Welcome to Reinvented with Jen Eckhart! In this episode, Jen goes one-on-one with seven-time pro wrestling world champion, AEW wrestler, heavy metal singer, New York Times best-selling author, actor, and host of the widely popular "Talk is Jericho" podcast, Chris Jericho. They discuss Chris' evolving journey of reinvention from the wrestling ring to headlining sold-out rock concerts with his band "Fozzy," his transition from the WWE to AEW, the biggest lesson he learned while competing on ABC's "Dancing with the Stars," their mutual love of all-things paranormal -- and Jen even shares a personal experience of a scary ghost encounter!
Don't forget to rate, review, and subscribe on Spotify, Apple, and YouTube. You can also follow @JenniferEckhart on Instagram and Twitter. Thanks for listening!
---
Listen to the podcast here
REINVENTED With AEW Professional Wrestler & Singer Chris Jericho
JE: Words cannot even begin to describe how excited I am to welcome our guest. In fact, he's such a badass that he juggles multiple nicknames. He's known as the Lionheart, Y2J, the Ayatollah of Rock-And-Rolla, the Painmaker, Le Champion and the Demo God. He's a rock star, the lead singer of the heavy metal band Fozzy. He's a New York Times bestselling author and actor.
A professional wrestler but not just any wrestler. A seven-time world champion, having won the AEW Championship, WWE Championship, WCW Championship twice and the World's Heavyweight Championship three times. Chris, you can hire me as your publicist when all is said and done. Honestly, I'm a little intimidated by my guest’s eclectic resume but mainly because I witnessed him take on nine MMA fighters at once live at AEW Grand Slam here in New York City. Chris Jericho, welcome to Reinvented.
CJ: Thanks. I'm a little bit sad that you forgot the fact that I have a bake sale down the street at the Ladies Auxiliary on Sunday nights. Drop by for free coffee. We are excited about that. I'm even more excited to be here with you.
JE: I'm so excited to have you here and that this worked out. You are such a busy rock star on the road on tour now. You are in Cincinnati, I believe. Chris, I'm not going to lie. I was a little bit nervous having you on my show because, apparently, you still use dial-up. When I asked you for your email address to book our interview, I had to roast you a little bit because Chris Jericho, ladies and gentlemen gave me an AOL email address.
CJ: You are bagging on me for it but here's the reason why. That's the first email address I ever had, so why bother changing it? I change my phone number all the time, as we do now, and it's such a hassle. Change your credit card, and you got to put the numbers in. I have one email address. I don't want to mess around with it. I've gone this far with it. Why change it? It could be ChrisJericho@ChrisJericho.com or whatever it may be, ChrisJericho@JenEckhart.com. I don't want that.
I got my AOL address. I've had it since the ‘90s and I'm going to keep it. You can bag on it all you want but to me, I don't have to send out a new, “Here's my new email.” It always happens, 20 or 30 people a year down the line, “I emailed you, man. You never emailed me back. Did you get the email where I sent you my new email?” “No, I didn't get that,” and then they think you are a snob and everyone is mad at you. I don't want to get anyone angry at me.
JE: I get it, so you are saying if it is not broken don't fix it?
CJ: Yes, because I got a guy, “I texted you six weeks ago.” I said, “I changed my number two years ago and you have my new number.” “Sorry, I thought you were mad at me.” There you go.
JE: I'm in your exclusive AOL fan club now. I now have your AOL email address, so if I ever want to flood you with spam or those chain emails that people send to each other. Anyway, that is so funny. In all seriousness, let's get down to business. I wanted to invite you to Reinvented because you fit the theme of Reinvention to a tee, so much so that fellow professional wrestler, Matt Cardona called you, the King of Reinvention on your podcast show Talk Is Jericho. We are all about reinventing oneself here, so I want to know. To what do you attribute as being the driving force behind being able to reinvent yourself many times while juggling many different roles?
CJ: First, the word juggling it seems like it's out of control and it's not that at all. We discussed this backstage. It is time management. Going way back to when I was a teenager, I thought, “What do I want to do?” I am intrigued by pro wrestling but I also love playing in my band. “I will be in a rock and roll band and a pro wrestler.”
Since day one, I never once was like, “Now that I'm a wrestler, I will be in a band.” They have always been locked in conjunction with each other. Once I started to get some success in wrestling, which then transferred over to music, I realize there were no rules or boundaries for what I wanted to do. That's where all these other things come from. It's because if I'm interested in it and I want to give it a try, I will.
I also like constantly keeping people intrigued and on the edge of what I'm going to do next. That's where the reinvention comes in because you never want to get stagnant. You always want to keep rolling and keep doing interesting things. I have a lot of people that follow my career that almost live vicariously through Chris Jericho. What's he going to do next?
Reinvention comes in when you never want to get stagnant, when you always want to keep rolling and keep doing interesting things.
That's why I'm also careful about the things that I pick to do because I don't want anything to come across as a money grab or something that I'm not fully committed to because people will know that. They are not stupid. I like the reinvention aspect because it keeps things fresh and it's exciting not just for me but for everybody that follows my career.
JE: Keep them on their toes, right?
CJ: Keep me on my toes, too.
