From Ringing to Singing
Hot off the release of one of their best albums to date, Fozzy is returning to the South to perform one of the truest rock shows yet.
These days, most folks with a lick of sense know big-time professional wrestling matches have loads more in common with massive hard rock concerts than with any other form of professional sporting event—let alone traditional wrestling.
The same sort of scripted moments and macho spectacle lie at the root of both activities. Factor in the outsized, aggressive behavior of the participants, the sheer volume—and the sexual dynamism routinely on display—and these types of shows edge even closer to one another. Professional wrestling and hard rock music: two fiercely primal forms of entertainment that allow fans to live vicariously through superstars.
Few realize this connection as fully as Chris Jericho. Since his humble beginnings in 1990, this Canadian athlete and celebrity has gone on to become one of the most famous and respected pro-wrestlers of all-time. To date, he’s been named the Undisputed World Wrestling Federation Champion once, the World Championship Wrestling World Champion twice, and the World Heavyweight Champion three times.
However, since 1999, he’s divided his time between the wrestling ring and the nightclub stage. As lead singer and front man of hard rock quintet Fozzy, Jericho has released seven full length albums of melodic alternative metal and, since 2009, toured extensively with the group. That dedication to hard work has paid off, as the title track single off Judas, their most recent LP, has racked up well over 20 million streams on YouTube, and made it all the way to #1 on the Sirius/XM Octane Charts.
September finds the band crisscrossing the Southeast and making its second-ever stop in Savannah on the 25th of that month. The venue? The Stage on Bay, a cavernous, 1,000-capacity former industrial warehouse that’s a far cry from the last place Fozzy appeared in our fair city. Back in December of 2004, they played a brief opening set downtown on Congress St. at the 120-capacity dive bar The Jinx. Some locals remember that show to this day, for reasons which Jericho himself can perhaps best explain.
“From what I recall, it might be one of the strangest gigs in our history,” he says by phone a few weeks before starting the next leg of their tour.
“We played a little, wee club with another band called the Murder Junkies. It was a small crowd with no Fozzy fans, and I was trying anything I could think of to hold their attention. At a certain point I decided to jump off stage, get in people’s faces, and tell ‘em it was ‘time to rock,’ you know?
Listen and download Fozzy's Burn Me Out track:
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