Or something like that.
Sneap and I spent the rest of the night riding the luggage cart into the walls of the Newark Hilton.
The Jericho-Sneap debauchery™ continued a few months later after a gig in Chicago. There were a couple of pretty girls in the audience, which was a rare thing for Fozzy. Most of our fans were guys, and the majority of them could’ve entered a Joey Ramone look-alike contest and fared quite well. After the show, Sneap and I struck up a conversation with the birds and they invited us to come visit them at the club they worked at. We had no idea what kind of club we were going to meet them at since it was already after 2 a.m., but we followed a map (Archaic Author’s Note: These were the days before GPS, kids.) until we eventually found the street the club was on. But the farther we drove, the darker it got. We ended up turning onto what looked like a deserted road, with a burned-out strip mall at the end of it. As we got closer, I saw that the windows of all the stores were painted black except for one that had a little neon sign in the corner that said OPEN.
That was peculiar.
We opened the door, and were greeted by another door. At the end of that small corridor was a small sliding window, like the one on the door leading into the Emerald City of Oz. Sneap knocked, but instead of the Lollipop Guild, a short greasy Danny DeVito– looking guy with a huge mustache slid the window open and said with a growl, “Yeah?”
It wasn’t the friendliest of greetings, and even though our Spidey senses were telling us to vacate the premises, we had come too far to turn back now.
“Hi,” I announced. “We’re looking for Lilly.” (Legal Author’s Note: Lilly’s name has been changed to protect the innocent. Plus I have no idea what Lilly’s name actually was, so “Lilly” will have to suffice.) “We met her about an hour ago and she invited us.”
Then came the eternal question that every musician from Steve Perry to Joe Perry, Eric Carr to Ringo Starr, and Ryan Ahoff to Paul Baloff has been asked.
“You guys in a band or something?”
When we answered that we most certainly were, Oswald Cobblepot warmed up and muttered, “Come inside.”
He opened the door and led us into a makeshift waiting room occupied by three filthy pea green couches. We opted to stand, shifting back and forth on our toes, until Louie DePalma announced that Lilly hadn’t arrived yet but was on her way. I wandered over and looked into one of the corner rooms. Inside was a worn-down massage table covered with horrible upholstery seemingly from a 1970s leisure suit. Half-empty bottles of massage oil were assembled on a scratched and worn wooden table, along with stacks of yellowed sheets, skin lotions, containers of baby wipes, an old ster—
My mind zipped back to the containers of baby wipes. I did some basic pervert math and came up with the following equation: Lotion + Baby Wipes = Jack Shack.
It seems our innocent Lilly (and probably her friend) was employed at this fine establishment as a Happy Ending Consultant. If we decided to stick around (and with the funk on the floor that wasn’t too hard to do), I could imagine the headline if the cops happened to raid the joint right then:
“Wrestler and Englishman Arrested at Rub N Tug.”
We turned tail and ran out of there faster than my first sexual experience.
Now I know what Vincent Benedict meant when he told us to come inside.
Don’t get me wrong, Fozzy did have other female fans beside Ms. Knob Knuckler, including a pack of girls who followed us everywhere. As much as I’d love to tell you they were Playboy bunnies or Maxim models, they were not. We affectionately referred to them as the Hungry Bunch, and they followed us loyally to every gig, small or big. And these girls were big.
But they were awesome supporters and we treated them as if they looked like porn stars. It was always nice to see them blush when we told them how pretty they looked or how nice their outfits were. They were also the first ones who got behind our attempt to enrich the pop culture vernacular by popularizing the new slang term “froot.”
Rich, Bud, and I had long debated the origins of the word “cool,” and how it went from being a remark about the weather to the most used slang word in the English language. Someone had to have invented it, and we decided we would try to invent our own version of “cool” with the word “froot.” But the difference was, “froot” could mean almost anything, much like the word “aloha.”
“Man, this song is froot.” Translation: This song sounds awesome.
