Undisputed: How to Become World Champion in 1,372 Easy Steps

by Chris Jericho

  We thought it would put Fozzy in a different light if we invited a few of our famous friends to contribute to the record. The first guy I called was Zakk, and not only was he my brother, but a big Rich Ward fan as well. Zakk credits Rich and Stuck Mojo with helping him get back into heavy music after he went through his Book of Shadows acoustic period and was happy to help us out by playing an amazing solo on the song “Wanderlust.”

  Our producer was a friend of Megadeth’s guitarist Marty Friedman, who agreed to lay down a solo for “Born of Anger.” I’d met Alter Bridge guitarist Mark Tremonti a few years earlier in Tampa when he was touring with Creed and found out he was a Fozzy fan. He’d offered to do a guest solo when we did our next album, but in typical Jericho fashion, I lost his number and never followed up with him. So when I found out that Alter Bridge was also recording their new album at Treesound, I simply walked downstairs to their studio door and knocked. I handed him a tape of our song “The Way I Am” and said, “Will you play on this? Here’s your chance!”

  Myles Kennedy, Alter Bridge’s singer (now with Slash), laid down some backing vocals, and suddenly Fozzy’s new record had a whole new slant. Any band that had an album featuring the talents of Wylde, Friedman, Tremonti, and Kennedy had to have some credibility—and we did.

  It was froot to know that we were in the same studio with the Alter boys, but Rich and I really flipped when we found out that someone else of status was working there as well. Somebody who was only one of the top ten biggest rock stars in the world—Rico Suave himself, Gerardo.

  Actually it was Sir Elton John. He was recording his Peachtree Road album in the biggest studio in the complex and we took a quick look around when Elton had a day off. There were fresh-cut flowers everywhere and a ritzy lounge featuring a fully stocked kitchen, stand-up video games, and a full library of books and DVDs. Scoping out the racks of guitars with spools of cords snaking around, along with the corkboards filled with tacked on Post-it notes describing the various time changes and keys of the new songs, made me feel inadequate as a musician. And the coup de grâce, seeing Elton’s famous red piano up close and personal, was a rocker’s equivalent to a Muslim taking a trip to Mecca.

  Rich and I decided that we would make it our mission to meet Sir Elton. We’d been keeping a watchful eye out for him for a few days, to no avail; then one afternoon while listening to one of my takes, we saw a shiny black SUV pull into the parking lot. The door opened and a massive block of humanity sidled out of the driver’s seat. He walked around to open the passenger door and out climbed Elton himself—a short pudgy man with chipmunk cheeks, wearing a black tracksuit.

  I screamed and ran down the stairs as fast as my little legs could carry me to cut him off at the pass. Treesound was a big studio, maze-like in its setup, and I took a few wrong turns. Finally I burst into the lobby and made a beeline toward the big boy room just as the door was closing. I asked the desk clerk if I could pop my head in and say hi but was told, “Sorry, it’s a closed session. No one’s allowed to go in.”

  Closed session? Who did Elton think he was, Sarsippius?

  I begged and pleaded but the guy wouldn’t budge, so I turned to go back to work.

  Suddenly the studio door opened and out walked Elton’s gianormous driver. The receptionist had disappeared at this point, so the Kraken turned to me and said in a perfect C3PO English accent, “Excuse me, do you know the address of this studio?”

  “No man, I’m just here recording upstairs. Why’s that?”

  “Oh my. Well, Elton’s hairdresser is coming and he needs to know where we are.”

  “Hairdresser? Is Elton filming something today?”

  “No, no. Elton just likes to have his hair done while he’s recording.”

  Sir Elton John had to have his hair styled and looking perfect in order to make an album. How rock and roll is that? I went directly to the bathroom and combed my tresses—it was the least I could do.

  We never did meet Elton, but just knowing we were recording in the same airspace as Captain Fantastic was an incredible feeling. It was a sign that we were about to say goodbye to the yellow brick road of our past and become our own madmen across the water.

  Wow, that was pretty bad, wasn’t it?

  Don’t shoot me, I’m only the book writer.

