Undisputed_ How to Become the World Champion in 1,372 Easy Steps - Chris Jericho [48]
Fozzy outside of NAMM 2002. A few hours later we played the Fozzy All Star Jam, in which no All Stars showed up. Note my head-to-toe pleather suit.
On June 22, 2002, our second album, Happenstance, was released and Megaforce decided they wanted us to do a video for the song “With the Fire.” We shot the live scenes at a club in Charlotte called Amos’ South End, which was where the Jack Black movie Shallow Hal was filmed.
The concept for the clip was that I would fall asleep and dream that Fozzy was caught inside a clichéd hip-hop video, complete with low riders, synchronized dance sequences, bling-bling, grills, and midgets. Nothing more hip-hop than midgets, right?
We planned on shooting it in the streets of the ’hood, but on the first day of filming we got hit with a torrential downpour. Classic Fozzy.
Nobody wanted to drive their tricked-out cars in the rain—they were afraid of getting into an accident and messing up their rides. So the cars were out. Then we couldn’t set up the equipment at any of our outside locations, so that was also out.
We spent the next three hours trying to find a replacement location, until we found a little covered parking garage next to a supermarket, and after bribing the manager $500 in beans, we had our new set.
A few weeks earlier we had done an open casting call on a local radio station for anyone who wanted to be in a hip-hop video. About forty extras showed up, half of them black and half of them white. I can imagine their shock when they showed up expecting Eminem and got Y2Jay-Z instead.
The video was bizarre and featured Arthur the pigman chauffeuring us around in a limo; me falling in love with an old lady while brandishing a long sword; Rich sporting a mask and a cape for no apparent reason; and a badass Britney Spears– esque synchronized dance routine. We took the three hottest chicks and Hurricane Helms (who had come to hang for the day), and I choreographed a thirty-second routine comprised of hot-steppin’, shoulder twitches, and the Scary Monster ripped off from the “Thriller” video.
Dice would’ve been so proud of my chronology.
To cap it off, we did a Soul Train stroll dance where we all lined up clapping, as each one of us shuffled down the aisle rocking the silliest moves we could think of. It ended up being very entertaining, and if you haven’t seen it I suggest you check it out on YouTube. I’ll wait.
Go ahead, I’m not going anywhere.
Funny, right? Thought you’d like it. Well, making it wasn’t without hitches, let me tell you. After Jonny left Megaforce, our new bosses were Missi Callazzo and her husband Robert John (not the “Sad Eyes” guy). Robert had decided to join us on location as a chaperone for the shoot. We weren’t crazy about the guy, as he’d visited the studio while we were making Happenstance and given us such useless advice as, “You need to do another chorus in this song,” or “This song needs a tempo change here,” as if he was Rick Rubin. We had no problems with constructive criticism, but this yutz was talking just to hear himself speak and was annoying and abrasive to boot.
A few days before the shoot, Robert wanted to change the song for the video from “With the Fire” to “Happenstance,” because he decided the title track was more commercial. But we had already storyboarded “WTF” and were putting it together accordingly with the beat of the music and the rhythm of the riff and couldn’t change gears at that point. After our refusal to switch tunes, Robert became even more diffficult to deal with.
During the shoot he ran around putting pieces of black tape over anything that might be construed as a logo. If someone was wearing a pair of Nikes, he would put a piece of black tape over their logo. If someone was driving a Ford, he would put a piece of black tape over their insignia. If someone was taking a leak, he would put a piece of black tape over their unit.
Every thirty minutes or so Robert would gather us around to give us his “feedback.” Whenever he did all I could focus on was the stupid brown leather fisherman’s hat he was always wearing.