FOZZY singer Chris Jericho was recently interviewed by Terrie Carr of WDHA-FM 105.5 FM, the rock music station licensed to Dover and Morristown, New Jersey. You can now watch the chat below.
Asked if FOZZY's latest album, 2017's "Judas", was the record he and his bandmates always wanted to make, Chris responded: "I don't really know how anybody can really say that, because you never know what's gonna hit and what's not gonna hit. And every record you make is the best record you've ever done at the time. And every band will say, 'This is the best record we've ever done,' as they should. If there's ever somebody that comes in your studio and says, 'This is definitely the third-best record we've ever made,' it's not the right attitude.
"I think the most important thing for us was the progression of FOZZY," he continued. "I mentioned kind of regrouping in 2010 with 'Chasing The Grail'. We love that record, but now we don't even play any songs from it live — it just doesn't make the cut — because 'Sin And Bones' [2012] was so much better, and 'Do You Wanna Start A War' [2014] was better than that. I think 'Judas', the reason why it's taken that next step — and not that I'm comparing us to METALLICA or KISS — but when METALLICA worked with Bob Rock on the 'Black Album,' or KISS with Bob Ezrin on 'Destroyer', or AC/DC with 'Mutt' Lange on 'Highway To Hell' and 'Back In Black', having this other voice and a producer who says, 'Listen, I love your band, but I think you're missing this part of it.'
"There's a [producer] called Johnny Andrews that we used out of Atlanta, who, Rich Ward [FOZZY guitarist] and I said, 'Okay, listen, he's the boss. He's the principal. No matter what he says, he has the final decision,'" Chris recalled. "And for two alpha-male control freaks like Rich and myself, it really was kind of a 'Black Album' situation, when you see [the 1992 METALLICA documentary about the making of the 'Metallica' album] 'A Year And A Half In The Life Of Metallica', and they're hating on Bob Rock. We hated Johnny Andrews. 'What a son of a bitch? We hate this guy? Who does he think he is, telling us what to do?' And I always wrote the lyrics in FOZZY. I submitted 14 sets of lyrics, and he picked two of them out and the rest went in the trash. I'm, like, 'What? This is genius! Everything I wrote is amazing!' It turns out that his lyrics were much better. But the bottom line is, who cares who writes it? All that matters is the final product. And even if they're his lyrics, I still have to sing them and introduce them to the world."
Chris went on to say: "A song like 'Judas', one of the reasons why I think it was so big is because it's very relatable. It's not about Judas betraying Jesus, it's about the Judas inside of you. Everybody makes the wrong decision and knows it — the extra donut, or the extra drink, knowing that you're probably gonna throw up after, or kissing someone that you shouldn't kiss — whatever it may be. That's why people could resonate with that. And a lot of the lyrics are like that. So, in a way, it is the album that we wanted to make, because it's a natural progression from 'Do You Wanna Start A War'… It's very groovy, very heavy, very melodic, great lyrics. Shorter songs. [We're] not worried about if there's a guitar solo in there or not. I think we have five solos out of eleven songs on this record. 'Judas' doesn't have a solo, 'Painless' doesn't have a solo — they just have instrumental breaks. And that was because Johnny felt that they didn't need solos. 'Why are you putting a solo on it? Just to have a solo? We know you guys can play. But this doesn't need it.' And to get that into your mind and understand what he was preaching was really beneficial to both of us as songwriters and as musicans. And it's one of those things, as much as… I'm not gonna say we hated Johnny, but we were very annoyed by him, there's no way that we're not doing another record [with] him. The next record is already being talked about, with Johnny Andrews again."
"Judas" was released last October via Century Media.
Andrews previously co-wrote FOZZY's "Lights Go Out" track back in 2014 and has written songs with the likes of ALL THAT REMAINS, THREE DAYS GRACE and HALESTORM.
Continue reading...
Asked if FOZZY's latest album, 2017's "Judas", was the record he and his bandmates always wanted to make, Chris responded: "I don't really know how anybody can really say that, because you never know what's gonna hit and what's not gonna hit. And every record you make is the best record you've ever done at the time. And every band will say, 'This is the best record we've ever done,' as they should. If there's ever somebody that comes in your studio and says, 'This is definitely the third-best record we've ever made,' it's not the right attitude.
"I think the most important thing for us was the progression of FOZZY," he continued. "I mentioned kind of regrouping in 2010 with 'Chasing The Grail'. We love that record, but now we don't even play any songs from it live — it just doesn't make the cut — because 'Sin And Bones' [2012] was so much better, and 'Do You Wanna Start A War' [2014] was better than that. I think 'Judas', the reason why it's taken that next step — and not that I'm comparing us to METALLICA or KISS — but when METALLICA worked with Bob Rock on the 'Black Album,' or KISS with Bob Ezrin on 'Destroyer', or AC/DC with 'Mutt' Lange on 'Highway To Hell' and 'Back In Black', having this other voice and a producer who says, 'Listen, I love your band, but I think you're missing this part of it.'
"There's a [producer] called Johnny Andrews that we used out of Atlanta, who, Rich Ward [FOZZY guitarist] and I said, 'Okay, listen, he's the boss. He's the principal. No matter what he says, he has the final decision,'" Chris recalled. "And for two alpha-male control freaks like Rich and myself, it really was kind of a 'Black Album' situation, when you see [the 1992 METALLICA documentary about the making of the 'Metallica' album] 'A Year And A Half In The Life Of Metallica', and they're hating on Bob Rock. We hated Johnny Andrews. 'What a son of a bitch? We hate this guy? Who does he think he is, telling us what to do?' And I always wrote the lyrics in FOZZY. I submitted 14 sets of lyrics, and he picked two of them out and the rest went in the trash. I'm, like, 'What? This is genius! Everything I wrote is amazing!' It turns out that his lyrics were much better. But the bottom line is, who cares who writes it? All that matters is the final product. And even if they're his lyrics, I still have to sing them and introduce them to the world."
Chris went on to say: "A song like 'Judas', one of the reasons why I think it was so big is because it's very relatable. It's not about Judas betraying Jesus, it's about the Judas inside of you. Everybody makes the wrong decision and knows it — the extra donut, or the extra drink, knowing that you're probably gonna throw up after, or kissing someone that you shouldn't kiss — whatever it may be. That's why people could resonate with that. And a lot of the lyrics are like that. So, in a way, it is the album that we wanted to make, because it's a natural progression from 'Do You Wanna Start A War'… It's very groovy, very heavy, very melodic, great lyrics. Shorter songs. [We're] not worried about if there's a guitar solo in there or not. I think we have five solos out of eleven songs on this record. 'Judas' doesn't have a solo, 'Painless' doesn't have a solo — they just have instrumental breaks. And that was because Johnny felt that they didn't need solos. 'Why are you putting a solo on it? Just to have a solo? We know you guys can play. But this doesn't need it.' And to get that into your mind and understand what he was preaching was really beneficial to both of us as songwriters and as musicans. And it's one of those things, as much as… I'm not gonna say we hated Johnny, but we were very annoyed by him, there's no way that we're not doing another record [with] him. The next record is already being talked about, with Johnny Andrews again."
"Judas" was released last October via Century Media.
Andrews previously co-wrote FOZZY's "Lights Go Out" track back in 2014 and has written songs with the likes of ALL THAT REMAINS, THREE DAYS GRACE and HALESTORM.
Continue reading...