  After dealing with all the various record company bullshit from Mega-force and Palm, we still “owed” them money even though our first two records had more than recouped. I’d had enough of record companies ripping us off, so I decided to take matters into my own hands and start my own. So we released our third album, All That Remains, in January 2005 on Ash Records.

  Another sad truth of the music business is that in order for a band of our size to get airplay in big markets like New York or L.A. we’d have to pay some serious cash. So we decided to concentrate on getting played in secondary (and free) markets like Grand Rapids, Alberquerque, Des Moines. That’s what we did, and our song “Enemy” became a sort of hit, getting airplay on over eighty stations across the country.

  The next step was to make a video. We filmed the clip for “Enemy” on the top of a government building in San Diego and based it around the concept of a guy with one leg climbing up the stairs to the roof. After struggling to make it to the top, he promptly threw himself over the edge. It was the feel-good story of the spring.

  Apparently because “Enemy” featured a one-legged man committing suicide, MTV banned it after one showing on Headbangers Ball. Even though being banned (like the original album cover for Yesterday and Today ) was very rock and roll, it also made no sense. MTV was also airing the “99 Problems” video by Jay-Z (which depicted him being assassinated) in heavy rotation at the same time. There was machine gun fire and blood spouting all over the place in his video, but a one-legged man falling off a building in our video was too risqué. What’s wrong with being sexy?

  Fozzy, 2005: Delson, The Duke, me, Frank Fontsere, and Mike Martin. We had to get a government permit to film the “Enemy” clip on a rooftop in downtown San Diego. Doesn’t the city have better things to do than demand a permit from a rock band shooting a video?

  Despite being banned by MTV (or maybe because of it), we were invited to tour England for the first time. (That “madmen across the water” line doesn’t seem like too much of a stretch, now does it?) We didn’t know what to expect, but the response was incredible. Most of the shows sold out and the crowd knew all the words to our songs. After all of Fozzy’s trials and tribulations, we had found our second home.

  It was also the first time we’d traveled together in a tour bus—although in reality it was more of a tour van. It was the size of a small rental car shuttle with makeshift bunks on the side, and there was barely enough room for the five guys in the band and our two crew members. But it was Fozzy’s first bus and I loved it.

  Although this was my debut tour of the UK with Fozzy, I had been there a dozen times with the WWE. The rush I got from doing the shows was the same for both, but the difference in accommodations was night and day. I went from staying in five-star hotels to sleeping on a thin mattress on a piece of plywood and taking showers at truck stops. But I was paying my dues and making my name as a musician the same way I had in wrestling all those years ago (Harrison represent!).

  Fozzy started catching on in England, Ireland, Scotland, and Wales, and we toured the UK five times on the All That Remains— Touring the World and Elsewhere jaunt. We did such good business that we were booked at the Astoria, one of the most prestigious and historic venues in London. The Beatles played there. Metallica played there. Now Fozzy was playing there, and that was pretty fucking froot in my book.

  It was a big night for us, so we decided to do something special at the expense of a male version of the Spice Girls called the S Club. If you put Ashley Simpson into a blender with 98 Degrees, sprinkled in a little Miley Cyrus and a whole lot of suck, you might have an idea of what the S Club sounded like.

  The Astoria was jam-packed wi
th over a thousand Fozzy Fanatics, with dozens more hanging from the rafters (term used courtesy of the Rock ’n’ Roll Express). The show began as the lights went out and a single spotlight shone down on a footstool with a boom box placed upon it. Then our tour manager extraordinaire Toad wandered out on the stage and pressed play. At that moment our sound guy cued the S Club as if they were blaring out of the box. The audience started booing and screaming “This sucks!” until I strolled onstage, baseball bat in hand. The entire crowd understood what was about to happen and the jeers turned to screams of appreciation. I stood beside the boom box and stared at it with disgust, swinging the bat over my shoulder. I slowly raised it over my head and brought it down like the Hammer of the Gods, smashing the shit out of the hapless box and to the delight of the crowd silencing the S Club forever. The rest of the band came charging out and we blazed into “Nameless Faceless,” the opening track off All That Remains.

  There was a lot of press in attendance prepared to drag us over the coals for having the audicity to play original music, but we caught their attention and changed their minds pretty damn quickly. They found out that Fozzy had come to London to chew bubble gum and kick ass—and we were all out of ass.

