Undisputed_ How to Become the World Champion in 1,372 Easy Steps - Chris Jericho [47]
So the promoter issued an open invite at NAMM, and throughout the convention, musicians stopped by our signings to see if we were worthy of playing with. Most of them took one look at us and assumed we weren’t. If they had stuck around and rocked with us they would’ve had a blast, but our gimmick was so over the top that you either got it or thought we were idiots.
Most thought we were idiots.
One of the guys who came by was Brad Gillis, who’d replaced Randy Rhoads in Ozzy before playing guitar with Night Ranger. He had no clue what we were, and when he came down to our autograph signing to find out, he just stood there staring at us with a Zoolander Blue Steel face. I could tell he was thinking, “There’s no way in hell I’m jamming with these morons.”
The same thing happened when Jeff Pilson, the bass player of Dokken, showed up at the gig and asked me, “Hey, is Fozzy here?”
I said, “Yeah, we’re Fozzy.”
Confused, he said, “Oh, okay … are you guys a band?”
When I confirmed that we were indeed a band, I could tell he was thinking, “There’s no way in hell I’m jamming with these jackasses.”
Jeff nodded his head and said, “Okay, I’ll be right back.”
Of course he never came back, and at the end of the night after dozens of musicians had been invited to our All Star Jam, exactly zero showed up. None. Zilch. Nada. Fuck-all.
But 10,000 fans (okay, it was fifty) did show up and the gig began. There were a few opening bands, including Iron Horse featuring Ron Keel. Ron’s band Keel (what else would it be named) had a few hits in the ’80s, including “The Right to Rock” and their cover of Patty Smith’s “Because the Night.”
Lenny and I had been big fans of Keel in high school, and here he was opening for my band ten years later—a fact that old Ronnie boy didn’t look too happy about.
He had forty-five minutes for his set, as there was a strict curfew. So he started playing and playing and playing and soon his forty-five minutes became fifty, then fifty-five. Now, when it comes to concert curfews, if an opening act plays ten minutes long, that takes ten minutes out of the headliner’s set, and that’s a rock and roll cardinal sin.
Rich was furious at Keel. Years before at a festival, Nick Cave intentionally ran long and cut into Mojo’s set. So Rich walked onstage and punched Cave square in the face, ending his performance for the evening. This time, instead of fisticuffs, Rich simply walked onstage and unplugged the power just as Keel was about to launch into his biggest hit, “The Right to Rock.”
I was actually looking forward to hearing the song, as were the seven other people who came to see him, but Rich had had enough and gave Keel The Right to Stop. He proceeded to usher him off the stage and that was it. During our whole set I could see Keel in the back of the bar pacing back and forth giving us the stinkeye, like he was planning to mug us after the show. I had three Keel records and thought they were a pretty froot band in 1986, but seeing him stalking around with a boo-boo face just made me feel sorry for him.
Soon after, we figured it was time to do another record, and this time Rich and I wanted to make the album half originals, half covers.
Even though the first record hadn’t sold very well, Megaforce decided to sign us to a second album mostly due to the fact that Jonny Z had sold the company and was gone.
Recording in the studio was a little easier the second time because I had some studio experience, plus we’d done dozens of gigs since finishing the first album.. The covers we chose, including “Freewheel Burning” by Judas Priest and “Where Eagles Dare” by Iron Maiden, pushed my vocals even further, but it was the originals that gave us a glimpse of what Fozzy could do as an original band. Songs like “To Kill a Stranger” and “Crucify Yourself” had a heavy modern sound jam-packed with guitar solos and intricate vocal harmonies. They inspired us to a new creative level, and the days of the wig were coming to an end.