Foxy Shazam Frontman Eric Nally on Scoring the Peacemaker Season 2 Intro

“God knows I’ve had some rough fucking years.” So say the lyrics of “Oh Lord,” but it’s been a very good year for Foxy Shazam, the rock band behind the now-famous song. Now, after 21 years of being on the scene, frontman Eric Nally says they’ve been “ready, prepared, and inspired” for big things, and they’re primed to collect. 

It was a wild summer for the indie group, one that included being called director James Gunn’s favorite band and “objectively the greatest rock ‘n’ roll band in the world”; performing the theme for the fictional pop-punk group the Mighty Crabjoys on the Superman movie soundtrack; and lending the aforementioned “Oh Lord” to the opening credits dance sequence of Peacemaker season two (which they performed at San Diego Comic-Con in support of the show). Plus, they released two studio albums in 2025: Animality Opera in March and their tenth album, Box of Magic, in October. 

“We kind of always have done this,” says Nally, speaking to Den of Geek from Cincinnati, his hometown where he still lives. He says he’s appreciative and grateful for the additional attention, but rather than being intimidated, he and the self-described genre-fluid sextet are feeling steady while enjoying the glow of more “fuel on the fire.”

Nally is correct that, since forming in 2004 and releasing their debut album The Flamingo Trigger in 2005, Foxy’s blend of glam and pop rock, along with a kinetic stage presence and Nally’s own powerful Freddie Mercury-esque vocals and theatricality, has garnered them attention and accolades. In the wake of their sophomore album Introducing (2008), they toured with The Strokes and Panic! at the Disco. When their self-titled third album, featuring “Oh Lord,” hit the Billboard chart in 2010, they were named on Spin’s list of “10 Bands You Need To Know,” and comparisons to Queen, Meatloaf, and My Chemical Romance rolled in. Their song “I Like It” from The Church of Rock and Roll (2011) charted at number five on Mainstream Rock charts, while their song “Unstoppable” played during the Super Bowl XLIV telecast. 

Nally says “people can expect the unexpected” with Foxy Shazam, and as such, they’ve earned a reputation for switching up styles. Whereas audiences might be polarized by changing things up with every album, it’s become expected from them. Still, the band’s hiatus from 2014 to 2020, following the release of Gonzo, was really unexpected. 

During this time, Nally provided the soaring vocals in the chorus for Macklemore and Ryan Lewis’ hit “Downtown,” and stole the show both in the video for the song — riding in bare-chested on a chrome eagle chariot led by motorcycles — and at the 2015 MTV Video Music Awards. 

The band returned with a revamped lineup of Nally, pianist Sky White, trumpeter/backing vocalist Alex Nauth, bassist Existential Youth, guitarist Devin Williams, and drummer Teddy Aitkins. Foxy Shazam released three more albums on their own EEEOOHAH label (Burn, The Heart Behead You, and Dark Blue Night) before this year’s one-two punch of Animality Opera and Box of Magic. 

Nally says the close proximity of releases was intended to show what Foxy Shazam is capable of, especially considering the impending attention within the DC Universe. And he wanted to separate the vibes of the spring and fall albums as a contrast.

“The more records we do, as different as they may be, the thing that’s similar is that they’re not similar,” he says. “But this was the first year I was like, let’s give people two examples of Foxy Shazam so they can see that they’re in contrast, and let them know we can do that. We can do this and everything in between.”

For example, Animality is a “raw, unfiltered burst of energy” recorded in Nally’s basement studio and without much money. Meanwhile, Magic was knocked out at EastWest Studios in Los Angeles, where the Beach Boys recorded Pet Sounds. The album is “friendly, positive, and all about building good vibes” with the intention to appeal to a mass audience.

That range highlights the Cincinnati personality of Foxy Shazam. Also home to The Afghan Whigs, Nally says there’s a bizarreness, randomness, and modest, polite entertainment, or even “Midwest charm” of what he calls the overlooked underdog city. It allows him to embrace his own weirdness, but project that oddness out there. In a way, Nally unintentionally highlights the quirkiness of an extraterrestrial immigrant raised in the Midwest who is likewise polite and modest. After all, Superman creators Jerry Siegel and Joe Shuster hail from another Ohio city, Cleveland, also where Gunn filmed the movie. 

Speaking of Gunn, Nally says, “When people like James Gunn or Macklemore come to me, they’re like angels … and we make something beautiful.”

About a year after Gunn used “The Church of Rock and Roll” in the first season of Peacemaker, Nally and the director connected on social media, became friends, and proceeded to share songs back and forth. So when it came to using “Oh Lord,” rather than suggesting another song or writing a new track for Peacemaker, Nally said there was already a built-in trust.

“James has a way about his music selection that separates him from other directors,” says the singer, who adds he connected with the usage of the Walkman and the “Awesome Mix Vol. 1” in Gunn’s Guardians of the Galaxy. “[His] creative decisions are intentional, and they support the story in a way that is different.”

Along with collaborating with Gunn and Lou Lou Safran on the Mighty Crabjoys song, which breathed life into the fictional DC Universe band, Nally had a cameo appearance in Superman, and Foxy performed “Oh Lord” in the Peacemaker second season finale (in a joyful scene leading up to a darker cliffhanger).

With the band existing in this universe, and within the DCU—the Mighty Crabjoys existing across the multiverse, based on the band’s cameo in Peacemaker—it’s reasonable to wonder if Foxy Shazam has more music to come in the superhero world. Nally says there are projects in the works, but nothing he can talk about, aside from teasing “to look out for new music.”

As for now, Nally says Foxy Shazam is ready for what comes next. And, to quote another lyric from “Oh Lord,” they will “keep on keepin’ on.”