Who are Fozzy?

With a new album on the horizon and a successful appearance at Download, we ask just who are Fozzy?

So who are Fozzy? Currently, the line up consists of singer Chris Jericho, better known to most as either WWE Superstar or Dancing with the Stars’ Chris Jericho, guitarist Rich Ward who was a founding member of rap metal pioneers Stuck Mojo, which also currently features Fozzy drummer Frank Fontsere. Rounding it off is former Adrenaline Mob bassist Paul Di Leo who replaced Sean Delson, who we grabbed an interview with on the last UK Fozzy tour.

Why should you care? Well because they’re currently one of the best live bands around, and have been tearing down the house in shows around the globe for the last few years.  If you feel that you’ve missed out, worry not, as they will be returning to the UK in November.  In the meantime, you can familiarise yourself with their music by checking out their records Chasing the Grail, All That Remains and the cover albums Happenstance and Fozzy. The bands’ MySpace page features all their albums, except curiously Happenstance, if you don’t feel you can commit to a purchase just yet.

Before we get to the interview, it’s probably worth addressing the covers, as chances are that raised a few eyebrows, and if you decide to look into it you’ll likely end up rather confused. Fozzy began life as Fozzy Osbourne way back in the 90’s, as a cover band featuring Rich Ward, and whoever he could find that week. When Chris Jericho joined for a small tour, the band was offered a record deal without the label ever having heard or seen them.

Concocting a preposterous story that Fozzy had been trapped in Japan for 20 years as the result of a bad record deal and all of the covers were actually their songs that had been ripped off by the likes of Iron Maiden and Judas Priest gave the band a twist that most cover bands lack, and they adopted names like Mongoose McQueen and Duke LaRue because the story just wasn’t ridiculous enough without them.

Despite this though, the eponymous debut album still featured two original tracks and the follow up, Happenstance, found room for five. Even if you’re not particularly hot on covers, it’s probably worth checking out these songs, as if nothing else it will let you chart the progress of Fozzy from the baby steps taken over a decade ago, to the swagger and pomp of the Chasing the Grail.  They’re still heavy metal at the core, but there is certainly a broad range of influences and even the band has difficulty describing just what Fozzy are these days.

That’s definitely a good thing, because it would be easy for them to lazily rehash the 80’s music that they were born from, but instead they’re striving to improve with every album. With a new record , Sin and Bones coming in August, the future looks bright for Fozzy. If it can improve upon Chasing the Grail, there is little reason that Fozzy can’t capitalise on the momentum they currently enjoy and break into the mainstream consciousness.

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