JE: Keep it fresh. You’ve performed in WCW and ECW. Correct me if I'm wrong by the way, with saying any of these. WWE, New Japan and AEW as a baby face good guy and a heel, which is the bad guy. You still maintain your staple of moves from back in the day such as the Walls of Jericho in the Lion Slot. You've also incorporated new signature moves along the way like the Codebreaker and the Judas Effect. Talk to me a little bit about the evolution or the reinvention of Chris Jericho, the wrestler.
CJ: I wouldn't even use it for the moves are one thing but it's more of the look. There is a T-shirt that came out a few years ago. It was called the Faces of Jericho. There were like 12 or 15 different eras. I always liked the type of performers that you could dress up as on Halloween. You knew instantly, “That's Paul Stanley,” with the star childhood. “That's Hannibal Lecter or whatever.” For me, there are a lot of different eras of Jericho. Every Halloween I always have fans send in pictures of their Jericho costumes and it's all different eras.
JE: I am so dressing up as Chris Jericho for Halloween.
CJ: You could. You pick an era and go with it. It's very inspired by David Bowie. Bowie was always different on every album. There are different characters from Ziggy Stardust to Aladdin Sane to The Thin White Duke to the Let’s Dance era. You could see these different eras and when you see a picture of David Bowie, you go, “That's from Tin Machine, from the Berlin years or Aladdin Sane.”
You could always see the difference in the look and there would always be a difference in the sound but it always boiled down to still David Bowie. That's what I wanted to do with Jericho because I realized that we are on TV every week, 52 weeks a year. If you don't change something up, it's easy for people to get bored or not be challenged by what you are doing. I never wanted that, so I always wanted to change my look, something different, a move, a catchphrase or whatever it may be because once again that keeps things fresh.
If you don't change something up, it's very easy for people to get bored or not be challenged by what you're doing.
JE: Keeps you relevant.
CJ: I never want to be in a nostalgia act going off of something that I did even years ago. When people say, “Put me on the list, the list of Jericho.” That was a fun idea but it seems like a thousand years ago. I would never want to do the list of Jericho because it had a great moment in time. If I bring it back now, it feels like I'm beating a dead horse. There are other things I can think of to replace that. That's what my mindset always is.
JE: Speaking of reinventing, that's what AEW has done, at least in the world of professional wrestling. For my readers who aren't familiar with the world of wrestling, AEW stands for All Elite Wrestling. It was founded in 2019 by the Khan family, Tony Khan, an awesome guy. They are the Owners of the NFL Jacksonville Jaguars football team.
AEW's the second largest professional wrestling promotion in the world behind the WWE. WWE, Chris used to be the only game in town but AEW is giving them a real run for their money. I love a good David versus Goliath story and to me, this is it. Is there a reinvention going on in the entire industry now that fans have a real alternative now for the first time in many years?
CJ: Number two in some ways but in the last weeks we have done bigger demo numbers than WWE Raw has done, which is the flagship show. Our company came out of nowhere and exploded because of a different attitude. You can see that when you watch our shows. You were there when we had the show at Arthur Ashe in front of 22,000 people in New York City, which is WWE’s backyard.
To draw a crowd like that and get the reception that we had, it seems to me that we are the hottest wrestling company in the world and more importantly we have the cool factor. When you have the cool factor in any form of show business, whether it's wrestling, music or a TV show. People jump aboard quickly because they want to figure out, “What's everyone talking about here? What is all this about?” AEW has that. We have changed the industry by being in existence and focusing on something that was different from every other wrestling company. That's one of the reasons why we had such a great fan base and have exploded to where we are now.
JE: What makes AEW cool is that it features a lot of homegrown talent and it's not as heavily scripted. You folks have a lot more freedom and flexibility. You mentioned the biggest TV event so far of the year, AEW Dynamite at Arthur Ashe Stadium. There has never been a wrestling event at Arthur Ashe before. As someone who has performed all over the world in about every venue imaginable, what was it like to perform at Arthur Ashe?
CJ: It was unbelievable. There was a little bit of genius on Tony Khan’s part because everyone was talking about Madison Square Garden in New York City. What people don't understand is to play in the garden is very expensive, for one. You don't make money when you are in the garden. You do it because it's Madison Square Garden. The idea was that everyone was saying, “David's got to go to the garden. That's going to be your coming out party in New York.” Tony was like, “What if I don't want to do the Garden? There must be somewhere else,” and found this Arthur Ashe Stadium, a tennis stadium. The moment I went in there, I was like, “This place is amazing.” It's better than the garden because, as you saw, the seats go straight up in the air. All the noise comes right down into the rink.
Wrestler: You don't really make money when you're at the garden; you just do it because it's Madison Square Garden.
People are over the top of you. It was cool to see this place that was going this atmosphere is off the charts crazy. We don't need to go to the garden now because we've created a new place for us because there has never been a wrestling show at Arthur Ashe, which once again, we were the debut for that. What an amazing venue and building.
Once again, we do things outside of the box. Let's do a show in New York. If you want to be big in New York, you got to go to the garden. I disagree. What if we find our own place and make it the AEW home base in New York and turn that into the place to be? Again, I will bet you there will be other wrestling companies in that Arthur Ashe Stadium. They are probably already negotiating it now but we did it first and it's ours.
JE: They are going to follow suit. Shove all those uppity US open tennis folks to the side. AEW is coming through. The seats were insane, the energy, and the crowd. Bryan Danielson and Kenny Omega kicked off the show with what was arguably the match of the year. Yours was very good, Chris.
CJ: Not the same level.
