My Mom's Basement - QUARANTINE MINI-POD: CHRIS JERICHO

Episode Date: May 13, 2020

Chris Jericho of All Elite Wrestling joins the From The Top Rope boys to discuss the evolution of his hair over the years, trying to adapt to wrestling in front of zero people right now, his longtime KISS fandom, and more.You can find every episode of this show on Apple Podcasts, Spotify or YouTube. Prime Members can listen ad-free on Amazon Music. For more, visit barstool.link/mymomsbasement

Hey, My Mom's Basement listeners, you can find our episodes on Apple Podcasts, Spotify, or YouTube, and Prime members can listen ad-free on Amazon Music. Talk is Jericho! A-W! Talk is Jericho! He's here. I will tell you this, in 1999, I think it was, I grew my hair out probably the longest it's ever been. And because of you, I did like the front ponytail that like came out here. And I remember my mom was like, yeah, we're not going to be doing that. But see, that's the difference. You don't put it like the front ponytail that like came out here and I was and I remember my mom was like yeah we're not we're not going to be doing that but see that that's the difference you don't put it at the front just like like Robbie just said it's it's Gene Simmons where you put it on

the top and that's where I got it from or he also would do one in the 90s where he would put just one little ponytail like there in the back so I had that one for a while too but it was never right on the front like a yeah I couldn't I didn't have the length for that i didn't uh i didn't stick it out i didn't have the i didn't have the balls i think sean michaels did that too right like towards the end of his career do the ponytail in the back because i was him for halloween once we bought like a wig it was impossible to get the wig like that well he would he would do it like this and and this and sean will tell you because he had a big bald spot so he would put the hair like that and cover the the big bald spot on the on the back so that's why he was doing that because you could see it as the match went on because that's right when i was

working with him a lot it would kind of start flopping out and start looking all weird i mean that's why he's the goat but we've got chris jericho here like we said we just did a bunch of hair talk at the front of this but people are going to love it i hope hey you're gonna get you're gonna get stuff here that you're not going to get anywhere else no we are sponsored by a hair salon fleischman's hair salon is a sponsor of the show so they'll love it too i'm sure promo code mom you get 20 off all that kind of see you think i didn't know that i set you guys up for the whole one of course i just extended your advertising budget for the next year um aew has really been making the best of pandemic programming if you want to call it that you guys

have been continuing on you've been doing the shows at the nightmare factory you've hopped on commentary I just had Megan Olivia on from the UFC to talk about their show this past weekend and she said it felt like a special environment it felt like you know they had the skeleton crew as well and it felt like just something special that they were putting on for entertainment in the middle of this while people need it did it feel the same way for you yeah i mean that's kind of the way why we're still doing it it does seem a little bit strange to be wrestling without um a crowd but i think the reason why is because we're still you know keeping the lights on in our company by providing entertainment for people that don't have any. There's not a lot of new content right now.

And if there is, it's mostly stuff like we're doing. And thank goodness for the technology that exists these days to be able to do our Zoom calls and our Skype calls and all that sort of thing. If it had this pandemic happened 10 years ago, we wouldn't have this. But I think it's been really exciting to continue to do very vibrant and fun shows in the middle of this even though you are basically in an empty arena so um it's worth it because every week i get the same response you know that was great thank you so much we appreciate you doing this and more importantly our ratings haven't really suffered that much we thought we'd go down a little which we have but if you go into what's really important, which is the demographic,

which is really getting into stats, the demographic is actually risen, which means there's no more people in certain ages watching than ever before. So it's good to know that the, I guess the risks that we're taking or the chances that we're taking is paying off with people appreciate it. And the shows have still been a lot of fun. We've just had to be more creative in our execution of the shows to keep it fresh and apropos. I was going to say for you, I mean,

like we talked about this when you came into the office the last time about how you're constantly like reinventing yourself when you're trying new things, which is, I mean, you see a lot of legends in the wrestling industry stick to the same gimmick or the same, not even just like the same gimmick but things that they're playing the hits they came out with one album and they're going to play the same three hits every single time because that's the crowd pleaser so for you like obviously during this time it's difficult with no fans but how has your brain sort of taken this and being like