“That chick is froot.” Translation: She’s hot.
“Come on, guys, it’s time to get froot!” Translation: It’s time to get serious, guys!
Despite years of trying, “froot” still hasn’t lived up to its worldwide potential, but I’m hoping with the release of this fine book it will get the respect it deserves and finally sweep the nation.
Millions of Team Edward T-shirt-wearing tweeners will use it multiple times daily. “Vampires are froot!”
Movies like Be Froot, Froot Runnings, and Froot Hand Luke will be blockbuster hits.
Famous rappers like LL Froot J will rule the airwaves. Happy Days will be released on DVD with new overdubbed audio featuring the Fonz rocking his new updated catchphrase: “Cunningham, you don’t get any chicks because you’re just not froot … Ayyyyyyyyyyy!”
Jersey Shore will introduce a new Guido named the Frootuation, who will be obsessed with his daily routine of FTL-Froot, Tan, Laundry.
The whole world, no matter what race, creed, religion, or social status, will be united by froot and world peace will soon follow. Say it loud and proud with me now, friends: Froot! Froot! Froot! Froot!
CHAPTER 12
WTF
Even though we weren’t selling millions of records or revitalizing the lingua franca, we were still making headway as a band. Paul Gargano, fresh off his exploits in the New York club scene, liked Fozzy and was a longtime fan of Rich and Stuck Mojo, so he always made sure there were articles on us in Metal Edge magazine and eventually gave us a centerfold. Even though the picture was taken right after a sweaty gig and the staple was in the middle of my face, it was still a centerfold, something that thousands of bands will never get.
On the heels of this great publicity and the word of mouth our live show was getting, we were approached to endorse both Dean Markley strings and Peavey amplifiers.
It was a tremendous deal; they gave us free gear and all we had to do was say, “Fozzy uses Dean Markley and Peavey Amps” in the liner notes of our records, and once a year we had to appear at the National Association of Music Merchants convention.
NAMM is a wet dream for rock fans, as every rock star on the planet goes there to repay the companies who give them free stuff, by making appearances and doing autograph signings for an entire weekend.
It was an honor to be there, but it was a little ridiculous to be wearing wigs and dressing as knights as we signed autographs next to Jeff Waters, Dave Mustaine, and Eddie Van Halen.
Too much fucking perspective.
Musicians would walk by, staring at the long lines we had for our autograph sessions, wondering who the hell we were or why we were so popular. Some of them even questioned our intentions.
Dimebag Darrell came by to say hi to Rich, since they had gotten to know each other when Stuck Mojo toured with Pantera years before.
“Are you making fun of heavy metal?” Dime asked suspiciously.
When Rich responded that it was quite the opposite and that we were in fact paying tribute, Dime smiled and said, “I figured. I love the album, but I didn’t want to have to hate it if you were making fun of metal.”
After that, Dime was all smiles and went on to tell Rich that Pantera played Fozzy on their tour bus and really dug the way we’d updated and heavied up the classics.
Rich had a great reputation as a guitarist and as a performer, and after years of internal tension within Stuck Mojo, Fozzy was his chance to have fun playing music again. And fun it was; with our backstory and costumes we were the original Steel Panther, jus
t not as popular.
Later that night, we had a gig in Anaheim that had been advertised as an All Star Jam with Fozzy. Problem was we had no All Stars to jam with.
So the promoter issued an open invite at NAMM, and throughout the convention, musicians stopped by our signings to see if we were worthy of playing with. Most of them took one look at us and assumed we weren’t. If they had stuck around and rocked with us they would’ve had a blast, but our gimmick was so over the top that you either got it or thought we were idiots.
Most thought we were idiots.
One of the guys who came by was Brad Gillis, who’d replaced Randy Rhoads in Ozzy before playing guitar with Night Ranger. He had no clue what we were, and when he came down to our autograph signing to find out, he just stood there staring at us with a Zoolander Blue Steel face. I could tell he was thinking, “There’s no way in hell I’m jamming with these morons.”