JE: They killed it but I am curious. When a match like that is going on, give my readers a taste of what it's like in the back. Are the boys and girls huddled around the gorilla? The production area right behind the curtain, what's the energy backstage when all that's happening?
CJ: When you have a show to do, you want to watch other matches but if you are wrestling too, you have your own things to worry about. I wanted to see that match because I'm a big fan of both of those guys. Our style of wrestling is much more wide-open. Go out there and be great. I wanted to see it. I had never seen the match before. As far as I know, they may have wrestled years ago but it was the first time that both of them had faced each other. I was watching very proud. I was very proud of the match because I knew this is it. This is once again another reason why we are the best wrestling company in the world because we have matches like this that nobody can touch and 30 minutes of TV time to do this match it.
It's the difference between Coke and Pepsi or the Beatles and the Stones or whatever it may be. Now there is another place you can go to get your fix for wrestling. There wasn't before and a lot of people appreciate the fact that now there is this other world where you go, “This company does it this way and you can tell and I like that style.”
I'm very proud of that because I was here from the start. In a lot of ways, the first three months of AEW were on my shoulders. To do this new company, what's it going to be like? We had a TV deal but it was an ad rev share. It was what we had for a contract, which means people buy ads and we get a piece of that. Three months later after the shows had been doing super amazing and the ratings and the demos, we suddenly had a contract for $175 million over four years from TNT.
That might not have happened if I wasn't there. The first three months were very important. The genesis of this company to get it off the ground and very quickly make new stars, which you mentioned and show people there's something different going on here. It worked right out of the gate and here we are not even two years later exploding even bigger than we expected.
JE: Speaking of new stars, we've seen a lot of crossover between wrestling promotions with AEW specifically impacting NWA and New Japan guys coming over, even death match wrestlers. You went to war with Nick Gage. One other name that's out there floating around is Will Ospreay. Could you see him potentially joining AEW?
CJ: I would love to see Will in AEW. I called him way back when we were first starting out to see what interest he had. There are a lot of guys that want to work in Japan and spend time there. I know because I was one of them. I have been to Japan over 60 times now at this point in my career. There will come a time when Will decides he wants to work in his own country. He is English but in America, that idea is much more similar to England than in Japan.
There's something to be said about being a worldwide television superstar. You won't get that working for New Japan Pro-Wrestling. It's great to be there but the real big leagues lie in America. I would love to see Will working with AEW and at some point, that will probably happen. In the meantime, we are building the talent that we have. If you see MJF to Sammy Guevara, to Darby Allen, Jungle Boy, all these hangman pages, the list goes on and on of these guys that we've built basically from scratch.
Wrestler: There's something to be said about being a worldwide television superstar. You won't get that working for New Japan Pro-Wrestling. It's great to be there, but the big leagues lie in America.
Even Kenny Omega, the Young Bucks weren't half as big then as they are now. We've done a great job because you have to build from the bottom up. You mentioned the Khan Zoning and the Jaguars and they own the football club in England as well. They know how to put together a team as you are a sportsperson, too. You have to start with having veterans that have won the championships before then you have guys that are in their prime that are scoring 50 goals a year as a hockey analogy.
You got the grinders that you need to have a winning team. You've got the rookies and a great farm system and that's what we have in AEW. Tony's done a great job of building these levels to where even our Dark Shows, our YouTube show, everybody is over. Everyone is popular on the Dark Shows, and on Elevation and you get to dynamite and rampage the top of the top. Everybody has a purpose. Everybody has a fan base. That's one of the reasons why we are the hottest and coolest wrestling company in the world now.
JE: Keyword cool.
CJ: Cool factor.
JE: What a visionary Tony Khan is and bringing this all to fruition. You are crushing it over there and I wish you all the luck with AEW but switching gears outside of wrestling for a minute. You are known, Chris as the lead singer of the heavy metal band Fozzy. Sane by Fozzy is legit my anthem now. It is my life anthem. It's one of my favorite songs. If it's okay with you, I want to play a little bit of that song for my readers.
CJ: Sure.
“Because it's too far gone. This delirium, so I'm losing it all. Losing it all. I can't take it sane. This reality, so I'm watching it fall. Watching them all go crazy, crazy. It's the only way. Times like these, I'd rather be crazy, crazy than a face another day because times like these, I don't want to be sane.”
JE: You folks are killing it now. What's the band up to these days? Get us up to speed on all things Fozzy. Did you recently open for Metallica? What's going on? You are blowing up.
CJ: We are on tour now. Sane is number twelve on the charts with a bullet. It will be the top ten, which will be our fifth top ten song in the last couple of years, which is exciting for us. As I said, we had this tour booked for May 2020. It kept getting postponed but now the tour is up and running. It has been going great. It's the most successful US tour we've ever had. We did a festival in Louisville that we did open for Judas Priest for Metallica, which was huge for us. Not as musicians but as fans as well, which was great.
I'm friends with all those folks but to play with them is different. That was a lot of fun. It's great to be back. It's similar, like I said, being back with AEW and going in front of 22,000 people at the Arthur Ashe and then doing 40,000 in Louisville and doing 1,000 in Cincinnati. It's great to see people back having a good time. It's so important because we missed it.
That, to me, was the biggest downfall or downer of the lockdown. Not being able to go and enjoy these moments of being in front of a live crowd. It has been great for us. As I said, we never realized how important Rock Radio still is until we started getting played on Rock Radio. Our song Judas is blown up. You talk about blowing up in the AEW arenas and everywhere else is almost about to go gold, which in this day and age to get a gold record is insane. It shows how huge the song has for reach.