this is an opportunity for me to maybe try something completely different that i've never done before because you're the first person that I thought of once this happened in either one of the companies, like, oh, I think we could probably do something here where we're going to see something we've never seen before. I think, you know, the fact that we have a certain amount of people around the ring and now we're back in Daly place which has three tiers so there is some sort of ambiance is it 30 people maybe but they're you know we used to wrestle in front of less than 30 people when i first started but what i saw with this i mean the first thing i remember is when i had the face-to-face promo with matt hardy and other shows have the guys standing there talking

on a microphone uh to each other i mean if you have to use the microphone to talk to the camera so they can hear fine but why are me and matt harding and so i said why don't we use the old uh the lav mic which is the little mic that goes here and that way we can be more expressive and we're one-on-one it's more like a movie rather than there's nobody fucking here what are we doing right yeah um then we move forward into the vignettes that we were doing the bubbly bunch that's specifically because this is the only time in history where you can basically record something on your phone and have it air on national tv because the quality doesn't matter um you know we did the one uh bubbly bunch with the manitoba melee there was 22 people

involved in that some people there i said everyone said, everyone film this way, you know, film horizontally. And of course there's a couple of people that film like that. And so you just got to go with that or some of the quality. What is this guy using to film on his phone, a flip camera? Like it's 2020. But that was really cool because it gave us a chance to be creative and create something from home, but it's good. And it's airing on national tv because i thought people would appreciate the fact that we're trying to create something new even though the quality might not be up to snuff we're still up to snuff this way and then the last thing is just some of the styles of matches that we did we did a street fight last week on dynamite where we fought throughout the

whole concourse because why it was there and someone said how long did it take you guys to plan that? I was like two hours because we got to the building, we walked around. Oh, there's a nice machine. Can somebody fit in that? Hey, Matt, can you fit in this? Uh, Kenny's like, is there golf carts? It's like, oh yeah, there's a golf cart over there. Uh, there's, there's a scissor lift here. There's, you know, uh, a beer tub that was a Corona beer tub, by the way, Corona beer. So like, we're just finding this stuff to use. It's like, this is the only time we're ever going to be able to have this type of a

match. So I think you take advantage of what's there and use it to, to the best of your ability. And that will make people appreciate the creativity of it. Definitely. Did you guys just have a blast putting that match together? The whole street fight through the concourse through the arena? i had a blast putting together and had a blast doing it like putting together is one thing but and just little details like okay matt's like he'll hit me with a

bag of ice all right let's cut the bag of ice so that the bag of ice explodes yeah yeah yeah hey sammy when you throw kenny into the atm let's put some money in there so there's a i found some money or even the stupid witch's hat with the with the traffic cone like that was not planned yeah it's just like let's do it so i think it uh it was a lot of fun and also too it's alluding to the to the pay-per-view mattress you're announcing tonight and you guys will see what it's going to be but it's like there's the ring in the auditorium there's the space in the middle which leads to the stadium well if we started here and went to the space where do you think we're going to go next so that's kind of i think you know when else are you going to get a chance to do these type of

matches except for in 2020 we hear wrestlers say all the time like if you're if you're popping the boys it is usually a good sign for what you're going to get out of a reaction from the crowd. Is it that heightened more than ever now that the boys are the only ones you can pop? I mean, I wouldn't say that because let me say, I have a meeting with everybody in the crowd before the show and say, listen, your job is to scream and yell. I don't care if you're, you know, Wardlow's very good. No, if you're out there, you're screaming, MJF, you're screaming, just make noise because that's why you're there. you're screaming mjf you're screaming just make noise because that's why you're there so they're going to pop no matter what because that's what

we need is for that atmosphere i uh listen popping the boys is great and that's the memory of my attitude because if you want to pop the boys you go out there and you know you know throw popcorn in your face and sell it it's like ah all the, all the popcorn. I had so much popcorn. To me, that's fine. But I think we have to keep in mind what, what I always go for. What would pop me as a fan? I still think like a fan and I still put my matches together like a fan.

