Rich Ward of Fozzy Interview

 Interview with Rich Ward of Fozzy

Ahead of Fozzy's upcoming UK tour

Interview with Rich Ward of Fozzy by BeckyKat

Today I had the wonderful opportunity to speak with guitarist and founding member of Fozzy, Rich Ward.  Fozzy are the most epic Rock n Roll band from the US, who along with Rich aka The Duke, gained further prominence with addition of vocalist, Chris Jericho, a pro-wrestler.  They have been  developing a dedicated fan base for 25 years.  Returning to the UK for their 25^th anniversary tour - Eyes on You.   Coming to Norwich's Epic Studios on 10^th February.  This show is going to bring you such an evening of enjoyment, but also such strong powerfulness, please don't forget to wear a helmet!

BeckyKat:

How are you getting on? 

Rich:

Everything's been good. We're just gearing up for our big UK tour and excited to come over.

B:

Awesome. So you've been to the UK before?

R:

Yeah, a bunch of times. I mean, I my first time over was in 1996 with my first band, Stuck Mojo, and we've probably come once or twice a year since. 

I mean, my father's English and he grew up in Kent, so even as a child, I came over to visit my grandparents. So yeah, I feel like, well, I am part British, so it's kind of cool.

B:

Oh, nice. Do you have a favorite city here then?

R:

Well, I don't want to play favorites, just in case somebody hates me for it. That was the one thing I learned about coming to the UK, is that there's so much rivalry from city to city, whereas, I live in Atlanta, Georgia.  If we went to Charlotte and I said we're from Atlanta, no one in Charlotte would boo me. If you, if you're in Manchester and you say we're from Liverpool, it's a good chance you'll get booed. 

B:

Ha ha, we are weird, like that. 

R:

Well, I mean, the truth is, is that, you know, probably my favorite little, neat, little quaint town is, Wells, I really thought it was amazing, just because it's, it's quintessential Old World England. So you have that feeling that you don't get in those other types of places.  

In other words, if I go to London, it's, it's kind of like, you know, Berlin or New York or LA, it's a big city. Even though there are areas that feel like England, it still has big city vibes. It's very cosmopolitan. So, as an American, when I come over, it's always the things that are quintessentially English that that kind of draws me into, like the big cathedrals, you know, things with history, just like, I'm sure if people came to America from England, you know, for them, it's like, oh, the Grand Canyon, or, you know, things that you could see that you wouldn't see in your home country.

B:

Oh yes, definitely. I know  you're coming to our little city of Norwich. Have you been here before?

R:

I have, I love it there. I think Fozzy has played there at least twice. The last time I remember was probably 2000 and...., somebody will beat me up because somebody will correct me. It was probably 12 or 13, something like that.

B:

Oh, wow. Little while ago?

R:

It's been a while, yeah, yeah. 

B:

Oh, nice. Are you looking forward to coming back then?

R:

Of course, I always am, yeah, there's always a few things that I always like to tick off the box, like a good traditional Sunday roast. 

I always try to get to a football match while I'm over, if I can.  I've been to Old Trafford twice, and I saw Birmingham play Portsmouth in Birmingham. So if I'm in the city and there's a match where I can catch it on a day off, or if it's early enough in the day, I always try to.   The same reason that when British bands come to America, you may want to go to like a baseball game or something, take advantage of the opportunity to experience life. 

I play guitar every day, even when I'm not on tour. I mean, that's my life. I'm I've been doing this professionally, since I was 18. So like, playing music's my life. I still like to go to concerts, even on my night off. So there's been many times where, if we have a Tuesday night off somewhere, I'll look at the local gig calendar and see if I can make one.

 

But really, I think one of the coolest things about being in a band is the opportunity to see the world and experience other cultures and meet people with different ideas and, you know, just grow and expand my vision, put my eyeballs on things that you know you see about in school books growing up, and you never think you'll have the chance.  

Like going to Norwich, whoever thought that I'd have the chance to do that. I mean, Americans maybe come over and maybe they go to London, maybe they go to touristy things, go to Edinburgh Castle or something. But really going and having a chance to go to cool, working class cities and meet people where they live. It's an amazing adventure I've been on.

B:

Oh, amazing. I know that you obviously you had a humble upbringing, would you have any advice for anyone trying to start out in this industry? Because I know it can be a tough industry to get into. What would you sort of thing would you suggest?

