Jericho Fozzy head to Germany
by Seth Mates and Phil Speer

It’s hard to believe the "Ayatolla of Rock ‘n’ Rolla" has had any free time over the past few months, but he’s used it productively. What has he been up to? Heavy-metal fans in Germany will have the opportunity to find out this Friday, when Jericho - under his "Moongose McQueen" persona - and his band, Fozzy, will perform at the "Bang Your Head Festival" in Stuttgart, an annual metal festival which routinely draws 30,000-40,000 people.

"It should be a great night for the band," Jericho told WWE.com. "It's the biggest show we've ever played. There's a lot of metal fans over in Germany, and it's going to be Fozzy's first foray into Europe."

Jericho is the Bo Jackson of World Wrestling Entertainment. Remember those old Bo Jackson commercials for Nike? "Bo knows baseball. Bo knows basketball."

Y2J knows books, movies, Web sites. He reads his favorite books for WWE’s "Get R.E.A.L." program. He reviews movies and books on his Web site. He’s stepped up huge with the brand extension.

"It’s funny," he said. "We had the Hell in a Cell match (at Judgment Day) – unbelievable, brutal, barbaric, just very high intensity and hard hitting. And the next day (at a house show) in Birmingham – the day after I was getting hit in the head with a barbwire bat 20 feet in the air on top of a cage – I was in a test of strength with Hulk Hogan. And both of them got great reactions. It’s kind of like two sides of a coin, and as a worker, you have to be able to adapt to any situation."

The key is that Jericho is as versatile and hard-working inside the ring as he is outside of it. Remember, Jericho is a guy who once flew all the way across the country to play in a charity hockey game (Jericho knows hockey too) only to fly all the way back across the country the next day.

Now he’s flying all the way to Germany for what will be Fozzy's first international show, and Y2J predicts that the European audience will take to Fozzy pretty quickly.

"Fozzy's music and the whole atmosphere is geared for European metal fans, because they're really into the whole metal scene," he said. "Traditional heavy metal is still very, very popular in Europe and Japan, whereas here, it's more of an underground thing, which is fine. But in Europe, it's still one of the No. 1 genres over there. I think Fozzy will do very well in Europe because of that."

Fozzy will perform both days of the festival, next Friday and Saturday. On Friday, they will perform right before the final act - European sensation Saxxon - and on Saturday, they will share the stage with Rob Halford and Slayer.

Fozzy will be performing tracks from their second album, "Happenstance," which comes out July 1 in Europe and July 30 in the United States. The album's producer has also worked with Collective Soul and Matchbox-20.

"The sound is a taste of the past, combined with metal of the present to create the metal of the future," Jericho said. "As a singer, the experience I've had with this record was like no other. I think it turned out really, really well, and I'm excited about it. I'd love to maybe even see one of our tracks used as a Pay-Per-View theme song one day."

The band's first album, "Fozzy," was released in October 2000, and to date has sold about 50,000 copies.

"I think all the people that checked that out will be very impressed by 'Happenstance,' because I think the band has grown leaps and bounds from the last record," Jericho said. "The last record had eight cover songs and two originals; this one has five originals and six cover songs. And I think the originals really turned out well."

To promote the first album, Fozzy made a guest appearance on an episode of Sunday Night HEAT to play a few tracks. So is there any chance they will show up again on WWE programming to promote this new album? Jericho smiles at the question.

"There's something in the works," he said. "If it happens, it would be huge for Fozzy."