And last week, when you talk about that, that street fight that we had, all four guys had great ideas. And that's a perfect, I always go back afterwards and think through all the stuff that happened and just really i love the the collaboration effort of everybody throwing ideas and kenny had just a great idea and hardy had a great idea and sam

had a great idea jericho had a great idea and you shake them all up and you put on this amazing match that everybody enjoys. And that to me is the most important thing. Cause if I saw that match as a fan, I would pop at so many different things. I would watch it a couple of times because there's so many little nuances that you wouldn't notice unless you watched it again. Right. I have a question that I guarantee you've never been asked before.

Oh, so guarantee a G word. Wow. Guarantee a hard G uh so robbie myself and robbie's roommate trent uh he is from iowa very much isolated from the world we're called the couch crew we're a non-wrestling faction um so what we do is we sit on the couch and usually we all bring something to the table we'll watch like bob ross paintings or robbie's big into star Star Wars and we've tried to get Trent into wrestling because he's he's never been into professional wrestling before and we were trying to explain to him the art of blading and for you uh if it's not

you who do you think would be the most inclined to give a demonstration or or show trent how how it's done correctly that's hard because anybody at my level would never do that i would never that's like the magician showing you a trick right there's a technique to it and with all due respect you guys don't deserve to know it because i respect that i agree but if you went to some you know independent organization if somebody just wants to get some tv time i'm sure they'll show you 10 ways to some, you know, independent organization, if somebody just wants to get some TV time, I'm sure they'll show you 10 ways till Tuesday. You know what I mean? But it's probably not the right way. There's a New Jack documentary that would tell you otherwise.

Yeah, yeah. But I bet you even New Jack probably wouldn't show you unless you went, come here, let me really show you. And you'd be like, no. Yeah, no, he would cut you open with a knife. Yeah, the art form of it, it's kind of an ancient technique to where, you know, over the last few years, when I left WWE and we went to new Japan and an AW,

when you can, you know, blade, as you say, if you want to, a lot of guys don't know how to do that because you didn't come up. The very first tour I ever did in Japan when I was 19 years old, no, it was 20 years old. Yeah. 20 years old. I had the blade and I was taught the secret technique and thankfully I was taught properly or I might've new jacked myself, but, uh, yeah, it's kind of been passed down and there's a lot of different ways to do it, but, um, because it's not as prevalent now,

guys don't know as much how to, but there is a safe way to do it. Right. And you obviously think that like, it's, it, there's a time and a place obviously like wwe has their rules now but i think like as a fan who grew up watching in like the late 90s and into the 2000s that it helps bring emphasis to a story there's a pinnacle to it um so like what what are your thoughts on like like the time and the place and is there still a place for it within professional wrestling there is i mean there is but also too it's like the last three matches i've been in that have had blood weren't from a blade we call them happy accidents i mean i worked with cody rhodes uh in baltimore i can't remember what it was called november 9th of last year and

we were not gonna blade because the main event was moxley versus kenny and it lights out no holds barred ridiculous crazy match but cody did some kind of a dive and landed on his head and giant cut and there it comes i when i was doing the thing with moxley the week before the show though the go-home show as we call it we uh we got into some we had a weigh-in and then i said uh headbutt me. And he headbutted me, and you can still see the cut. It's right there. Oh, yeah.

Oh, wow. And people are like, oh, you blade him. Like, nobody would ever blade like that, right? No. That's a cut from the headbutt. And then, same thing. During the match, he runs at me. I sidestep him. He hits the pole.

Now, he's got almost the same scar. So, when that happens, we call it a happy accident. You don't ever want to see it happen. But, man, does it ever add intensity to the match. And there's certain matches you don't want to get blade happy where you're just doing it all the time like Abdul the Butcher every match. Here we go. But at certain times, it really does add to the intensity and the seriousness of the storytelling. I mean, your feud with Shawn Michaels in 2008 is like the first one that comes to mind in terms of that.

Like that final blow off ladder match, everything about that was perfect. But to transition a little bit from wrestling to something that I wanted to talk about with you the last time you were in the office that we couldn't get to is music so my chris jericho fandom completely catapulted in 2004 when my brother brought home spin the bottle a kiss tribute record oh wow and we're so we're diehard kiss fans diehard wrestling fans as well and he's like you're not gonna fucking believe who's singing king of the nighttime world on this record so he puts it on i I'm listening, and I'm like, I don't know, this is rock, and I don't know who this is, though. He's like, it's Chris Jericho. I'm like, get the fuck out.

