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The $75,000 they signed us for was more like a loan. You don’t have to pay it back if you end up making less, but you won’t make a dime more until the record company starts seeing a return on their investment. Plus you also have to pay for the entire recording of the record out of that advance: studio time, producer, engineer, musicians, krell, everything. If a limo picks you up from the airport, your band is paying for it. If you order a hot dog with an exec at lunch, your band is paying for it. If you run out of toilet paper while you’re taking a dumpus, your band is paying for it.

After you finish the record, then it’s time to try and recoup, and that’s when the real work begins. Now, for all of you who think that when a band releases a record they’re automatically loaded, think again. So kids, get out your calculators and protractors and let Professor Jericho give you a math lesson.

Let’s say your record is released and sells for $10. As the band, you’ll get $1 per record sold. While you’re getting $1 per record, the record company is getting $5. If you sign for $50,000 and sell 10,000 records, the record company makes fifty grand and the band makes ten grand. The $10,000 you’ve made gets subtracted from the $50,000 they signed you for, and you still owe them $40,000 even though they’ve already made $50,000. You have to sell 50,000 albums to “pay back” the contract they signed you for.

Does that make any sense to you? No? Now you know how I feel.

Megaforce was owned by Jonny and Marsha Zazula. Jonny Z made a pretty big name for himself during the ’80s and now that he was returning to the music industry, he had decided that Fozzy was going to be the next big thing.

After we had signed the contract he looked us square in the eye and said, “Are you ready to become the next Metallica?”

The next Metallica?? Did he not realize we were a cover band wearing wigs and shit?

Rich and I smiled and nodded. “Uhh, sure.”

However, Jonny was adamant that Fozzy was going to become huge by playing covers, so we did what any self-respecting musician would do.

We shut up and took the cash.

Once we saw how motivated Jonny was to push Fozzy, Rich and I decided that we wanted to do something more original with the concept of only playing covers. First, we knew that we couldn’t continue as Fozzy Osbourne; the name was just too silly and we didn’t know what Ozzy’s camp would think of it. So we changed it to the Big City Knights, then to the Originals. But there was another group in the East End called the Originals, so we became Fozzy.

While we weren’t crazy about doing a covers record, it was what Jonny Z wanted, and we decided to do the best we could within those parameters. To distinguish Fozzy from the thousands of cover bands in the world, we came up with a twist. Being a huge fan of the Blues Brothers, Spinal Tap, and the Traveling Wilburys, Rich and I decided that all of us would adopt alter egos and play characters within the band.

I became Moongoose McQueen, the most pompous and arrogant lead singer of all time, and Rich morphed into Duke Larue, guitar hero extraordinaire. Our bass player, Dan Dryden, became Shawn Pop. When I asked him why, he said, “Because it’s Pawn Shop with the letters reversed,” and smiled proudly as if he had just cut the Gordian knot. Our other guitar player was a student of Rich’s named Ryan Mallam, who didn’t talk much. So we called him the Kidd and decided he had no social skills whatsoever and would remain eternally silent. Frank “Bud” Fontsere, the drummer, became K. K. LaFlamme, and the list was complete.

The backstory we concocted was that Moongoose and the Duke had been swindled by a dodgy record company into moving to Japan to make an album. While they were there, the company went out of business, which left them stranded and destitute, strangers in a strange land.

So they began recording demos that were subsequently sent all over the globe and snatched up by Iron Maiden, Judas Priest, Krokus, et cetera. All of the supposed covers Fozzy were playing were really our own