mold, but that wasn’t the type of bassist we needed. We wanted a dude who could groove like a mofo in the pocket of the musical pants of Rich Ward and Frank Fontsere, but we hadn’t come across anybody who could quite do that. Then Paulie D came along.

  Mike Portnoy told me that when he was putting together his new band Adrenaline Mob, he’d scouted a bass player in the New Jersey area named Paul Di Leo. Paul was one of those high-in-demand players that had gigged with such legendary artists as Joe Lynn Turner, Ace Frehley, Paul Simon, and BILLY JOEL! Adrenaline Mob was looking for another guitar player as well and since Fozzy was between tour cycles, I suggested Rich.

  From the moment of their first rehearsal, Rich kept telling me about this amazing bass player who’d be perfect for Fozzy. I Googled Paulie, and the first thing I noticed was his image, which blew me away. He had his own thing going on and with his shoulder-length black hair, black skinny jeans, black vest, black T-shirt, black Chuck Taylors, and black strips of gaffing tape under his eyes, he looked like a cross between Johnny Ramone and Nikki Sixx. I told Rich if Paulie’s playing was half as good as his look, he was in. Rich assured me his playing was even better than his gimmick and he was right.

  So we made the decision to replace Sean. Switching band members is never an easy thing and Sean was a great guy and a good friend who had been with us for the better part of seven years, which made things even harder. But I think it was almost a relief for him when Rich let him go, because it was obvious his heart just wasn’t into being in Fozzy anymore. This was evident by the last thing he said to Rich.

  “Let’s be honest. You and I both know Fozzy will never get any bigger than you are.”

  Those words lit some major fires inside me and I’ve worked my ass off ever since to prove him wrong. We all have and we’ve gained mountains of ground since Sean’s departure, but (oh I say, Mama) a li’l aint enough for me. We were only getting started.

  A few months later, Rich decided to leave Adrenaline Mob, took Paulie with him, and finally the lineup we’d been waiting eleven years for was complete: Chris Jericho, Rich Ward, Frank Fontsere, Billy Grey, and Paul Di Leo.

  Rich was right about Paulie’s playing. From the first time we gigged with him, I couldn’t believe the difference he made to our sound. His tone, dynamics, stage presence, energy, everything. He was the missing piece of the Fozzy puzzle that we hadn’t even realized we were lacking until he joined our band. With Paulie now in our ranks, we had gone from a good band to a dangerous band and we were ready to take over the world.

  —

  Our first gigs with Paulie were on the 2011 Uproar Festival tour in Canada, filling in for Sevendust for a week, with our debut being in Calgary’s massive Saddledome.

  It was the first arena show Fozzy had ever played and it just so happened to be an arena I’d also wrestled in with the WWE. I should call the Guinness people because I think that’s some sort of world record—the only guy to ever wrestle AND play rock ’n’ roll in the Saddledome.

  To celebrate our first arena gig, Rich and I took a picture outside the Dome. The irony was that Jonny Zazula, who had signed us as a cover band to Megaforce Records eleven years earlier, always said we’d play arenas someday and now his prediction had finally come true.

  Even though we were in the major leagues headlining the second stage of Uproar, we still weren’t big enough to warrant our own dressing room and had to change in the Saddledome break room. The staff was milling around us, when a guy with a tray of popcorn around his neck recognized me and said, “Aren’t you Chris Jericho? Wow, I figured you’d have your own private dressing room!” Not in this world, pal. At least not yet.

  But I was so excited I would’ve changed in the stands. I knew this wasn’t the WWE, where I was at the top of the food chain; and was ready, willing, and able to work my way to the top, the same way I had in wrestling.

  Rich and me in front of the Calgary Saddledome, the first arena Fozzy ever played. In true rock ’n’ roll fashion, we were standing outside because our gear was lost and we were waiting for the truck to show up.