  After the show we had to pack up our gear and leave quickly, as the venue was turning from a concert hall into a trendy discotheque. As the bus pulled away I glanced out at the marquee and burst out in laughter when I saw the name of the club underneath the name of our band.

  TONIGHT:

  FOZZY

  GAY

  You can’t make this stuff up….

  The marquee says it all.

  CHAPTER 32

  Rage Raspberry

  Ever since Motörhead had recorded HHH’s theme song, they appeared on WWE programming from time to time. As a result, I had become acquainted with Lemmy, their founder and guitarist, and the band’s manager, Todd Singerman. They were in the midst of their thirtieth anniversary tour and had a show coming up in L.A. at the Wiltern Theater. Todd had given us a standing offer to open for them, and we thought that the Wiltern would be a great place to finally make it happen. We were second out of four bands on the show, and since we were joining the tour for only one night, I thought I’d make a point of saying hi to the other bands on the bill. I wasn’t sure of rock and roll protocol, but in wrestling it was up to the younger guys to introduce themselves to the veterans, so I went and thanked the members of Zeke (and you think Fozzy is a weird name?) and Corrosion of Conformity for letting us play with them. I was met with the same confused reaction Flounder got when he asked the fraternity guys if they were playing cards. I’m sure these guys were thinking to themselves, “Who the fuck is this guy? We didn’t let you play with us, Motörhead did.”

  Motörhead fans are notorious for treating opening bands like a sacrifice. They came specifically to see the loudest band in the world and could not give a shit about anybody else. But we’d never been intimidated by a crowd and charged onstage with our archetypal Fozzy energy. But we were met with total apathy and halfway through our six-song set a tumbleweed blew by and I heard a guy in the balcony shart. Our gig was a massacre of silence (another great album title) as 99 percent of the crowd stood with their arms crossed, doing their time until Fozzy was done. But believe me, the remaining 1 percent of the crowd were losing their minds.

  I concentrated on the few people who were feeling our set and glanced away to find myself locked in a death stare with a huge biker in the front row who was a dead ringer for Ogre from Revenge of the Nerds. He couldn’t have looked more unimpressed, and I sensed him telepathically say, “Get off the stage before I bash your fucking brains in.”

  We were dying a death, so I decided to use an old wrestling trick and call an audible.

  During a match when the crowd isn’t buying what you’re selling, you have to change up what you’re doing to get the people interested. Fozzy had planned on playing an all-original set that night but nobody was reacting to our material, so I called the audible to launch into Judas Priest’s “Freewheel Burning,” a song we had covered on Happenstance. Lo and behold, when the crowd heard a tune they knew and loved, they finally started showing signs of life. The 1 percent of the audience who dug what we were doing grew to about 12 percent, and we gladly took it.

  But the true sign that we were getting over with the tough crowd was Ogre bobbing his head slightly to the song, as he uncrossed his arms. At the end of the set he even gave me a thumbs-up, which compared with his reactions earlier was the equivalent of him throwing his panties onstage.

  When our gig was over, I asked Frank how he felt about the performance and he said optimistically, “Well, it wasn’t a home run, but it was definitely a double.” Rich, however, was a little less diplomatic in his response: “I felt like a black man at a Ku Klux Klan rally.”

  I began to get the sense that we were being a little hard on ourselves. Maybe we just weren’t used to the average Motörhead opening band reception, and when I saw Lemmy backstage, he was very complimentary.

  “You guys had a good amount of energy, nice job,” he said matter-of-factly in his gravelly English accent. Then he offered me a drink to celebrate the occasion. He poured me a glass of Jack Daniel’s and grabbed a fistful of ice cubes with his filthy hand and threw them in the plastic tumbler. I was a little grossed out, as I could only guess why his hand was so dirty and where it might’ve been, but I figured the straight whiskey would kill any germs.

  Besides, how often did one get to have a cocktail with Lemmy?