JE: I officially know all the lyrics to Judas. I was proudly singing Judas when you walked out.
CJ: I heard. Carnegie Hall.
JE: You blew my cover. Now my readers are going to know I'm a choir nerd. Thanks for that, Chris Jericho. Yes, I did perform at Carnegie Hall.
CJ: That's huge. It's amazing.
JE: What's the saying? How do you get to Carnegie Hall? Practice.
CJ: Practice until you get to Carnegie.
JE: There you go. For those who haven't seen Sane by Fozzy, the music video, correct me if I'm wrong but it's the first-ever music video that was shot from start to finish on a roller coaster. One of your bandmates throws an electric guitar off the tippy top of the roller coaster. Tell us about your experience shooting that insane music video.
CJ: It was an idea that Rich, my partner in Fozzy, the guitar player thought about doing this idea on a roller coaster. I was like, “I'm not a roller coaster guy but I will give it a try. I will do it,” because no one has ever done it before. When you can do something that has never been done before in show business, in rock and roll, you want to take a chance and try it. We went to this place called Holiday World in Santa Claus, Indiana. That's the name of a place.
When you can do something that's never been done before in show business, you want to take a chance and try it.
JE: There's a town called Santa Claus. That is hysterical.
CJ: We went to a Holiday World on the Voyager, which is the fastest wooden roller coaster in the world. You might see what's the difference between a wooden roller coaster and a steel one. A wooden is much more jolting and shaking.
JE: I was going to say it looked like you were going to fall off at any moment. I was a little worried there. It was touch and go.
CJ: They put a camera. They mounted it on the front car and I'm sitting there. We had 1 guy here, 1 guy here and 1 guy here and then as you are going around the turns, you see all the different band members. I have to sing it and we are lip-syncing but I have to lip-sync it. I have to look cool and be in front of the camera. Meanwhile, this freaking thing is going like this. You are holding on then we did one where you speed up the song to double speed. When you play it back at normal, it looks a little bit slower, so then I lip-sync quickly and that thing. We had to do six takes of it.
JE: Hold on. You had to ride the roller coaster six times?
CJ: Six times in a row.
JE: How many times did your bandmate have to throw off the electric guitar? Six times?
CJ: Once.
JE: You only broke one guitar.
CJ: We had to get major permits because you can't throw stuff off a rollercoaster.
JE: It's a liability.
CJ: Also, the park was closed but liability also like momentum. If you throw it up, it could hit somebody behind you. There are only five of us on the thing but technically, you could throw it up and the drummer could get hit. We had to throw it offside and then you get one take. They had the whole place cordoned off because you don't know where it's going to land or what it's going to do. We had to get permits for that and they have to get special permission because you can't do that.
JE: “Sign this dotted line and please do not sue us if you get hit.”
CJ: Two of the takes were busted right away because the music didn't work on one and the camera didn't work on another. There's nothing worse than that because as soon as the train leaves the station, literally you got to ride it. We can't do it because the music is not playing, so you got to sit there. That's hard because at least I can concentrate if it was working. We did all of that in 4 takes and our 1 guitar player couldn't do 2 of them. He was getting too sick, literally getting sick. If you watch the video closely, there are a couple of shots where he is not in it but you do what you got to do. We got it done and edit it together. Once again, it did a million views in a week.
JE: You are up to two million now.
CJ: It slows down a bit. It's up to two million but it still was cool to see the reaction to it because it has never been done before. People are like, “How did they do this? Did they CGI it and all this other stuff?” It's like, “No, we got on a roller coaster old school and sang.”
JE: “We almost threw up, lost a band mate and had to get permits.”
CJ: The last takeaway to take 45 minutes because a couple of guys were green. The human body is not made to ride this thing six times in a row. If you are a roller coaster person, you might go, “Yes,” but I am not. Doing it once was enough but then I'm like, “We got to do this five times.” At the end of the last take, I looked behind me at Rich. I was like, “I'm done. That's the last one. I can't do anymore.” The rest of the night, I felt super queasy and weird but we got it and edited it. It was perfect and now it exists forever.
JE: It is a work of art. All my readers, go out there. Get on YouTube. Let's get these numbers up. You are at two million views but Sane by Fozzy is such an awesome song. Such a great music video. Guests on your podcasts, Chris, have included Bruce Dickinson from Iron Maiden, Lemmy from Motörhead, Paul Stanley from Kiss and my personal favorite, Billy Corgan from the Smashing Pumpkins. I love Smashing Pumpkins. I'm a big ‘90s alternative rock gal. Who has been your biggest inspiration or influence that's helped you along in your music career so far?
CJ: There have been a lot of folks that I was fans of that I've become friends with. Someone like Paul Stanley. He’s always cool. I talk to Lars from Metallica a very good friend of mine. I'm not asking for advice from these folks but you follow in their footsteps. When you have been in show business as long as I have, you pick and choose the qualities and the ideas from the different folks that you admire.
As a frontman, for example. As I said, Paul Stanley, David Lee Roth, Mick Jagger, Freddie Mercury, Bruce Dickinson, and those type of folks. You watch how these folks perform and how they captivate a crowd. There's a real art form to it and it's not easy. It's like being a podcast host. It's not easy being a podcast host. People think it is because there are a million podcasts and a lot of them come and go so fast.