The same thing happened when Jeff Pilson, the bass player of Dokken, showed up at the gig and asked me, “Hey, is Fozzy here?”
I said, “Yeah, we’re Fozzy.”
Confused, he said, “Oh, okay … are you guys a band?”
When I confirmed that we were indeed a band, I could tell he was thinking, “There’s no way in hell I’m jamming with these jackasses.”
Jeff nodded his head and said, “Okay, I’ll be right back.”
Of course he never came back, and at the end of the night after dozens of musicians had been invited to our All Star Jam, exactly zero showed up. None. Zilch. Nada. Fuck-all.
But 10,000 fans (okay, it was fifty) did show up and the gig began. There were a few opening bands, including Iron Horse featuring Ron Keel. Ron’s band Keel (what else would it be named) had a few hits in the ’80s, including “The Right to Rock” and their cover of Patty Smith’s “Because the Night.”
Lenny and I had been big fans of Keel in high school, and here he was opening for my band ten years later—a fact that old Ronnie boy didn’t look too happy about.
He had forty-five minutes for his set, as there was a strict curfew. So he started playing and playing and playing and soon his forty-five minutes became fifty, then fifty-five. Now, when it comes to concert curfews, if an opening act plays ten minutes long, that takes ten minutes out of the headliner’s set, and that’s a rock and roll cardinal sin.
Rich was furious at Keel. Years before at a festival, Nick Cave intentionally ran long and cut into Mojo’s set. So Rich walked onstage and punched Cave square in the face, ending his performance for the evening. This time, instead of fisticuffs, Rich simply walked onstage and unplugged the power just as Keel was about to launch into his biggest hit, “The Right to Rock.”
I was actually looking forward to hearing the song, as were the seven other people who came to see him, but Rich had had enough and gave Keel The Right to Stop. He proceeded to usher him off the stage and that was it. During our whole set I could see Keel in the back of the bar pacing back and forth giving us the stinkeye, like he was planning to mug us after the show. I had three Keel records and thought they were a pretty froot band in 1986, but seeing him stalking around with a boo-boo face just made me feel sorry for him.
Soon after, we figured it was time to do another record, and this time Rich and I wanted to make the album half originals, half covers.
Even though the first record hadn’t sold very well, Megaforce decided to sign us to a second album mostly due to the fact that Jonny Z had sold the company and was gone.
Recording in the studio was a little easier the second time because I had some studio experience, plus we’d done dozens of gigs since finishing the first album.. The covers we chose, including “Freewheel Burning” by Judas Priest and “Where Eagles Dare” by Iron Maiden, pushed my vocals even further, but it was the originals that gave us a glimpse of what Fozzy could do as an original band. Songs like “To Kill a Stranger” and “Crucify Yourself” had a heavy modern sound jam-packed with guitar solos and intricate vocal harmonies. They inspired us to a new creative level, and the days of the wig were coming to an end.
Fozzy outside of NAMM 2002. A few hours later we played the Fozzy All Star Jam, in which no All Stars showed up. Note my head-to-toe pleather suit.
On June 22, 2002, our second album, Happenstance, was released and Megaforce decided they wanted us to do a video for the song “With the Fire.” We shot the live scenes at a club in Charlotte called Amos’ South End, which was where the Jack Black movie Shallow Hal was filmed.
The concept for the clip was that I would fall asleep and dream that Fozzy was caught inside a clichéd hip-hop video, complete with low riders, synchronized dance sequences, bling-bling, grills, and midgets. Nothing more hip-hop than midgets, right?
We planned on shooting it in the streets of the ’hood, but on the first day of filming we got hit with a torrential downpour. Classic Fozzy.
Nobody wanted to drive their tricked-out cars in the rain—they were afraid of getting into an accident and messing up their rides. So the cars were out. Then we couldn’t set up the equipment at any of our outside locations, so that was also out.
