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| WF: Hi Chris, it´s nice to meet you. Chris: Nice to meet you, too. WF: You´ve been traveling with Fozzy through Europe the last weeks. How was your tour so far? We heared that your tourbus had an accident yesterday. Chris: Yeah, our Tourbus had a crash on the motorway yesterday because one of our drivers fall asleep. The bus crashed into the guard railing and it slided for 15 ft only on two wheels. We lost the frontdoor and the front screen was totally busted. Thank god everyone is fine. Luckily I was sitting in the Anthrax-bus. We had to miss our show in Denmark with Anthrax and wait a day in Hannover for the replacement bus to come. So everything is very last minute we just throw all of our stuff in, so we can make it to Hamburg. WF: Fozzy started as a coverband meanwhile you are playing your own songs. In which other way do you see the advancement of the band? Chris: Well, we started this band back in 1999 its been 12 years now, believe it or not, which is so crazy to think about. It did start as a coverband and we were signed by Megaforce Records. They signed Metallica in ´93, Anthrax, they signed us to be a coverband, a little bit particular,a little bit strange but we said “Ok we do it”. And you know when you start playing music you wanna play your own songs. Just we said covers are fun but lets start recording our own stuff. So after we released “Chasing the Grail” in 2010 the momentum has been amazing. We toured 13 different countries since then and we are still touring on “Chasing the grail” and new countries are opening up for us all the time. So its just great to see the band growing. We played on Sonisphere in England we tour with Anthrax, now we just start to work on the German market. We played RockHarz and the Reload Festival in Ballenstedt this year. We have such a great fanbase arround the world that it seems that new countries are always opening up for us. In Germany, I think we have great potential to do coming here more and built up the fanbase. We wanna take over the world one country after another! WF: Are there any plans for a new record or a dvd release? Chris: Yes, actually we have a new record “Remains Alive” which is an live album we did a few years ago combined with a re-release of “Chasing the Grail”. Thats a great way for the fans to have something to tight them over from one album to another or they never heard “Chasing the grail” or what ever we do. Its like “You wanna know Fozzy songs? Here you go it – it´s our whole career”. All the lyrics are written for the next album and now Rich Ward is just start working on the riffs and the music which he is gonna do. I think august or september we will go in the studio and I hope we get something out early next year. WF: I heard a rumour that Fozzy will be touring Europe next November. Will you have some gigs in Germany as well. Maybe headling the whole tour next time? Chris: Yeah that´s what we usually do - headling tours ourself. Just this tour was different because you know when you do festivals you got to take the shows in between that you can. So the first 4 shows of the tour we were headlining. And we haven´t headlined since, because of all the shows with Anthrax and the festivals which are also very important for us too. It help us to play in markets like Germany and Switzerland where we´ve never done before and new fans can see us. And its been working - we did a show in Düsseldorf with Ill Nino and when we finished playing and announced that Ill Nino is on next, the people started booing. To be honest that was the best show of the tour, this is great and that is how you have to do it. To let the people hear what you do, see the show and build a fanbase. So we wanna be back in Germany very quickly to continue, you know, hammering people in their head. WF: Speaking of the band what inspires you - bands, music styles, personal experiences? Chris: I love The Beatles, they are my favourite band of all time. And for Rich he loves 70´s bands like Journey and Stixx. Fozzy is a lot of melody which a lot of metal bands don´t have. And then of course Metallica is my second favourite, Iron Maidon my third. Actually I love Helloween from Hamburg, they are one of my all time favourites. I love Michael Kiske´s voice. So we have a very heavy side to us combines with a lot of melody. And I think a lot of bands don´t really do that now. You see they do a very harsh type of a vocal - we don´t have that so its one of the reasons why we think we are able to build a very big fanbase because we are a little bit different from whats going on right now. WF: Talking about music is there any special song in your life which you can listen too all day long and what is your favourite of your own tracks? Chris: When I want to get on fire, to get excited, I listen to Battery from Metallica. That is the one which always pumps me up everytime I hear that song. I am a huge Cliff Burton fan i love the baselines. Thats the one I really love. And from our own tracks - I love playing, its a proper song, its “Paraskavedekatriaphobia - Friday the 13th”. That is probably my favourite to do live, its always fun. “God pounds his Nail” is always fun to play. Live I always loved “Enemy” from “All That Remains” - this are a few tracks that I always enjoy. “Under Blackend Skie” is is another one. WF: You have been in Hamburg a few times. 6 years ago you played already here in the Logo. You even lived here for a couple of weeks because of your wrestling career. Do you have some memories, good or bad, you want to share with us? Chris: Yeah, I mean in ´93 I came to Hamburg and lived here for 6 weeks. I lived in hotel “Rheinland”, right on the Reeperbahn. Does it still exist?? There was a Mc Donald´s, a stripclub, and the Docks - Triangle of bad news. So I mean I was 22 years old and it was just amazing to be in Europe for my first time and there were so many great shows that I got to see. I saw Gamma Ray, Accept, Manowar, Saxon, Green Jelly, Morbid Angel - its like every week sombody came trough. It always will be a great memory in my life and yeah we looking forward to play in Logo. I rememberd this place when we came here today, but i don´t remember the show. So i am excited for tonight and its funny, you know, because we love to play. Some shows are smaller some shows are bigger - this is one of the smaller shows but its ok its very intimate, its fun, we will have a good time. WF: Is there a German word that comes to mind when you think about these memories? Chris: I remember “su-ga-be”, its like “We want more” or something like that. And now why I remember that - They chant that at a wrestlingmatch a few times. I think we played the Reload, people were chanting it “Su-ga-be, Su-ga-be” and I thought “Hey I know that word. Thats cool. They want more”. And I am still able to count to ten in German too. (Anm.: Chris mean "Encore" that means in german "Zugabe") WF: You had a lot of different projects in the past. Movies, you hosted a gameshow, played theater and the last one - Dancing with the Stars. What do you think about the ranking you achieved and are there any other projects for the near future? Chris: Yeah, I really enjoyed “Dancing with the Stars”, cause I have never danced before. You know, I only knew I was an athlete, knew I was an musician that I can do good music and I know how to connect with an audience . I really enjoy this, it was very hard to do the training, very, very hard. But I think i did 7 weeks, probably could last for a couple of few weeks more , but over all it was great for me and great for opening up a whole new world of fans, that did not know anything about the WWE or anything about Fozzy thats nice . It´s always good when you can do that. And there´s always things in the works, but you know I love going work with Fozzy i wanna do as much as I can with the band and get ready to do another record. WF: Let´s get back to your time in Hamburg. You wrestled for a short time here. indeed there are a lot of differences between the Indyscene in europe and the big promotions in the US . Is there anything about the indyscene that you would prefer compared to the WWE? Chris: The thing I liked about the Indyscene was that I was on my way up. It was such an adventure, come to Hamburg I was 22 years old – I wrote a letter to the promoter, it was before cell phones, before internet and it´s just so amazing think it was even 20 years ago maybe sounds stupid but it was an whole different planet back then. But it´s funny, I read an interview once with Gene Simmons, he was asked “What´s your favourite time for KISS” and he said “The early days”. You´re on your way up, everything is new, every experience is so amazing and that was my favourite thing about doing the Indyscene. I think it´s almost a shame that a lot of newer guys don´t do that the don´t have to. I had to achieve, I made my goal. It´s not the way it is anymore – know these guys come into the FCW-System and then they go basicly right into the WWE, after a year or two years. For me it was almost 9 years of travelling the world, go to the different companies, before I achieved, made my goal. And when I did, try to achieve that, I had all this experience to fall back onto, to get better. A lot of younger guys don´t have that experience, and that´s the reasons why it´s hard to get new guys over, because they don´t know how to do it, its not their fault. You can´t teach experience. WF: What do you think about the PG-orientated policy of the WWE, Maybe compared to the Attitude Aera? Do you think that this kind of policy is good for the wrestlingbuisness in gerneral? Chris: I don´t have a problem with that, there´s a lot of people who kind to put blame on PG, but I don´t think it matters. I think if you´re a good performer, if you are a great performer, you can work in whatever rules a boss tells you. I´ve never had a problem like being PG, just stop saying “You dumb Assclown” or “Shut the hell up” or whatever. You don´t have to stop talking english, you have to be smarter – so you don´t call the audience “assholes”, you call them “parasites” or “hypocrites” or whatever it is. You just got to be smarter, good performers can work under any rules that are given. The Attitude Area was great, but let´s be honest. It´s a big buisnes, they have to try to get attractive to certain types of sponsors and certain types, do things that gonna helps to make the company more money, if it fills the rules that you have through PG, than it is. as an employee of the WWE I have to do whatever the boss tells me and make it work. I don´´t have any issues with it i mean I don´t even know what PG means. Last night Vince called Punk a “son of a bitch”, so what does it even mean? I never had a problem with that , I´ve never even thought twice about it, I´m honest with you. WF: Thinking about your wrestlingcareer what was your favourite match and is there any oponent you always wanted to wrestle? Chris: Shawn Michaels is my favourite oponent, it´s probably one of my favourite matches, Wrestlemania 19. The PPV, the laddermatch we had for the Worldtitle, that whole angle was amazing. The whole story that runs about 7 months. I love working with Mysterio, i love working with Rock, i love working with Cena, they are a lot of great guys. I´ve never got to work with Bret Hart or Owen Hart, both for different reasons, I think this would´ve been realy big matches. But aside of this I worked with everyone, I want to work with. WF: Let´s talk about a hot topic over the last few weeks: CM Punk. What do you think about his situation and especially about his statements? Chris: I mean its obvious that this all part of the show, we are actors you have to understand that. But the brilliance of it is people don´t know how much of it is real or how much of it is part of the show. I think the last angle that really did that was Jericho vs. Shawn Michaels, where I hate his wife and all that, people knew it was different than just stand in front of the fans in a wrestlingring And thats where the genuieses of the Punk, Cena, Vince storyline is. You just don´t know for sure what´s real and what´s not.That´s great about the WWE, that´s great about Vince McMahon as he can learn from things and go a certain way and he runs with it and goes with it. WF: Okay, now the last question and i guess you know what is coming up next. Is there any chance that your fans will see you in a wrestlingring in the near future? Chris: There´s always a chance, but I mean, I think it makes people mad when I say “I have no plans to recharge”. I don´t know, because I enjoy what´s going on with Fozzy and I think a lot of people don´t understand or don´t know is that I started playing in bands when I was 12 years old. I was an musician long before I was a wrestler – I had two dreams: One was to be in a rockband, one was to be a wrestler. And wrestling took of first. I still continued to play music, I still play when I could, I still recorded demos and made music. And now that´s Fozzy is catching up and getting so much momentum I´m so fortunate but I have not just one dream that came true, but two. I´d be crazy to not wanna do as much as I can with the band and take this band as far as I can go. Especially when people enjoying the music, the band is grea t live . We´ve never have a show where people don´t like it, it doesn´t matter who we play in front of. At this point you can put us in front of ACDC, Guardians you can put us in front of Slayer or Maiden, the hardest audiences in the world and I bet the people will react at what we do, we understand. So I don´t know, I don´t have any plans of it and maybe I will but until this time comes i am very excited and I´m happy i am doing what I´m doing right now. WF: Okay, thanks for your time. Chris: Thank you, guys. |
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