There's a real art form to it. There's an art form to being a frontman of a rock and roll band. It's important to sing. It's important to have that power but you also have to be the party host, the ring leader and get people involved in the show. That's what people want. That's what I always wanted as a fan and I still do. As I said, it's the same thing when I first started wrestling. You take inspiration. You add it to your own little blender, put a lot of yourself in it, shake it all up, and that's what you get.
Wrestler: There's an art form to being a frontman of a rock and roll band. It's important to sing, but it's also important to have that power. You have to be the party host and the ring leader and get people involved in the show.
Chris Jericho, the wrestler is different from Chris Jericho, the singer but there are qualities that interact and blend in both. Being a live performer, whether you are a comedian, a wrestler, a singer or a Shakespearian actor, there is a real element that you have to connect to the audience. If you can connect to the audience, you will always have them as fans. If you can elicit that emotion from them where they are excited to see you. You will always have them the next time you come to town.
JE: I have to know the name Fozzy. Is your band named after Fozzy Bear, the Sesame Street character? Do you get asked that a lot?
CJ: I do, especially back when we first started. It was funny because we met each other briefly, Rich and I met. I was thinking about starting up a band and he was in a cover band in Atlanta called Fozzy Osbourne. He was in a band called Stuck Mojo. There was a big contingency of Atlanta bands. Whenever they were home from a tour, they would form this cover band, Fozzy Osbourne. He was like, “If you ever want to come jam with us, come jam with us.” We went and did these couple shows and got a record deal right out of the gate because of who was in the band.
JE: You are so good. Let’s be real.
CJ: We weren't as good then as we are now. We are like, “We will call ourselves Fozzy.” Little did we know that we would enjoy playing together and when it took off, it was like, “We are already Fozzy, so let's keep it.” At first, it seems like a strange name but there are two things about it. One, in a world with like Metallica, Kiss, Red Hot Chili Peppers and Duran Duran, when you hear these names, Def Leppard. These names are stupid then they become names.
That's the same with us with Fozzy. Also too, it is the easiest name to chant in every show we do. I don't care if we are opening for Iron Maiden or even Sevenfold or Metallica or Shinedown or whatever. Everybody is chanting Fozzy one song into the set because it's easy to say. It’s our name and that's where it started and how it's progressed to where we are now.
JE: Two syllables. You are not like Def Leppard or Metallica.
CJ: can’t do that. You can't chant Rage Against the Machine. It's hard.
JE: I am curious though, last musical question. You do so much, Chris, that I've had to compartmentalize wrestling and music. I have a generic section but I do want to know. I love asking artists this question but what is your favorite musical venue that you've ever played at? Mine is Red Rocks Amphitheater in Colorado. What's yours?
CJ: That's amazing. We've never played Red Rocks. That's a famous place that hopefully, we will get to do. The one that stand out for me, there was a place called the Astoria in London which was a great venue. The Beatles played there, and they've now torn it down. I remember playing there the first time. It was like, “We've made it the Astoria in London.”
Another great one was we played the Banc of California Stadium in Los Angeles with Iron Maiden and that wasn't a festival. That was Iron Maiden and Fozzy. That was right before the lockdown in September of 2019. It’s incredible for so many reasons. It's a stadium in the States with Iron Maiden. That was huge for us. The Whiskey A Go Go in LA is a classic because it's the whiskey man.
It's one of those places where everybody played, the Van Halen and The Doors and Mötley Crüe and everyone in between. We are playing at the Cavern Club in Liverpool on this next tour. It's called an Underplay because it's a small place. You were playing it because it's where the Beatles started. It's where they cut their teeth, the Cavern Club.
When that came up, I said, “Do you want to do this underplay for historical reasons?” It's like, “Absolutely. The Cavern Club, that's where you see the early days of the Beatles in this sweaty jampacked tight club.” That's the Cavern Club and it still exists to this day. That's another place that we are excited to play. You play some of these cool venues that have name value and historical significance, and those are always fun because of that.
JE: When you sell out Madison Square Garden, I'm going to be here to say, “I knew him when he came on Reinvented.”
CJ: The last time we sold out the Grammer Seat theater, which is not quite the garden but next time, we are doing the Irving Plaza, then we will keep moving our way up the ladder.
JE: I love it and you got to put Red Rocks on the list.
CJ: I would love to do that.
JE: Even just attending a show is like a spiritual experience. It’s hard to describe. It is an incredible venue. I hope you put it on the list. I hope you perform there.
CJ: I remember it from Under a Blood Red Sky, U2, “Hello, Red Rocks,” and it's a little place.
JE: Speaking of Colorado, I'm glad I brought this up because you are a paranormal guy. You are into the paranormal. You talk about paranormal stuff and ghost experiences on your Talk Is Jericho. That's so unique and interesting to me. I have a ghost story of my own that I'm willing to share publicly for the first time ever. I'm curious and if we have time, Chris, can you tell us about the creepiest paranormal event that's ever happened to you?
CJ: I haven't had a lot of paranormal. I had something called a time displacement once, which is what happens when people get abducted by aliens. Where a chunk of time will disappear but I have always been into paranormal, supernatural and cryptozoology and all those things since I was a kid. When I started Talk Is Jericho, I originally told the original boss that I had with PodcastOne, “I can't just do a wrestling podcast.” He's like, “That's what we want to do.” I’m like, “You are talking to the wrong guy.”