R:

Well, the thing I always tell people is, have pure motives. Make sure it's something that you feel like is really your purpose. Because if you like music and you really enjoy playing it, then do it as a hobby. You know, like some people like to play golf on the weekends or tennis. Like, if it's something that you really love, then pursue that as a hobby outside of your job. 

But if you feel like this is your purpose, and this is why you were born, and this is you.  You have a voice that needs to fly free.  It is a hard business, at least for the first few years. And the reason is because you have to get used to people telling you that you're terrible or they don't like your band. And it's just a matter of preference really, because there's a lot of bands that are very good that I just don't like because it's not my preference. This is like movies, you know,  while we're on tour, we'll get on the bus after the show and talk about movies that we've seen.  We'll be really divided about who liked this movie and who didn't. It doesn't mean that the movie is good or bad. It's, it's all about opinion. 

And I remember when I first started out, it was hard to hear what people say in reviews.   Because when I first started, there wasn't the internet. It was just magazines like Kerrang and Classic Rock that would review your your shows and review your albums, and if they had something really negative to say, it was hard to take on board. This is because there was never a time where I didn't put my best foot forward on stage where I didn't prepare and make sure that everything I did, even if I had 103F temperature and I was in my bunk in the bus, shivering with the fever, I still went out and played with everything I had. So it's always hard to hear people say negative things about you, but after a while, you start to learn it's just people's preferences. There's somebody out there that thought Jaws or ET was a crappy movie, and it doesn't mean it was, you know. 

The other thing is too, is that this business is not like you go to work and it's a job and you get paid. This is a lot like owning your own business. So if you were to open up your own ice cream shop, if nobody comes, you don't make any money, and you still have to pay your employees. You still have your operating costs. So I would say to people, be prepared to have everything that you have in life, be prepared to take it and push it into the your front garden and set it on fire.  Because it's an all in proposition every day in the music business is like at Vegas, it's all chips in and it and it can be discouraging.  Like when there was the financial crisis of 2008 where the the music industry receded and tours got cancelled, and then, you know, at 9/11, and Covid and things you just can't control so quickly can change things, and there's no pension funds and there's no unemployment funds, it's just, it's just you and your instrument and your passion. And if you're if you're a solo artist, it's even scarier because you're on the tight wire by yourself, whereas in a band or a group environment, it's more like a sports team where you can lean on your teammates and you're more of a gang. 

So being in Fozzy for 27 years now, I've had my bandmates to lean on, and we've had amazing highs and crazy lows. You know, we've had a record company that bankrupt on us and took a lot of money from us, and then we've had tours that were all sell outs, and we all were so excited because, you know, we were able to pay our bills for a full year. So I know it was a long way to say it, but I always try to tell people make sure that it is your purpose, right? This is what you were born to do, because it doesn't mean that you're a failure as an artist, if you're just doing it for the love of it, and not as a career. 

I have lots of friends of mine that play just on the weekends in in bands, and they have the best time, and they're excellent, and they have fans, but you know, Monday through Friday, they have a job and and it's a rewarding job that they use to pay their bills. So there's, there's a million different ways to do it, but really it's like climbing Everest, if you want to be a professional musician.  It's a high risk maneuver and  if the goal was to go to the peak, then you know you have to accept the risks and know that this is my goal and whatever it takes, because a lot of my friends that started in the business with me, they just got out when it got hard. And it's hard for everybody. It's still hard for Slash, it's still hard for Ben Affleck to be an actor. No matter how successful you are, it's a difficult business.  But if you love it, and it's what you were born to do, every day is a big win.

B:

Oh, absolutely, I bet. So when you guys are touring, do you have any sort of routines or rituals, like on the bus or before gigs, or anything like that?

R:

Well on the bus, as you walk into the front of the bus, there's an area up front, which is the kitchen area. It's got some tables and stuff where everyone can sit and watch movies and listen to music, and then in the middle, it's 'bunk alley'. It's where all of our beds are. And in the middle we usually before the shows for about an hour, we'll listen to music together while we change clothes and we talk about the show. And its this incredible time of bonding. And we're usually listening to a playlist of some of our favorite songs from our favorite artists to get us excited for the show. And I have to say it's one of my favorite parts of being on tour, it doesn't have to be the whole band, but sometimes two or three of us, but it's almost always me, Jericho and PJ our bass player, and we just have, who wants to hear what next, and that's the great thing about Spotify, Apple Music is the availability of just on the fly when somebody wants to hear a song. 