The wrestler Chris Jericho is singing King of the Nighttime World right now. So I just wanted to ask you, we talk a lot about rock and roll on this podcast, music. Your first introduction to Kiss and just how you got into the band. Well, it's so funny because before I get into that, I actually started a band during this lockdown and we released our first song on Friday and it's a cover of No, No, No by Kiss from Crazy Nights. Get the fuck out of here.

Yes, and the band is called Quarantine with a K. And that's why we started because we had four guys that were all huge giant kiss with fans with no makeup and we said well let's do a song so we did it there's the wow yeah I love it and so we thought it's kind of an ipso facto super group there's a guy from Luke Bryan the country singers band it's a guy from trickster a guy from classic 78 which is a great kiss related band and then me so yeah we just said let's do it i can't believe i didn't know that now you know so and we did a heart of chrome from revenge with bruce kulick actually

playing on it so there's a whole there's a whole era of kiss that's kind of forgotten, the 80s era. That happens to be my favorite era. And that's how I got into Kiss was when I used to watch video shows. And about 1984, I saw this guy with his hands on fire, and he looks really cool. And then this band is singing about heavens on fire, and there's chicks all over the place. They're making out and spitting, like, in a camera. And at the end, he jumps he jumps through a hoop of fire and i was like that's the coolest guy i've ever seen who is this that's kiss i think kiss kiss the makeup guys i know they took their makeup off well who was that guy that was paul stanley paul stanley's my hero so that's when i got into kiss i've always been a huge fan of 80s kiss over 70s kiss by far because

of that and here we are you know 36 years later doing our own versions of some of these songs when they went back to wearing the makeup after you had gotten into them on Max were you like I don't know about this I don't know how to feel about it really I bought into because obviously I love 70s Kiss too but of course I felt that that 90s era with Bruce Kulik and Eric Singer was their best as far as talented version of the band. And Revenge is my favorite Kiss studio album. But you can see the times were just not there for them. So from a timing standpoint, it was right for them to put the makeup back on.

But from a Jericho who loves, you know, non-makeup Kiss, I was a little disappointed. So I love them now the end actually the last concert I ever saw before the world ended was Kiss in Bakersfield California March 2nd of this year with David Lee Roth opening so that's a good way to go out if there's never another concert ever again I honestly think it might have been my last concert as well I saw them on the end of the road tour at Madison Square square garden and then i was there at the barclays center yeah so if you if you google if you google jericho kiss madison square garden go check it out you'll see a video of me i'm right at the front row on the guardrail and my friend got too drunk and left so i was air banding the show with the guardrails the guitar

i'm just i'm just freaking out i think i might have taken that video i might have because it was on TMZ. I know that. Oh, no, not TMZ. If they stole it, then I'm going to get the rights for it. C&D their asses. So another thing that I wanted to touch on that is Kiss and wrestling related. The Kiss Demon in WCW.

When this happens, you're a wrestler. And are you like, what the fuck are they doing? Is Gene Simmons going to sue their ass? Well, Gene was behind it gene came gene first came to vince with the idea of doing a kiss demon wrestler and then having a star child of spaceman and a cat man and then having four female versions of it as well vince turned it down eric bischoff said yes so they went as far as making the kiss demon it was first it was brian Adams, then it was Dale Torborg. And the idea was for them to do four Kiss-related characters because Gene felt, well, Kiss and comic books and wrestling

and science fiction and horror movies, it all kind of fits together. So that's where it came from. It was totally the brainchild of Gene to introduce that. That's unbelievable. Yeah. And I wasn't there at the time. I wish I was because Kiss actually played that one time on Nitro, which would be amazing. But yeah, and I guess obviously it didn't do very well and that was the end of it.