I've got too many other interests. There's so much that I would want to talk about that I'm going to have to do it my own way. They allowed it then it became very successful but I was a big fan in the late ‘90s of a guy called Art Bell. This was from when we were driving late at night after shows or whatever it may be. Art Bell was on every radio station.
If you were on a long drive where the stations would change as you were driving, as soon as he faded out of one, you could find him on another. He was a real paranormal, superstition, things you can't explain type of a guy who would've all these people call in. All these weirdos would call in and I was obsessed with that.
When I started Talk Is Jericho, I said, “I want to be the next version, the next generation of Art Bell.” That's where I started. I get people contacting me all the time, conspiracy theorists, vampire hunters, flat Earth guys or UFO guys, ghosts, Bigfoot or lake monsters. You name it. I'm into all of it, so I will have everybody on.
My attitude is that I will never scoff or mock you for what you believe. I will give you an open forum to say whatever you want and tell your story. Those are always great guests because they are committed to what they believe. If the guest is committed, then it comes across as a great story. That, to me, is the reason why I enjoy that style of show with Talk Is Jericho as well.
JE: It's so cool and unique that you sprinkle that into your podcast. A lot of people don't know this but when you and I were talking earlier, you mentioned that you started podcasting years ago.
CJ: In 2013, yes.
JE: You put podcasting on the map before it was mainstream or considered cool. You are a trailblazer in that arena. I always thought that it was cool that you talked about ghosts and haunted hotels. Speaking of haunted hotels, I went to the Stanley Hotel in Estes Park, Colorado. That's where Stephen King sat and wrote The Shining. Actor Jim Carrey is on the record thereof having checked in. he went to his room and then immediately checked out and was like, “I'm not going to stay here.” It is creepy. I don't know if you have been there.
If you are into the paranormal out there, and this is also for my readers, go check it out. Check out the Stanley Hotel. They do ghost tours there. Freak the living hell out of me. I went in as a skeptic. We had a tour guide by the name of Scary Mary. No last name. If you go there for a tour, ask for Scary Mary, and book a tour. It is quite something. There's a ghost there, and he likes blondes, apparently. He's a little bit of a prankster.
I was in a dark concert hall, and I felt fingers running through my hair, and there was nobody behind me. I was with a group of my friends, and I thought, “One of my friends is playing a joke.” They are playing a joke on me. I turn around, and nobody is there. I am a believer. It freaked me out. I felt nauseous. All the things that people say when you are in the presence that happens pretty much scared me to death.
Again, any readers, if you are interested, check out the Stanley Hotel in Estes Park. You are also an actor. Now I say that with a grain of salt because I love how we have The Rock and John Cena in Major Motion Pictures and I adore the fact that your acting credentials include Sharknado 3: Oh Hell No! Didn't win an Oscar but still a great film.
CJ: The advice that Ian Ziering gave me was, “When you get eaten by the shark, make sure to move around a lot. The more you move, the more they have to put the computer CGI shark eating you. If you can get into it, it will be a better death scene.” We filmed it in Universal Studios, so I was the ride attendant but I had to wear full-length sleeves because they don't allow tattoos on their ride operators. They wanted us to follow a strict protocol. It’s real.
JE: Is that discrimination Universal? What do you get against tattoos?
CJ: It's very strict, Universal.
JE: Are they against long rock star hair too?
CJ: I don't know but the thing was, we had to go through protocol. When the shark is coming, I have to make sure your seat belts are locked and make sure everyone gets off. That's how they wanted the Universal employees to be depicted. I was like, “If there's a flying shark, I'm out of here. I'm not making sure that everyone's seat belts are unclipped and safe.”
If there's a flying shark, the bets are off. This isn't getting ready to go on a roller coaster ride. That's why Bruce, the ride attendant, died because he was so valiant in standing up for his customers that he made sure they could all escape and then got eaten by a flying shark that, by the way, had gone through the loop de loop of the roller coaster first.
JE: I saw that. Bruce, the ride attendant, was the star employee. Probably employee of the month at the theme park that day. I don't want to throw you under a bus here. You weren't in Sharknado. You also competed in Season 11 of the wildly popular ABC Show, Dancing with the Stars and guested on The Tonight Show with Jay Leno, Ellen, Rachael Ray and Talking Dead.
A lot of people don't know this but my dream would be to appear on ABC's Dancing with the Stars. I was a dancer growing up but it is a grind. Rehearsing every single day, morning, noon and night, memorizing different routines every week. Your physical appearance has to be in tip-top shape. What was your experience like?
CJ: Stacy Keibler, who had done it, was the one who had put me up for it. She was my friend at the time. We are still friends. I hadn’t seen her in a while but she said, “You will love this. It's my favorite thing I've ever done.” I thought, “Let me think about it,” and then I realized, as I said earlier, reinvention and learning. I want to learn the art form of dancing. What is it about dancing that people like?
The first thing I learned is that when people dance at a wedding, they try to be funny. Real dancing, there's nothing funny about it. It's hard and real. You have to put your mind to it. Once I decided, “I'm going to do this,” that's what I did. Every day, six days a week, the show would be on the Monday of rehearsals. If you weren't doing 6 to 8 to 10 hours a day of rehearsing, you weren't going to do it. You weren't going to make it.