We spent the next three hours trying to find a replacement location, until we found a little covered parking garage next to a supermarket, and after bribing the manager $500 in beans, we had our new set.
A few weeks earlier we had done an open casting call on a local radio station for anyone who wanted to be in a hip-hop video. About forty extras showed up, half of them black and half of them white. I can imagine their shock when they showed up expecting Eminem and got Y2Jay-Z instead.
The video was bizarre and featured Arthur the pigman chauffeuring us around in a limo; me falling in love with an old lady while brandishing a long sword; Rich sporting a mask and a cape for no apparent reason; and a badass Britney Spears– esque synchronized dance routine. We took the three hottest chicks and Hurricane Helms (who had come to hang for the day), and I choreographed a thirty-second routine comprised of hot-steppin’, shoulder twitches, and the Scary Monster ripped off from the “Thriller” video.
Dice would’ve been so proud of my chronology.
To cap it off, we did a Soul Train stroll dance where we all lined up clapping, as each one of us shuffled down the aisle rocking the silliest moves we could think of. It ended up being very entertaining, and if you haven’t seen it I suggest you check it out on YouTube. I’ll wait.
Go ahead, I’m not going anywhere.
Funny, right? Thought you’d like it. Well, making it wasn’t without hitches, let me tell you. After Jonny left Megaforce, our new bosses were Missi Callazzo and her husband Robert John (not the “Sad Eyes” guy). Robert had decided to join us on location as a chaperone for the shoot. We weren’t crazy about the guy, as he’d visited the studio while we were making Happenstance and given us such useless advice as, “You need to do another chorus in this song,” or “This song needs a tempo change here,” as if he was Rick Rubin. We had no problems with constructive criticism, but this yutz was talking just to hear himself speak and was annoying and abrasive to boot.
A few days before the shoot, Robert wanted to change the song for the video from “With the Fire” to “Happenstance,” because he decided the title track was more commercial. But we had already storyboarded “WTF” and were putting it together accordingly with the beat of the music and the rhythm of the riff and couldn’t change gears at that point. After our refusal to switch tunes, Robert became even more diffficult to deal with.
During the shoot he ran around putting pieces of black tape over anything that might be construed as a logo. If someone was wearing a pair of Nikes, he would put a piece of black tape over their logo. If someone was driving a Ford, he would put a piece of black tape over their insignia. If someone was taking a leak, he would put a piece of black tape over their unit.
Every thirty minutes or so Robert would gather us around to give us his “feedback.” Whenever he did all I could focus on was the stupid brown leather fisherman’s hat he was alw
ays wearing.
“Guys, that last shot could’ve been blah blee bluu …”
[That is the stupidist hat I’ve ever seen in my life.]
“Furthermore, I think fleezen flobbin flue …”
[That hat is really stupid.]
Needless to say, I hated that damn hat.
Hour after hour, day after day, Robert sported that hat, and it became my white whale. I was Captain Ahab and I wanted to capture that hat. I wanted to torture that hat. I wanted to kill that hat.
I patiently awaited my chance, skulking in the shadows like a voyeur, until finally I received my due diligence. After the rain (Nelson™), the weather turned quite humid and Robert took off the brown leather antichrist to wipe the sweat from his forehead, putting it on the hood of a car. Fate intervened at that exact moment. Someone called Robert into the club, and he turned and rushed inside, leaving the hat behind.
This was my chance.
I hurried over to the car and reached to pick it up. But before I could touch it, the demon châpeau flew off the hood, its fangs springing out from underneath the hatband, and latched on to my jugular. I fell to the ground, and started rolling around the parking lot locked in a fight to the death with the blasphemous bonnet. It was with great effort that I finally pried it off and stuffed it into a duffel bag, entrapping it for a thousand years.
As the furious fedora bopped around inside the bag like a puppy caught under a sheet, I was rewarded with the sight of a returning Robert searching for his hat. He searched desperately inside the car, under the car, and on top of the car.
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