In a new dialog with Jacksonville, Florida's First Coast News, FOZZY frontman Chris Jericho talked about the band's silver jubilee tour, which kicked off Thursday night (October 3) at Madlife in Woodstock, Georgia. He expressed (as transcribed by BLABBERMOUTH.NET): “It's our 25th anniversary, and it's a rock and roll fiesta, man. It's been a fantastic quarter of a century, and here we are now with eight Top 10 radio hits and a gold record and all the exciting stuff that accompanies that. So we just initiated the tour last night in Atlanta and we're here in Jacksonville, so it's going to be a blast.”
Inquired how FOZZY has preserved themselves as a band for 25 years, Chris talked about: “You truly need to give and take when you're in a band, and you have to essentially perform what you do best and let your partners perform what they do best. It's akin to being on a team. And if you start to irritate each other, you simply retreat to the back of the bus or go for a walk somewhere or whatever it might be. But honestly, at this moment in time, it's a very unified, interdependent teamwork. And it's been going excellently, man. So we've been very fortunate to be able to tour the world performing rock and roll. So you really can't grumble too much about that.”
FOZZY‘s 25th-anniversary tour will proceed till October 21 in Cleveland, Ohio. Assistance on the tour is being offered by THE NOCTURNAL AFFAIR and CLOZURE.
FOZZY‘s most up-to-date standalone single, “Spotlight”, was unveiled final October through Madison Records/The Orchard. The composition was overseen by FOZZY‘s longstanding producer Johnny Andrews (THREE DAYS GRACE, ALL THAT REMAINS, HALESTORM) and aurally perfected by mixer Jacob Hanson (VOLBEAT, AMARANTHE, ARCH ENEMY).
FOZZY‘s newest album, “Boombox”, was launched in May 2022 and featured “I Still Burn”, which has collected greater than three million views on YouTube. It additionally contained the Top 10 tracks “Nowhere To Run” and “Sane”.
In the spring of 2023, FOZZY went on tour with UGLY KID JOE as half of the latter band's inaugural tour of the United States in 27 years.
In January 2022, FOZZY separated paths with longstanding drummer Frank Fontsere and substituted him with Grant Brooks (THROUGH FIRE).
Fontsere was an unique member of FOZZY, having established the group in 1999 with Jericho and guitarist Rich Ward.
When FOZZY disclosed Fontsere‘s departure, the band declared that he was “stepping down to concentrate on his family and other projects.”
FOZZY consists of Jericho, Ward, Brooks, Billy Grey (guitar) and P.J. Farley (bass).
Speaking to Neal Brennan of the “Blocks” podcast relating to his choice to inaugurate FOZZY 25 years in the past, Chris, who's primarily acknowledged as a skilled wrestler, said: “I've been performing in rock and roll bands since I was 14 years old. This is not something I suddenly decided one day, ‘Hey, I'm going to join a band.' And another stumbling block in the music world was persuading people this wasn't just an ego project. And similarly — I encountered it with wrestling, [people saying], ‘Oh, you're too diminutive.' I encountered it with FOZZY: ‘You can't sing. You're a wrestler.' It's, like, why? What does that have to do with anything? … [IRON MAIDEN‘s] Bruce Dickinson is an airline pilot. And it's like saying, ‘Well, you can't be an airline pilot 'cause you're a singer,' or, ‘You can't be a singer 'cause you're an airline pilot.' It makes no fucking sense. You can either do it or you can't. So we had to work twice as hard to earn people's respect with FOZZY, but now we just had our sixth Top 10 hit … and a gold record and world tours and all this other stuff. So you've just gotta stick with it. And if you know it's going to work, don't heed people who tell you you can't do something, because everybody — not everybody, [but] the majority of people who don't grasp something will simply say you can't do it. And don't subscribe to it.”
Jericho continued: “I've written a plethora of books, but the fourth book I authored was titled ‘No Is A Four-Letter Word'. And what I meant by that was, people toss around ‘no' as a safeguard. It's like a curse word; it's like a swear word. ‘Hey, can I [do this]?' ‘No.' ‘Why?' ‘Well, it'll never work.' ‘What do you mean it'll never work. Let's figure out a way that we can make it work. Don't just say no for no reason.' And I find that's another good kind of blueprint for my life, is don't tell me why something won't work. Let's figure out a way to make it work, 'cause there's always a way. Always.”
