Fozzy Tour Overview
Fozzy is an American heavy metal band formed in Atlanta, Georgia, in 1999 by lead singer Chris Jericho, lead guitarist Rich Ward and drummer Frank Fontsere, who are the longest-serving members of the band and have appeared on all band's releases, although Fontsere left in 2005, rejoined in 2009 & left again in 2022. The band's current lineup consists of Jericho, Ward, second guitarist Billy Grey, bassist P. J. Farley and drummer Grant Brooks. Jericho has characterized the band by saying, "If Metallica and Black Sabbath had a bastard child, it would be Fozzy." As of September 2022, the band has released eight studio albums and one live album. Their first two albums consist of primarily cover songs with some original material, while their albums since have made original material the primary focus.
About Fozzy
Fozzy started as Fozzy Osbourne, a play on the name of the singer Ozzy Osbourne, and was a cover band assembled by Ward from whatever musicians he could find in a given week. In 1999, Jericho and Ward met in San Antonio, Texas, after a wrestling show and Jericho was invited to play with the band. Their first show was held at the now-defunct club "The Hangar", in the downtown square of Marietta, Georgia. Jericho sat in on a few sessions, but did not plan to play with them permanently. In 2000, Jericho rejoined the band and became its frontman under the persona of Moongoose McQueen, and the band went on tour. As part of the band's "gimmick", Jericho refused to acknowledge that Moongoose McQueen and Chris Jericho were the same person. When interviewed as Moongoose, he would stay in character the whole time and even feign ignorance of who Chris Jericho was. On the other side, Chris Jericho was a "huge fan" of Moongoose and Fozzy.
Fozzy Facts
- The band shortened its name to Fozzy, and adopted the satirical back-story that they had signed with a record company to move to Japan to be huge rock stars, but the company went out of business, leaving them stranded for 20 years, while all their demos were snatched and recorded by other bands.
- After the Happenstance tour ended in 2003, the band dropped its back-story and Chris Jericho's McQueen persona. In January 2005, they released their third album, All That Remains, which had entirely original tracks, including the singles "Enemy", "It's a Lie", "Born of Anger", and "The Test".
- On April 4, 2019, Fozzy announced that they were signing with Sony Music. Following this, they announced they had entered the studio to begin recording of their eighth studio album, later tentatively named as 2020 due for release in 2020.
- Chris Jericho debuted the album's first single, "Nowhere to Run" during a broadcast of The Rock of Jericho on August 23. "Nowhere to Run" was later released on August 29, 2019. However, in July 2020, Chris Jericho said the album's title had been scrapped, and the release was pushed to 2021.