I figured out early on that there are slotting people. It's show business, so they have an idea of where they want people to go. I don't think they expect me to be as good as I was right out of the gate because, if you think about it, I'm a musician. I understand staying on the beat and behind the beat. I understand the count 2 and 3 and 4 and go and 1 and 2 and 3 and 4. You can understand that because that's what writing a song is or singing melody lines and all that stuff.
That was cool. The other thing was being a wrestler’s choreography. That's second nature to me. I can remember long spots choreography. The third thing was a live performer, which a lot of those contestants weren't. If you are looking for somebody that's an actor. They are only used to doing take 3, take 4, take 5. If you screw up, you do it again. There is none of that when the live element is there.
I enjoyed it, and it was hard. Six dances with Cheryl Burke as my partner, and that was it. There were some good ones, and I peaked too early because I started realizing they don't give out the 30s in weeks 2 or 3. They wait until 5 or 6 for that. My second dance, I still say to this day, was a quick step. It was one of the best dances that season. The only problem was that it was too early to get big marks or big scores. There are three of my dances that I was proud of that stood out, and three of them were okay. The ones that I nailed, in my opinion, were great ones.
JE: That's something we have to clear the air with because it is remarkable that you are still to this day performing at such a high level. You got athletes like Tom Brady, who won a Super Bowl. He’s 44. Phil Mickelson won the PGA Championship, and he’s 51 years old. LeBron James is still one of the top players in the NBA league, and he’s 36. What's your secret to staying in such great shape?
CJ: Pacing myself. For the last few years, I've only done a handful of matches a year. AEWs, maybe seventeen a year, I have to do. You change your style a bit. I changed my training regimen a bit and being smarter as a wrestler. Using your psychology and your storytelling abilities. I was never super high flying or superfast. I was good at a lot of things but not great at one specific thing.
My wrestling style now is pretty much what it was many years ago. I'm a lot smarter, so I can use it more to my advantage in telling stories. Wrestling, as I mentioned to you, is all about connecting with the audience, and it's all storytelling. That's what it is. It's like a good movie or a good TV show. You want to hook people with the story, and that's what people are interested in. If not, it's two half-naked guys. You are rolling around, and you can go to websites and pay money to see that.
You that might want to come to wrestling for that. What I can do is use the experience because you can't teach experience either you have it or you don't. To me, that's the real beauty of what wrestling is. It’s that style of the angles, the stories, and that thing. That's why I'm still able to perform at a high level because I can use my brain way more than I used my body.
Wrestler: You can't teach experience. Either you have it, or you don't.
JE: Correct me if I'm wrong. I believe you did DDP Yoga at one point. I'm a big yoga fan proponent. I do core power yoga. It kicks my ass. It's such a great workout but years ago, I believe you were having some back problems, and you were pretty outspoken about doing DDP. What is DDP? How did that help you longevity-wise?
CJ: It happened to me on Dance with the Stars the very last week. I did through Cheryl down but I'm sure it was the twenty years of resting and building up to that. I was in bad shape. I had a herniated disk, and they were talking back surgery. I could hardly sit. DDP, who was a fellow wrestler, Diamond Dallas Page, contacted me because I knew he had started his own yoga program because he had the same problem years prior to where they said you have to retire, and he wasn't ready to.
He created this morphed yoga combined with physical therapy. A lot of isometrics, where you are like moving your muscles very slowly. Lo and behold, after about three months, I was completely cured. My back problems were gone. No surgery is required. That's when I was like, “This is the real deal.” I started to try and spread the word as much as I can.
Now it's a multimillion-dollar company with thousands of clients. It works. That was my point. If you do this, this isn’t a lipped service but you have to do it. You can't just try it once because I was doing it twice a day, every day, because I was messed up. After ten days, it's a little bit better, and then after a month, it’s a little better. You can start to see the light at the end of the tunnel. I was able to spread that word to a lot of different people in the business, in music, as well as in show business and sports. To anybody that was having like, “My back is messed up. My shoulders were messed up. My neck is messed up.” You know what you need to try.
The people that tried it, it worked for. It is magic, and it does work. As I said, I don't know what yoga you do. There are different types of yoga. For me, this worked and would work for anybody and yoga, in general, because it's not just your body. It's your mind. Combining the two and having that strength from within that permeates. Start at the top of your head, and you feel it draining down. You can feel it but you have to be in tune and ready to give it a real shot.
JE: What makes DDP Yoga different than other forms of yoga? I do hot yoga. Its core powers high intensity. It involves weights but it knocks you on your butt. You burn probably a minimum of 1,000 calories per class but what sets DDP apart from the rest of them?
CJ: It's the combination of physical therapy, exercises and isometrics. That's a little more the different slides there. Coming at it more from a maybe an athletic perspective rather than the yoga perspective. Combining those two elements.
JE: Anyone out there, if you want to get back into great shape or get your mind right if you have back problems as Chris Jericho did, take up DDP Yoga. That's great advice. Speaking of advice, we are going to be wrapping up soon here but what advice would Chris Jericho give Jericho in his twenties? I'm curious.
CJ: Stay the course and do what you have been doing because when I look back as a young Chris Jericho, the path and the journey always led me to where I am now. To where I don't have to rely on anybody. No one is going to tell me what to do. I have a boss but I could leave at any time and whatever. Put all my chips on myself. When we started doing the Jericho Cruise Rock ‘N’ Wrestling Rager, it was an idea that I had.