And yes, so it's great. And you know, being in a band is, it's great because it's almost like being in summer camp when you were, you know, 12 years old, except for it never ends. You just have this bonding with your lifelong best mates. And I think it's, you know, you hear lots of the downside from people talking about, oh, this band doesn't get along, and there's this band member suing this band member and and that happens early in most people's careers. But if you're able to stay in the business long enough, you learn to accept people for who they are, and whatever the little, minor things that may annoy you about them. You just let those things go, because you start to remember there are things about you that annoy them as well, and none of us are perfect. We're all individuals, and we all have different thoughts on things and just accepting people for who they are and giving people space when they need it, being able to read body language. You know, I think that's part of the wisdom of working in a group environment, is being able to feel tension or understand when somebody just needs a good hug, and let's invite them to have dinner. And that's my favorite part about being in a band.

I've been married for 20 years, so that relationship is my most important relationship, but my relationship with my band members is completely different.  I grew up and I didn't have a lot of friends in school, And so because I was kind of the outcast musician who didn't quite find my place. And back then, there was no social media where somebody could tell you, don't worry. You know, life being an individual and unique is cool. There was a sense of you didn't really know how to find yourself, because there weren't these avenues. And I found it through music, and I found it through watching MTV and seeing people that looked like people that I said, oh, that's what I want to do. You know? I could see Freddie Mercury and George Michael and Madonna and Prince, and David Lee Roth, and like all of these stars, Rick James, and like these big personalities, and they were so different. Also MTV was great for me coming up in the 80s, because it was a view into the world of fashion and culture, not just from the little city that I lived in, because the only way you could really see other parts of the world and people who had different ways of doing things at that point, magazines. That was just 2D vision, then MTV happened, all of a sudden the faces came alive, and so I always held on to that.  That's why being in a band is so sacred to me, because music really saved me. It gave me an avenue to find purpose and find people who were like minded. I could find other people who loved music and talk to them about it, you know, it was, it made all the difference in the world to me.

B:

Yeah, absolutely. So now with your songwriting, what do you think inspires your songs and your lyric writing? Do you find you use a lot of influence from your past band with Stuck Mojo? Or do you think any of the wrestling comes into it? Or is it just all your general life experiences from yourselves as part of a band?

R:

I think I've evolved a lot over the years.

I think I was much more emotionally reactive in my writing at the very beginning. Now I've started to refine the process a bit. So in the old days, I would just have an idea would come into my mind, and I'd write it down in a notebook paper, and then I would come up with a little guitar and a riff idea, and I would record it on one of those little mini cassette recorders. Now, if I'm just playing guitar, if I have an idea that I come across that I like, I'll record it on my phone, and then I start banking ideas. And our producer, Johnny Andrews, who's worked on the last three Fozzy albums. He's become kind of like our sixth member of the band, like a coach. And so I go to him with my song ideas now, and he comes to me with ideas, and it's great, because it's all of a sudden, made our circle bigger. 

And you know, the one thing that growing older has helped refine for me, I've always been very confident, almost like narcissistically arrogant. And part of it comes because people, for so many years, pat you on the back and tell you how great your band is. And when you're younger, it's easy to take that on board and think it it starts to expand your ego. And as you get older, you're able to take those things in context, and you're able to you're able to partition those in a way that I still have the same confidence, and when I'm on stage, I still have that same arrogance, but I have a new awareness. Like that actually, I haven't cured cancer or fed any starving children in third world countries, and it's helped put things in perspective.  

And I've also learned that I'm not great at everything. I'm really good at some things, but not great at everything.  And working with a producer who is good at things I'm not good at has made us a better band. So when Jericho and I go in to start songwriting, working with somebody else who helps to complete the puzzle piece is great for us, because we all have our own influences and our own way of doing it. And when you have somebody whose entire job, they don't perform, they don't go tour the world. Their entire job is to be able to look at the songs that you're writing and to figure out ways to refine them in small ways, and to make you a better version of yourself.  The same way a coach would from the sidelines of a team. They have a better view of what's going on. You may have a great skill set, but sometimes it's great to have somebody make suggestions and say, if you did this or did this, it would really help make this work better. And it's like, boom, and you have these epiphanies. And so I think Fozzy is a much better band in a lot of ways, because we were able to be humble enough to bring somebody from the outside in to help us become a better band and a better songwriting unit.

