FOZZY
Ready
To Bang Some Heads!
by Clay
Marshall
World
Wrestling Entertainment star Chris Jericho - who portrays flamboyant frontman
Moongoose McQueen in the self-proclaimed greatest heavy metal band of all time,
Fozzy - says the group eagerly anticipates performing in front of tens of
thousands at Germany's Bang Your Head festival this weekend.
"We're going in there with
one goal in mind: to completely burn the house down and steal the whole damn
show," says Jericho/McQueen. "We're going to leave all the German fans and
anybody else that shows up with a sense of what Fozzy is all about."
Fozzy will release its
sophomore album, Happenstance, in late July. Like the group's self-titled debut,
the record contains covers of many well-known metal classics alongside a handful
of original tracks. The band originally marketed itself completely immersed in
its gimmick - see www.fozzyrock.com for their hilarious back-story - a la Spinal
Tap, but they've now taken a more relaxed, Blues Brothers-like approach.
"For the last record, we
were very adamant that if you were talking to Moongoose McQueen, that was it,
and if you were talking to Chris Jericho, that was it - there was no
intertwining. We were different people,"
Jericho
says. "It kind of confused people a bit, so it's good that we (backed off). To
go into Germany claiming that all these cover songs were ours, it may not be the
best thing, because Germans tend to take metal very, very seriously."
Jericho says the band
will perform both covers and original material onstage. "We'll go in there with
our guns loaded, and totally do our part to show the German fans that this is
not a novelty - this is a serious, legitimate metal band with some great
players," he says. "We're playing with Saxon, Nightwish, Gamma Ray, Overkill and
Nevermore, but it's not going to psyche us out. It's going to be weird seeing a
guy like Kai Hansen - a power metal legend - and you're there ready to rock but
never having played a crowd of that size before. But when we get onstage,
Moongoose McQueen is going to come out and we're going to show the majesty of
Fozzy."
For more with
Jericho, check out BW&BK #63, on sale in late July. (Note: McQueen, for his
part, says Bang Your Head "is definitely our biggest crowd since the Rising Sun
Festival in '93 that we did in Yokohama.").
FOZZY Happenstance (Megaforce)
As
everyone knows, Fozzy were a band that became stranded in Japan while all sorts
of '80s metal greats stole their songs and rode them to the top. Either that, or
they are rassler Chris Jericho and Stuck Mojo's Rich Ward jerkin' yer chain. In
any event, they are back on their Happenstance sophomore with more '80s tunes,
this time (predictably, thankfully) mixed with a few originals. These new tunes,
of course rule, because Stuck Mojo was a kick ass band, both rhythmic and almost
oppressively bright, both characteristics of which carry over onto these
searingly guitary yet melodically hair bandy songs. But I'd have to say I
disagree beeringly with the band's choice of "covers." 'Freewheel Burning', 'L.O.V.E.
Machine', 'The Mob Rules' and especially - goddamn it - 'Big City Nights' are
all inferior material from their respective bands. Maiden, no matter what you
pick, is played out and I never need to hear 'Balls To The Wall' again, by
Accept, by U.D.O. live in front of 40 people, by Fozzy. Please, for the sake of
the jaded, go deep next time or better yet... all originals. Bloody 'ell,
'Crucify Yourself' coulda been a Chemical Wedding highlight, as coulda 'To Kill
A Stranger'. Major talent here: vocals, guitar (riffs, leads, twin leads),
production, it's quite the package.
7.0
Martin
Popoff
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