  After a few shots, Lemmy poured me a glass of fine merlot and went to greet the rest of his backstage guests, one of whom was legendary singer Ronnie James Dio. Lemmy introduced me to Dio, who shook my hand and told me he really enjoyed the show and thought I had a good voice. I thanked him and promptly pissed myself. I asked him if we could take a picture, and when I put my arm around him I spilled my wine all over the front of his shirt.

  I was totally embarrassed and apologized profusely.

  Dio smirked. “It’s okay, man, I’m wearing black anyway.”

  “I’m really sorry, Ronnie, I hope you forgive me. I just don’t want you to put a curse on me,” I said, smiling.

  Dio stared at me and said grimly, “How do you know that I haven’t already?”

  Then he threw his trademark devil horn gesture in my face and made a spitting sound. I stood motionless, paralyzed with fear that Dio the wizard had just put a hex on me, until he burst out laughing and said he was only kidding.

  I promptly pissed myself.

  There were a lot of other celebrities backstage at the Wiltern, including Kerry King from Slayer, Juliette Lewis, Nicolas Cage, and Jenna Jameson (who told me she had a crush on me, whoop whoop).

  I was a big fan of Jon Lovitz from his SNL days and thought it was pretty froot when he came over and began talking to me. But I was so bored after three minutes of his conversation I wanted to shove bamboo splints up my penis. He kept asking the most frivolous questions possible.

  “What do the ropes feel like? Are they made of actual rope?”

  I smiled awkwardly. “Yeah, they’re made of rope with tape wrapped around it.”

  “Oh, there’s tape wrapped around them … like gaffer’s tape? Masking tape? Electrical tape? What kind of tape?”

  Before I could reply he continued his onslaught of dullness. “Tell me more about the ropes. What are the ropes made of? Hemp? Twine? And those ref shirts, are they made of cotton or …”

  Finally I asked Lovitz if he wanted a drink and never came back. He’s probably still in the bowels of the Wiltern, wondering what kind of fiber the ring ropes are made of.

  The WWE had brokered a sponsorship deal with an energy drink company to hawk a product called YJ Stinger. They brought me on as their spokesman and the marketing department put together a campaign based around Fozzy. They flew the band out to L.A. and we filmed two commercials based around our song “Don’t You Wish You Were Me.” But the catch was we had to
change the lyrics to something a little more YJ Stinger– friendly.

  While my original lyrics went:

  Don’t you wish you were me? The king of all you see

  Don’t you wish you were me? It ain’t that easy

  Don’t think you’ll ever be? everything a man should be

  Don’t you wish you were me? Keep dreaming, you’ll never be me

  —the corporate sellout lyrics went:

  Don’t you wish you were me? The king of energy

  Don’t you wish you were me? It ain’t that easy

  Don’t you want sugar-free? Now in rage raspberry

  Don’t you wish you were me? Catch the buzz and feel the sting

  Rage raspberry? So blatant that even the girls at the Chicken Ranch called us whores.

  But we weren’t Pearl Jam on a crusade to fight Ticketmaster. We were starving musicians trying to make a living and had no problem selling out—no problem at all.

  Riding on the success of our hit single “Enemy” and the national commercial, we decided to do a short run of autumn gigs called the Fall That Remains Tour. We played in nice halls and back-alley clubs, ending up a gig in a sports bar in Hershey where we couldn’t sound-check until the high school reunion that was taking place finished. Afterwards in our dressing room/storage closet, I sternly told the bar manager, “Dammit, I told you the sign on the door should say Fozzy first, High School Reunion second!!” and threw my leather jacket down aloofly on a stack of Heinz ketchup tins.

  Some gigs were packed with amazing fans who sang along with every song, genuinely excited to see us, and other shows were worse than anything in the Anvil movie. But one gig in particular stands out as the all-time biggest nightmare in Fozzy history: opening for the Murder Junkies at a skinhead bar in Savannah, Georgia.

  Who the hell are the Murder Junkies, might you ask?

  Well, dear reader, the Murder Junkies were the backing band for G. G. Allin, an underground punk rock legend who was famous for slicing himself with razor blades, punching his band members in the face, and chasing fans with pieces of his own shit in hand. And the shit didn’t fall too far from the Allin, as after G.G. died, his brother Merle continued touring in tribute to his departed sibling.