But at one point, there were supposed to be all four of them in there. That just blew my mind as someone that's looked at that my whole life is like, how did they not get sued from like Gene Simmons, the most savvy businessman of all time. Now it makes sense. Gene was behind it himself. That's crazy. There were some great performances, not only in WCW back in the day,

but on Raw, like Motley Crue performed, and that was Tess' debut. It's crazy. When I was in WCW, Motley motley crew performed then i go to wb and kiss performs and megadeth performs the only one i think i ever saw was master p which was the drizzling shit so i haven't seen any of that that's amazing have you uh like obviously you've been to a shit ton of concerts is there one band that you never got to see or if you could only pick one assuming there's multiple that you never got to see alive that you wish you could have seen live.

Well, I mean, if you're talking in real life, no, because I, I've seen pretty much everybody, even to the point, I guess about 10 years ago. So I'm just going to go see every band that, that, you know, every band that I even kind of like sticks foreigner, you know I mean, I love journey, but if you're talking like, I went and saw Billy Joel, I was going to see Elton John this past month, obviously it got canceled, but I wanted to see as many of those bands as I could, The Who, The Kinks,

because we don't know when we'll get to see them again, or how much longer they're going to be playing. But if you're going from a band standpoint, I mean, since I've seen everybody, I'm looking at my arm because i've i saw the police when they reunited um i mean gosh i'd say probably maybe the original lineup of the beatles if i could go back to you know 1965 and see them playing at shea stadium or something like that but as far as bands that are still out there today i've seen pretty much everybody yeah i feel like seeing the beatles would have been miserable though like it just would have been thousands of girls everywhere

you wouldn't be able to hear the music it was a terrible i mean they played the that shea stadium song through a tour through the baseball pa yeah it was just like the loudspeaker yeah number 12 joe damasio that's what you were hearing them play through. Yeah. I think for the experience, I've seen McCartney play probably 10 times. So I've gotten a chance to see all of those. Have you seen Robert Plant? I haven't seen Plant.

But I don't know if I'd want to, and I totally respect the fact that he doesn't want to do Zeppelin songs anymore. I respect that. But he doesn't even really do a lot of his solo songs. There's no tall, cool one. There's no big log. There's no – I appreciate him doing his own thing. It's the same thing kind of as Bob Dylan or Neil Young.

I would go see Neil if he came just because he still plays, but Dylan doesn't really do hits, and John Cougar Mellencamp doesn't want to do hits, and I get that, but I don't really want to see it you know yeah yeah you know who I saw last summer that was just one of those people where I was like you know what this would be a really good one to add to the list of people that I've seen and it's the Wrestlemania 7 America the Beautiful singer Willie Nelson oh yeah he was coming around and his son I love Lucas I don't know if you're a fan of him but I think he's incredible so he was opening up and i was like that would be a good one to see gotta tell you i'm very happy

i've seen willie nelson now it's like one of those things where after you see these legendary bands you're like yeah that's an awesome thing to be able to say i've seen them live that's it's funny because um i just uh obviously little richard died this week and you know, people were posting pictures of little Richard and I'm like, Holy shit. I have a fucking clip of me playing with little Richard. And I did this show called celebrity duet years ago. And little Richard was one of the judges and it was a singing show. And one day he was actually going to perform on the show. Cause he was, he was never there very long. Cause he was, um,

maybe a seventh day Adventist or some kind of very strict judaism judaism so he had to be home before sundown so he would come to the studio he'd film his stuff whatever we were doing he'd leave right away so he wouldn't have to be there before sundown set so um but one day he was on the show and it was he was going to do good good golly miss molly and they helped him up onto the platform for rehearsal and i was involved they asked me to kind of you know they had some of the people kind of just rocking out with them during the segment so he's sitting at this play uh piano he can't really move because he couldn't walk so i just walked up and sort of talking and you know basic conversation talking about the beatles and his fashion style and piano playing and then uh he just starts kind of playing some pianos keys and chords and he goes

sing something man so i just kind of like started like yeah no no no whatever he was playing and uh it only lasted about a minute before they stopped it but i was like fuck i just jammed with little richard yeah fucking great that's just the story for the rest of your life for the rest of my life and then you can see i post the video on instagram of him playing good guy miss molly and it's like me and leah thompson and a couple of people kind of gather on the piano just rocking out i'm just rocking out it's like it's stuff like that is pretty cool to see a guy like him or like willie nelson or because you don't know how long they're going to be playing for. And these guys have seen it done at all.

