Undisputed_ How to Become the World Champion in 1,372 Easy Steps - Chris Jericho [72]
After we finished, the judges stared at us noncommittally as the Losers began performing Neil Young’s “Old Man.” I was surprised at how good Howard sounded and how good the Losers were, especially since I figured it was a given that we were going to blow them away.
The judges were all music business snobs, and the first one said, “Well, these guys are too loud. Howard’s band was much better.”
Too loud? Who was this guy, Huey Lewis in Back to the Future? The fix was in.
Losers 1, Fozzy 0.
The second judge said, “Well, Fozzy’s song was more contemporary than the Losers’ was, so I guess I’ll vote for them.”
Not exactly a rave review, but for the first time ever the Losers had dropped a vote. Chalk one up for the Fozz!!
Losers 1, Fozzy 1.
It all came down to the third judge’s vote. By then my competitive fire had heated up, and I really wanted to win this bitch.
“Well, both bands were really good. But Fozzy, you guys are doing a heavy metal vibe, the devil horn vibe or whatever you want to call it. You ran over to Howard and made him bang his head. It’s so old-school and so out of date. Howard’s band has got more of the grunge feel. Neil Young is much hipper than metal right now so I’m giving it to the Losers.”
My bubble burst and I was pissed. It was 2003. How was grunge hipper than metal? Who cares if I made Howard bang his head? It was a radio battle of the bands. Wasn’t it more important who sounded better? I wanted to walk over and give this douche the Fistful of Metal treatment right then and there. We had been hornswoggled, and for the second time in my life I had lost a battle of the bands: first with my high school band, Scimitar, now with Fozzy.
But our loss was not in vain as Howard came to talk to us after the show and admitted that we were the better men.
“You guys blew us away and the only reason we won is because it’s my show. Consider the Losers officially retired, because I’m not going through that again.”
We had lost the battle (of the bands) but won the war. And as long as we did better than Corey Feldman, I was happy.
Our next gig was at the Palladium in Worcester, Massachusetts, and in the weeks leading up to the show I’d done quite a bit of promotion. I was sure that we’d have a good crowd as we’d never played the Boston area and had good record sales there.
I was almost at the venue when I got caught in a traffic jam, but I was pumped to see so many cars heading in the same direction I was. This gig was going to better than I expected! I inched my way to the traffic light, where all the cars were turning left even though the Palladium was to the right. That’s when I realized all those cars weren’t making their way to see Fozzy, they were on their way to see Good Charlotte, who were playing the arena next door.
The Madden brothers played to 15,000 people that night. Fozzy played to fifty.
But fifty people was fifty people and we were there to rock their fucking socks off. Rich and I had a good rapport onstage that night, bantering back and forth like a couple of stand-up comedians. We sang “Happy Birthday” to one fan and had a beer-chugging contest with another. We did the thrash metal polka, the jelly doughnut chant, and the human mic stand trick. We claimed that the music you hear in porno movies was played by Fozzy, and then launched into a funky jam as I pretended to have doggy style sex, in a move that became known as the Porno Dance.
If you want to see it just ask me, and if I’m feeling frisky, maybe I’ll show it to you.
We always made sure that people had fun and worked overtime to get the crowd involved. I considered myself the party host, and each gig was a chance to spread the word and build our following, the same way I did when I was wrestling in western Canadian Quonsets thirteen years earlier.
Building the Fozzy name was a marathon not a sprint, and we were in it for the long run—and I ain’t talking about Don Henley.
We did a show in Calgary