Chris Jericho Underscores Pantera’s Influence, Says He Still Doesn’t ‘Get’ Nu-Metal
Chris Jericho, the Fozzy lead vocalist and AEW wrestler, told an interviewer this week that he still doesn't "get" nu-metal — the umbrella term for alt-metal combining heavy metal with elements of hip-hop and other genres that emerged in the 1990s.
Rather, the rock singer much preferred Pantera, especially over other offerings at that time. Coincidentally, Pantera were recently reported to be reuniting.
"It was certainly an interesting period," Jericho mused to Metal Hammer on Friday (July 15) when asked about the music of the era,
"In the early part of the '90s, a lot of my wrestling career happened abroad, and the music was changing a lot in the States," he adds. "Honestly, if it weren't for Pantera, there wouldn’t have been a metal band to hang your hat on."
The musician and athlete continues, "I could kinda get with grunge. But when it became the nu-metal thing, I just didn't get it. Limp Bizkit? What the hell is that? I still don't get it."
Jericho recalls, "I was in places like Europe and Japan, though, where the bands I loved were still respected. You could still see Helloween and Dio and Maiden in arenas in Japan, for example. So I'm not sure in the early '90s I appreciated just how hard it was for metal bands in the States. It wasn't really until Avenged Sevenfold came along that I really found a newer metal band that I understood."
Fozzy's latest album, this year's Boombox, is part of Louwire's Best Rock & Metal Albums of 2022 (So Far). Limp Bizkit's first album in 10 years, STILL SUCKS, arrived in 2021.