B:

Oh, that's really good. And I think you're having that consistency with the producer can make just such a difference as well, because as you say, you get to know them and everything.

R:

Yeah really has. And especially when you have, like you said, consistency with the same person, because you have this working relationship. And it doesn't every time that we go into work on new songs or a new album, you've got somebody that you've already gone through that kind of getting to know each other phase. There's not that like dating phase, where you're starting to learn somebody. The relationship is already there, the trust is there. You know how to give and take, what their process is. They get to know your process, and I think it's made us a lot better band and really been great for us.

B:

I appreciate running out of time, but I just wanted to throw in a random question towards the end. So, what's the most random request you've had from a fan?

R:

Oh, well, there's been a couple of times when people have asked us to sign their baby. 

B:

Their baby?

R:

Yeah, they won't bring it to the gig, but they'll bring them like early when they know they'll catch us at sound check. It's just odd. And then I've had people ask us before, would you sign my body so that I can get it tattooed? And I was fine. I was like, you may not like our next record, so don't do it. I've always tried to think in things, in practicality. And I think part of it is so flattering, because I want to just hug them and say, 'Oh, the fact that you thought enough of me that you'd want my stupid name on your arm or shoulder or something'. It's, it is flattering.

 

But I have to say, I've had musicians that made me cry at shows. I still listen to music and get, you know, weepy eyed at certain songs, the way that the lyric and the melody, the things that they do, they react. So I understand that relationship. I understand when you've done something that made somebody else have an emotional response, and you never know when they may need it. I mean, I don't have to tell you, life is complicated and it's hard and it's hard by design, I think, because if it's not hard and everything's easy, then we're not getting any better. We're not growing. You know, there's none of the opportunities for us to evolve, doesn't make it easy, though. And if you don't have a partner that you can confide in when you're having a tough time, sometimes it's an artist with a song and a lyric or it's a it's a movie, a director.   

I mean, there's so many movies that I watched that I thought, that movie was meant for me, you know, it was meant for me at this moment in time. I needed it so badly. And I don't think they wrote it for me, obviously, and I don't think they even were thinking in terms of that. That was just that was their internal voice at that moment. And they had a vision, and it was something that they needed to exercise. And the fact that all of us get to benefit from their work is incredible. 

And if every once in a while I do something with my crazy group of dudes that has the same effect on somebody, then yeah, that's special, and I don't take it for granted, because we've never written a song thinking, I wonder if this will ever help anyone, because how silly is that to be that presumptuous. But occasionally somebody says, you know, listen, my gran died or I lost my job, and I was listening to something, and it really connected with me. And wow. And you know, I usually give a big hug and say thank you, because it meant probably more to me than it did to them. Because, again, we're not curing cancer or, you know, we're not the suicide prevention hotline. We know that musicians are there to give people temporary relief and respite from life. We're entertainers. We're there to put smiles on people's face and give people that moment of like ah in a concert for two hours, I can forget about everything that I just did outside, and I can just take a deep breath and enjoy complete escapism. I know that's my job, but every once in a while, if it sneaks in there and does more than that for somebody. And, you know, then the universe has connected the dots in a way that makes me really happy.

B:

Yeah, absolutely. Because I think musicians really do get that understanding to people. And, you know, I think people knowing there's someone out there that understands them, even though they don't know that they understand them, just means so much to people. And I think that connection is just incredible. And I think what all musicians do, I just think you do such an amazing job, and you're so appreciated.

R:

Thank you. Well, I really thank you for taking the time to speak with me today. I really do. I can't wait. Are you coming to the show when we come to town? 

B:

I should be getting a photography pass for your show in Norwich. So, yeah I will see you there.

R:

Make sure to come say hello. I would love to say hello to you in person.

B:

That'd be awesome to meet you in person. It's been so lovely talking to you.

Catch Fozzy at Epic Studios in Norwich on February 10th 2026 and all over the UK.

Get tickets here