It took me three years to get it going. I realized early on when you start doing this thing that we have many different talents coming onboard, and there are many activities. I don't know the different mindsets of people, and I'm going to rely on myself because I know I'm not going to screw myself. I'm not going to no-show myself. I'm not going to demand too much money for myself, and the same with Fozzy.
I will put Fozzy as the headlining band. That way, I don't have to worry about paying $150,000 to some band that would sell 50 tickets like, “What the hell? Who would pay that?” Some cruises do. I will put it in Fozzy’s basket and sell it myself. When you can believe in yourself, you don't have to rely on anybody else. That’s the best position to be in. That was always my goal in my 20s and 30s. Here I am now. I’ve achieved that.
When you can believe in yourself, you don't have to rely on anybody else. That's the best position to be in.
It would be staying the course. You are doing the right thing. It might not seem like it sometimes. It might be pretty hard to do but you know that already. You knew that from the moment you got into wrestling and music that it was not easy. Hold on and keep doing what you feel is right and follow your dreams. Follow your goals because they can come true if you work hard enough and believe in yourself. That's what I did.
JE: I love your sentiment about not being beholden to anyone. Not feeling like you have an IOU sticker on your forehead. You blaze your own path here.
CJ: I never wanted to be worried, “What if something happens and I get fired? What am I going to do?” I don't ever want to put myself in that position, and I haven't. As I said, I could get fired but I've got 3, 4 or 10 other things I can do that will probably give me more time to do that.
JE: Your 3.9 million Instagram followers would happily hook you up. You have a huge fan base out there, and we take care of you. We are going to do something fun to wrap this up. I have never feel honored because I've never done this before with any of my other guests. You are the first. We are going to do a quick, fun rapid-fire round, so strap in, Chris Jericho. Which do you prefer, texting or talking on the phone?
CJ: Texting.
JE: Favorite holiday?
CJ: Halloween.
JE: What are you dressing up for this 2021?
CJ: I'm not sure because my cruise is right after. I've got four costumes for that. I will figure something out. What I always do is go to the drug store the day of Halloween when everything has been picked over and put something together like SpongeBob on acid. I went as Mitt Romney as a French maid once because all I found was a French maid costume and a Mitt Romney mask. On the day of the show, I will know.
JE: Game time decision. I like that. First-ever celebrity crush?
CJ: Kim Richards, who was in Return from Witch Mountain, who I then met on the set of Sharknado 3. She was in that.
JE: Look at that. Life comes full circle. Do you snore?
CJ: Yes. I have been told that I snore. You never know for sure but people have told me that I have.
JE: Got to set up that video camera recording next time you go to sleep. Say a word in Spanish, Chris Jericho.
CJ: Muy Bien.
JE: Would you rather cuddle a baby panda or a baby penguin?
CJ: Panda. They are softer.
JE: Godfather or Star Wars?
CJ: Star Wars by far.
JE: Name one of the seven dwarfs.
CJ: Sleepy. Dopey.
JE: LA or New York?
CJ: It's hard to say. For work, maybe LA but for vibe and excitement, New York.
JE: You got to choose one only. Cats or dogs?
CJ: Dogs.
JE: You answered that. You didn't even stutter. What is your death row meal? It’s such a morbid question. I love asking people this. By the way, I usually lead with this on a first date. Creepy but it's so good because it tells you a lot about the person. If you were on death row, what would your last meal be?
CJ: How I feel now, game-day decision, pepperoni and ground beef pizza with extra cheese. Vodka with club soda and warm cherry pie with vanilla ice cream.
JE: That is the most aggressive meal. I like how you mentioned that the vodka gets a little buzz going. Why not?
CJ: You don't have to worry about burning off the calories, either. That's done at that point.
JE: Ladies and gentlemen, we know what Chris Jericho's death row meal is. If you are ever on death row, I will be sure to get you that pizza.
CJ: If I ever go on a killing spree, at least you know what I will have for my final meal.
JE: You have certainly been one of my favorite interviews so far on Reinvented. Thank you so much for coming on Reinvented with Jen Eckhart. Lastly, once you hang up the wrestling boots, I want to know what's next for Chris Jericho. What can you promote now? What can fans tune into and look out for?
CJ: It's one of those things that I have many cool things going on, and I've done that by design. I can't wrestle forever but I'm going to see the Stones and mix almost ‘80s. We've got a rock and roll band that's pretty hot now that there's no real expiration date on that. The cruise is umping up again. Thank goodness. The first two were great, and then we got postponed due to the lockdown. Now we are getting back out on the water.
The podcast is still a lot of fun. There's no reason to ever think about not doing that because, once again, I can talk about whatever I want. Continue to do cool crap that people who follow my career will be happy to follow and happy to be involved with, and go from there. I don't have any limits, plans or whatever it may be because it will happen when it happens. When it does, if I think it's cool, I will give it 1,000% and make it great.
JE: Stay cool, Chris Jericho. Keep evolving and reinventing. You do fit the theme to a tee, and again, so grateful to have you on show.
CJ: Thanks, Jen. That was a lot of fun. Thank you.
JE: To all my readers, be sure to rate, review and subscribe to this show, Reinvented with Jen Eckhart. That's available wherever you listen to the podcast, Spotify, Apple, and YouTube. You name it. It's there. That was Chris Jericho. Thank you for reading.