With Fozzy, we toured England five times last year, Ireland, Scotland, Wales, Australia, Germany, Canada, the world and elsewhere. All of these opportunities wouldn't have taken place if I didn't have the time to do that. Same thing with the stuff I've been doing in Los Angeles. I did a pilot for the USA Network, and I did a play in Toronto this summer. I did a movie for the SciFi Channel. I've got three other projects on the burner that are going, working on a book that I did, I have a radio show, I'm working on a couple of other things that I don't want to say, but they're really cool. So, there are always things going on that if you have the time to spend on them, you can make it happen. And that's what I'm going to do, Cap'n Jericho. The captain is going to make it happen, that's what I say.

You mentioned Fozzy. For people who may not be familiar with Fozzy -
Who is not familiar with Fozzy?

There might be someone out there.
They'd just be strung up, hung and quartered, I say.

Well, on the off chance that one of the Lithuanian midgets perhaps hasn't heard of Fozzy, can you talk a little bit about the band and how it was started.
I've been playing music a lot longer than I've been wrestling. I was playing in bands when I was 12 years old. I always played in bands, even when I started wrestling. I had a band called Great Caesar's Ghost, I had a band called Mr. Filthy, and I hooked up with Rich Ward, the guitar player from Stuck Mojo about six years ago, almost seven years ago now, and we just decided to put together a band and play some of our favorite cover songs that we liked when we were growing up.

That's kind of how it all started. We got a record deal from those two shows that we did, sight unseen and sound unheard and that's how we started out. We started out basically as a cover band and playing some songs that we dug, but we always played some originals. Then the more we played, the more we realized that we had a chance to do something more. So we started writing our own stuff and our third record came out a couple of years ago called All That Remains and that was our first all original record and that really took off for us and took us to a lot of places and helped us build the name of the band.

You show up on VH1 a lot these days, both on The Best Week Ever and the I Love ... shows. How did you get involved with that and what is it like filming those shows?
They asked me to do I Love the 80s Part Duex or 80s Strike Back or whatever the hell it was called and I just had a real affinity to remember information, which on that show is the idea. I did the first one and they just kept coming out with I Love the 70s, I Love the 70s Part Two and I Love the 90s Part Three and I Love 1935, I mean the Prohibition Era was awesome. They came up with all of these different ideas - The Best Week Ever, I Love the Holidays, Super Secret Movie Rules, etc etc etc. They kept calling me and I kept showing up and spewing out a bunch of useless crap and the next thing you know I have a second job.

Do you ever think we are going to get to a point where there are too many of these shows?
They've kind of painted themselves in a corner because they've done 70s, 80s and 90s. I guess in three years we can do I Love the 2000s, which you know they will. The thing is, they're such a hit that every network has them now - Bravo, E! Network. But, it's okay, it keeps talentless hacks like me in work. So I don't think there's too many of those shows. I wish there was more of them.

How do they films those? What is the process like?
They give you a list of topics that you're going to talk about, but they don't show you any clips or anything like that. You just go in there and go completely off memory and just do some improv comedy.

We know that you've actually been doing a lot of improv comedy.
Great segue, right?

You've been working with The Groundlings in the improv show Cookin' With Gas. How did you get involved with that?
Cookin' With Gas is a show The Groundlings doing every Thursday night in Los Angeles. I did an episode of Mad TV and the producer was an ex-Groundling. Those of you who don't know who The Groundlings are, the same people who don't know who Fozzy is, should be hung up, shot and have their ballsack ripped off and then stitched back on again. Will Ferrell was a Groundling, Phil Hartman, Cheri Oteri, just this list of all of these tremendously funny comedians all came from this improvisational comedy troop called The Groundlings. So they asked me to come and do a show with them. I did it, as soon as I was done, they asked me to come back and I've been working with them regularly for eight months now. I'm an honorary Groundling.

Was the improv pretty easy for you to pick up?
Working with those guys is like working with some of the best comedians that there is in the world. It was a little bit hard at first just getting used to how they do things. I improved for years in the WWE. Sometimes I'd stand with The Rock for 20 minutes talking after the show making jokes and stuff. But there are a few things you have to learn and a couple of tricks you have to know and once I kind of figured those out, it's been great. It's a great ice breaker and a great eye opener for people to know that Chris Jericho is a Groundling. It's definitely a good way for me to build my name over the last year outside of all of the other things I've been doing as well.

Where do you see your career headed? Is there a particular direction you'd like to see it go?
My acting has been really coming along and I've been getting a lot more opportunities, a lot more jobs. You've just got to spend the time to make it happen. Now that it's starting to go, I think you'll see me doing a lot more stuff over the next year or so. Also, I'm really looking forward to doing a new Fozzy record with a great new lineup that we have. Those are the two major things. Then my book when it comes out should be really good. I just finally handed in the final draft. If that goes the way that I'm expecting it to go, I think it's going to be a great story. And, like I said, there's a bunch of other things I've been doing. If I didn't think there was a chance of something big happening, I wouldn't waste my time doing something. You wouldn't see my trying out to be the center for the Detroit Red Wings because it's probably not going to happen. Although, I could go out there and do it if I wanted to. But, it's good to try things that you know you have a chance of doing well. There's nothing wrong with having dreams, but don't set your dreams too far outside of your realm.

Your book - what can people expect out of that and what is it going to focus on?
It focuses on my career and my journey to reach the WWF from basically 1990 to 1999, and all the time I spent training in the Hart dungeon and traveling the world - Mexico, Germany, Japan, the deep South, the cold North and everything in between.

What was the writing process like for you? Did you enjoy going back and remembering all of these events from your past?
It was a lot of work, but it was worth it. It took me about a year to get everything done and ready to go. And, it's still not finished. It's the first draft that's been handed in. It's a lot harder than I thought it was going to be, but nobody else could have done it the way that I did it, so I had to do it and I'm glad that I wrote it. I feel like I just gave birth.

What do you do to unwind? What kind of hobbies do you have?
Just playing music, spending a lot of time with my family. I work so much that when I'm at home, I really don't work a lot. Most of my hobbies are my job. I'm lucky that way.

Tell us something most people don't know about you.
That I totally rock. And I love chickens. Chickens are great, man. I have a couple chickens at home for pets. And I just really love lacrosse - favorite sport. And I love the color mauve.

You think most people don't know that you rock?
Just in case. I just thought I'd get it out there. Make it known.

We've got one last thing for you here. We are going to do a word association. We'll just throw out a name and tell us the first thing that comes to your mind.
Lay it on me, brother.

Paul Heyman.
Mad genius.

Eric Bischoff.
Used to hate him, now I like him.

Vince McMahon.
Good boss.

Wrestlemania.
Super Bowl.

The Strangler Lewis loophole.
(Laughs.) One of the best bits I did in the history of my wrestling career.

Chris Jericho.
Greatest showman in the history of anything.

The future.
Wide open.

Interviewed by Joel Murphy, December 2006. For more information on Chris Jericho, visit his official website.