Fozzy: Chris Jericho
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Starting up your own label certainly isn’t as hard as it sounds (Especially considering Jericho’s strong belief in ‘All That Remains’), but it still involves a lot of work ensuring that the album is available to fans in every territory imaginable when there’s no single distributor to help out.
“The prospect of forming Ash Records wasn’t all that daunting. The only small problem we have is finding distribution for ‘All That Remains’. It’s been a little hard, meaning that some people have been having a problem finding the album here and there. We’re working on it, and we’re constantly restocking the shelves so to speak. We’re doing the best we can to ensure that those who want the album can find it somewhere. A lot of record stores underestimated the appeal and the demand for the band, so we just have to keep restocking them. But it’s a work in progress. It’s a lot of work, but it’s been paying off. To me, it’s the only decision we could have made at this point, and I think it’s been a smart one.”
Although primarily known as a covers band, Fozzy have proven that they can stand on their own with ‘All That Remains’, their first album to contain all original material. But as Jericho points out, the idea to make the full transition was there a long time ago.
“We started this band as kind of a fun thing between a group of friends. We were just playing our favourite songs that we grew up with. Then we did a couple of live shows just for the fun of it, and it was after the second show we got the record deal from Megaforce Records right off the bat! We never actually planned on that. Part of that record deal stipulated that we would play covers. We all thought, ‘I guess that’s O.K.?’ That’s kind of how it all started. We then started throwing in a couple of originals because we thought that was important. It was fun at the time, and it felt good. The same thing happened with ‘Happenstance’. We decided to put more originals on that. It was at that point that we started to see the chemistry that we had as songwriters, and as players. We wanted to continue playing, and the only way to really do that with any sort of impact, both creatively and professionally, was to do our own stuff. And that’s when we decided to write more originals within the band. We know this band is good, and we have a great following worldwide. And a lot of those fans want to hear more original material. We get a lot of feedback from people saying they like the tunes and the covers, but they wanted to hear more originals. That’s what really endears them to this band. So we had to make the decision to do more originals. We all agreed as a band. So we spent a lot of time on this album to make this the best possible album we could make, and I think we’ve done that.”
As is the general rule, Fozzy have once again changed their line up, with the introduction of new guitarist Mike Martin (Although Ryan Mallum still plays on the album) and bassist Sean B. Delson being the new members.
“The core of the band is still the same with Ward and myself. Since ‘All That Remains’ was recorded, we got a new guitar player because Mallum has decided to go to law school. So now, after doing quite a bit of juggling, we have the line up that we want to have. It’s a bit like Iron Maiden in that the first four records had different line ups. After a while you find yourself laughing about it. We played as much as we could, but we weren’t a full time band a few years ago, so it’s hard to keep guys in that situation. But now we finally have the band that we want, and we finally have a great collection of musicians and entertainers. From a skill level point of view, this is the best we’ve ever had. We can now play the stuff that we want to play, along with a lot of intricate stuff. Also there’s the stage aspect. We needed to find people that could put on a show, because that’s a big part of what we do. Some of the guys left because they wanted to, while some left because they were asked to. And some left because of the direction that we wanted to take, and because of some of the crazy stuff that we wanted to play. We knew what we wanted in musicians from the start, and now they’re here. It was especially important too with international touring on the cards. With the band growing in the way that it’s growing, we wanted to make sure that we had the right components, because when we play live, we take pride in the fact that we can whip everyone’s ass in the whole place, and make sure that they have a great time. As a band, we’re now ready to assault everybody.”
Another huge selling point for ‘All That Remains’ (If the points mentioned above weren’t enticing enough) is the list of guest artists that help out on the album, such as Black Label Society’s vocalist/guitarist Zakk Wylde on ‘Wanderlust’.
“Wylde has to have some sort of respect for the artists he usually helps out. I mean all of his guest solos are with guys like Derek Sherinian and Damageplan, who are just crazy assed players. Ozzy Osbourne hasn’t done anything in years, and you can tell because Wylde has done four Black Label Society albums alone in that time. But Wylde is actually a very good friend of both Ward and myself, and he’s actually a big fan of the band, and has been since the first album. He’s also a fan of Ward as a guitar player. He’s always been very cool to us, and on the song ‘Wanderlust’, we felt it had a very heavy Black Sabbath like vibe, and we knew that he would sound great on it. So it was a simple as asking him to play on the track, and he was more than happy to do that. He did a great job laying down his shredding solo. It definitely doesn’t suck to have a guy of Wylde’s calibre playing on your album! (Laughs) It was really cool for us to have that.”
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