  Thankfully, Avenged Sevenfold was headlining Uproar and singer M. Shadows let me hang out in in HIS private dressing room. M. (Matt) and I had become friends after he saw Fozzy at B. B. King’s, and we got even closer after A7X came over to my house in Tampa for a BBQ earlier in the tour.

  Their new album, Nightmare, had recently hit number one on the Billboard charts and their touring schedule was crazy, so a day off of fun in the sun and a home-cooked meal at Irvine World (Toho TM) was a welcome change. Portnoy had joined Avenged temporarily after their drummer and best friend Jimmy “The Rev” Sullivan passed away a few months earlier, and when he called and asked if they could come over, The Irvine 5 were happy to oblige.

  Once again I was impressed by their closeness as all five band members (and three of their crew) came over together to swim, Jet Ski, and chow down on some scrumptious steak. Ash, Cheyenne, and Sierra were excited to have “The Band” (as they called them) at our house, and “The Band” was really great with them. Shadows went swimming with my daughters and played Call of Duty with fellow gamer Ash. They even sat together with the exact same zoned-out look on their faces as they played. Ash later told me, “Out of all of my friends, Matt is the best at Call of Duty.”

  Jess put together an amazing spread and I was cooking up some rad “Steaks à la Jericho,” while talking to Synyster Gates about Mr. Bungle, as Johnny Christ and Portnoy zipped across the lake on our Jet Skis. After a few spins, Johnny pulled into shore so Shads could take a turn. Matt stood in the shallow water of the shoreline, pushing the ski out onto the lake horizontally in front of him. I noticed Mike speeding toward shore as if he planned to do a drive-by and spray Shads with water, but it seemed like he was coming in a little too close and a tad too fast. I figured he knew what he was doing, so I turned back to the BBQ, but a few seconds later I heard a loud CRASH. My heart dropped because I was convinced of what had happened: Mike Portnoy had just killed his bandmate.

  Time stood still and I could see the headlines on Blabbermouth .com already:

  M. SHADOWS DEAD IN BIZARRE JET SKIING ACCIDENT AT CHRIS JERICHO’S HOUSE

  MIKE PORTNOY REPLACES DRUMMER, KILLS SINGER

  The way Matt had been pushing the ski out in front of himself, I was certain Portnoy had lost control and rammed into him, crushing him b
etween the Jet Ski and the stone wall that separated the lake from my lawn. I was expecting to see him torn in two halves with his torso on the lawn, and his legs sticking up like bloody pipe cleaners between the barricade and the boat.

  But when I turned around, Matt’s legs were, thankfully, still attached to his torso and he was standing on them. He was laughing nervously with Dan the Body, one of their crew members who had caught the whole incident on video. Mike had indeed been coming into shore too quickly and, when he cranked the ski at the last second, lost control and broadsided Matt’s Jet Ski. But instead of slamming the ski into Matt (and then into the wall behind him), it got caught in the wake and was sucked downward instead of forward, essentially causing it to just bob up and down in the water.

  Shadows had gotten very lucky and when I asked Portnoy why he had come into shore so fast, he said, “I couldn’t find the brake.” That’s because there ARE no brakes on a Jet Ski, ya big dummy!

  Mike felt awful and kept apologizing profusely for damaging my ski, but all I cared about was that nobody got hurt. Sure, the side of the ski was smashed in and there were some holes in the fiberglass, but considering the alternative, I was pretty happy about everything. It was only a few days later, when I pushed the ski into the water and it sank instantly, that I realized how messed up it really was. I called our watercraft guru, Jet Bret, to come over and examine the ski. I thought maybe a seal had been broken or a spark plug had cracked, causing some water to seep in.

  “Nope,” Jet Bret said, “the ski sank because there’s a hole in the bottom of it the size of a human head.” Turns out Mike had raked the ski over a gaggle of rocks and I was now the proud owner of a totally worthless watercraft. But like my dad used to say whenever he had a fender bender, “It’s only a piece of metal.” I felt the same way. Besides, we still had an awesome day, and even though I lost a Jet Ski, I gained the right to bust Portnoy’s balls about it forever.