Yeah. And hey, that could transfer over to the wrestling world too. When this whole quarantine, when this pandemic is over, like go see live wrestling shows. When indie shows come to your area, go see them. There might be a legend on it. Like when AEW comes to your area, go like, just take advantage of all the opportunities that you can, because the experiences really are incredible. And you can tell the story forever and that's the thing like we i know the exact day when the world kind of went tits up was uh march 11th we were in salt lake

city and we had a match that would start probably at 9 40 and it ends at 10 when the show was done whatever time it was in salt lake eight you you know, six to eight or whatever. And before the match started, we were still talking about the 18th, which was Rochester, New York, which is sold out. And then the 25th, which is at the Prudential Center in Newark. We were going to be there. Yeah. And we're going to do blood and guts, the big cage match thing. We're talking, I think it's still going to happen.

We were for sure going to be in, in, in, in Rochester. And we think we're going to make it to Newark, go to the ring, come back 20 minutes later. Everybody's downtrodden. What happened in that 20 minutes, the NBA canceled their season and Tom Hanks was diagnosed with Corona. And it's like,

Oh, Hanks done. Rochester was done and Newark was done. So hopefully we'll get a chance to come back soon and do those shows because it just showed that we have a huge fan base in the New York market. Yeah, that's crazy. I see, I see the Metallica behind you. I'm curious, how would you, how would you power rank all time Metallica basis? Well, you got to go Cliff Burton, number one, you know, absolutely.

And I mean, Rob, Rob and Jason are both great too. And people always forget about Jason Newstead. He kind of looks like you right now, actually. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. The live in Mexico bass solo that he did is like my favorite bass solo of all time. Yeah. People forget about him, but only because Cliff has such legendary status and Rob is with them now and

has been for 17 years, but Newstead is very underrated, not just as a, as a player, obviously he played with a pick where the other guys are finger players, but he was great live, great charisma. And he was also kind of the band spokesman to the fans after the shows back in those days, Lars and James wouldn't show up for the meet and greets and Jason always would. So I think he's kind of the forgotten man and the whole pantheon of Metallica,

but I always give him all the respect in the world. I remember he was touring a few years ago. He was doing, it was called a Jason Newstead was called, what was the band called? It was just called Newstead. And they put on a record called metal and they kind of were touring around. And I think Jason was thinking about maybe getting back in the scene but then you know just kind of lost a lot of cash very quickly which is the way it goes and you're trying

to start a new band yeah and he's like he goes he goes i go how long are you gonna go he's like well if we don't uh if we don't start going i mean you know i i played based on the black album you know and that's good for about a year but then after that uh i gotta i gotta pull the plug you know so he's still making so he's still making enough royalties off that to put a band on the road for a year which probably costs close to a million dollars anyways yeah have you interviewed him before he deserves it you give us the black album yeah exactly i haven't interviewed him he's kind of a reclusive uh because i've tried a few times i got trolled by some guy that said he was newstead on twitter for a while

but uh yeah it turned out wasn't him but uh jason if you're listening i'm sure you are uh call me let's talk go on the pod let's talk about i would listen to that podcast that'd be a great interview and it's funny because I've had both other living bass players in Metallica history have been on talk to Jericho, Rob Trujillo and Ron McGovern. So Jason needs to be the third. Trujillo is incredible. His old stuff on,

on infectious grooves, the punk stuff is insane. Even when you play with Ozzy too, he was great. So yes. Chris, thank you so much for joining. As always, we appreciate the time. You're thank you so much for joining. As always,

we appreciate the time. You always come to the show to Barstool. Check out AEW every Wednesday night on TNT. They're back in action. Yeah. And I'll tell you one thing too. When they asked me to do some press, cause I did a couple of interviews and they said,

Barstool wants to do something. And then they would, which was show called mama's basement. Mama's basement. Yeah. And I was like, well, who,

cause I don't remember who's the host. They said, it's Robbie and, and, and, and Jared. And I was like, Oh, I don't remember who's the host they said oh it's Robbie and and and and Jared and I was like oh I like those guys I remembered you with your glasses I appreciate that your glasses listen I'll take it I'll take it the glasses got me through the door thank you guys my life they did