INTERVIEW – ZAKK WYLDE, Zakk Wylde’s Black Label Society

INTERVIEW – ZAKK WYLDE, Zakk Wylde’s Black Label Society
By Shane Pinnegar

Returning to Australia for their first headlining tour in ten long years (and four since they visited for Soundwave Festival), Zakk Wylde’s Black Label Society are bringing their brand of riff-heavy metal to our shores again this month.

Wednesday 25th November – Metropolis Fremantle
Friday 27th November – HQ, Adelaide
Saturday 28th November – Roundhouse, Sydney
Sunday 29th November – The Tivoli, Brisbane
Tuesday 1st Dec – 170 Russell, Melbourne

Having made his name as lead guitarist and king of the pinched harmonic with heavy metal legend Ozzy Osbourne, Wylde first formed a band with more of a heavy rocking country flavour, called Pride & Joy, who released their only album in 1994. A solo album titled Book Of Shadows followed two years later, which led to the formation of Black Label Society, and there has rarely been a year since when he hasn’t released an album with BLS or with Osbourne. Despite this, Wylde says it’s not as gruelling a schedule as it sounds – after all, this was the way it was for most bands in the ‘60s and ‘70s.

“No. With us right now, the last couple records we’ve done it that way. We’ll put the album out and tour behind it for like, years. Before, in the early days of Black Label, we would tour and make another record and then while we were back out again we’d come through town people were like ‘I didn’t even know you had a new album out.’ You know what I mean – because we were banging them out so fast. This way [leaving a couple of years between records] it kind of gives the album a chance to breathe a little bit.”

That said, he has the sequel to Book Of Shadows coming out early next year.

“Yep, we just started mixing it yesterday,” Wylde shares. “It’s weird because we’ve been doing this

, then when we get back we record some more – tour some more – record some more – tour some more. Whereas usually [our albums are] just one explosion of creativity, and then you record it, and then we’re done with it. Then you just move on. This one’s been pretty much an ongoing process because we’ve been touring, because we keep getting pulled away from it.

“I’ll always be writing on the road or whatever,” he expands. “We wrote four more songs, just the other day. There’s a pile of 40-plus songs we have sitting there right now. Obviously not every one is going to make the record, but there’s just a lot of stuff in there could go on the next Black Label album or the one after that, even, which is definitely cool. It’s always fun writing and recording anyway.”

There certainly doesn’t seem to be any problems with writer’s block in the Black Label camp!

“The only thing that is a pain in the ass sometimes is lyrics,” he admits, “because you don’t want to write about… you can definitely write about the same thing in like three different things, use the same type of subject, because you approach it a different way. It comes down to, you’re using the same type of words all the time or whatever. You just have to put your thinking cap on and just come up with a lot of stuff.”

Has the process of recording the new album in bits and pieces around touring, rather than in ‘one big burst of creativity’ resulted in a different end result? Did the songs have more time to gestate, for instance?

“I guess that we’ve had some time…” he says thoughtfully. “Usually when we’re writing we don’t demo anything or do pre-production or anything like that. I write a song and all the guys are there, I just go ‘here’s the intro. Here’s the verse. Here’s the pre-chorus or whatever. Here’s the guitar solo. Here’s the chorus out, and [onto the] next song,’ you know what I mean? Once we do them, we mix them, and then we move on so we don’t have a lot of time to sit there because then you start second guessing stuff, and then you’re like, ‘let me change this.’ But there’s nothing wrong with that either – there’s no set way of writing and recording.

“If you prefer doing it that way, then do it that way. At the end of the day, usually when you have a deadline, it has to get done regardless of what it is you’re doing. If I tell you that you have to get something done by the end of the month, you’ll get it done. You know what I mean?

“If there’s no time limit on anything then you’re just going to keep going. If you’re going to get ready for the Mr. Olympia contest and you know it’s September 18th and you’ve got a year to get ready, you know you’re getting ready. You’re going to take the one month off just to rest your body, now you’re in training and you’re getting ready, because that deadline is September 18th and you’ve got to be ready. If you set deadlines for yourself, you’ll make it happen.

“Otherwise you can certainly mill around it, and you can keep looking at it and changing it, and doing everything like that.”

With nine studio albums under their belt, Wylde says choosing a setlist for Black Label Society isn’t all that easy – but it could be worse.

“It’s not as bad as The Rolling Stones, that’s for sure! Otherwise the Stones would be there for getting to be a twelve hour concert. We just try to do a little bit from every record. Otherwise, if we’re doing that [playing an extended set], between us having nine records, I guess we’ll start selling cots and sleeping bags and tents out at the merch stand,” he laughs deeply.

Black Label Society have always been creative with the merchandising arm of their business, which in addition to the normal T-shirts, guitar picks and posters, has included a range of hot sauces and, more recently, the Wylde Audio company. Wylde says there are few boundaries where merch cannot go.

“No. If it’s good [quality], that’s really all that matters at the end of the day. And now we have Wylde Audio – that’s why it’s audio. It’s not just going to be guitars and amps. Eventually we’re going to break out into microphones, ProTools stuff, plug-ins, out-pull gear, everything – why not?”

It’s a bold, forward-thinking plan and definitely a clever way to extend the business side of things for when they slow down touring – almost like a retirement plan.

“To me it was just the next logical step,” declares Wylde. “You’re a player on a team, then you coach the team, then you’re a general manager, then the next step is team owner. I’ve been very fortunate and blessed that all the companies I’ve worked with are amazing. I still have great relationships with everybody there. Not only did I endorse all the stuff I love, I was able to create. Once again, it’s just the next logical step.”

Has he been taking notes off KISS’s extensive range of merchandising – will we, perhaps, see a Zakk Wylde coffin anytime soon?

“Actually, Dime [the late former Pantera guitarist Dimebag Darrell, Zakk’s best friend] – because Dime was such a huge KISS fan, Dime was [buried] in a KISS coffin. I’m just saying, he died, that was his band, he loved KISS. Like I said, if you’re a fan of the band – if there’s Led Zeppelin and Black Sabbath fine china and Tupperware, I’d buy it because I love the bands.”

And lest we forget, Elvis did it first – Graceland sells just about everything you would need to kit an entire house out, from furniture and curtains to cutlery and ornaments, all embossed with Elvis’ image.

“Exactly!” Wylde agrees. “It’s a good time and it’s all fun anyways, so who cares?”

Going right back to the start, Wylde first picked up a guitar around the age of 8, getting seriously into playing as he entered high school a few years later. He recalls the first moment when he fell in love with the way the instrument looks, feels and sounds.

“Yeah, without a doubt. When I saw my guitar teacher playing right in front of me, and he was playing Sabbath stuff, Zeppelin stuff. Blizzard of Ozz [Ozzy’s 1981 debut solo record] had just came out, so he was playing Crazy Train in front of me, and then he was playing some Van Halen. I was just completely mesmerized watching his hands, and just looking at the fret board, and looking at the guitar, and just going, ‘this is like the most interesting, coolest thing ever on the planet.’ At that moment, I was just like, ‘this is what I want to do with my life.’”

As someone who has flitted from one thing to another throughout my life, I find this unrelenting passion for staying on one path extremely heartening. He saw what he wanted from a young age and just shot that arrow forward and has stayed on that path his entire life. It’s really amazing to see someone with that much passion for one thing.

“For anything that you do, you have to have passion,” Wylde declares, “I remember when I played football, and I played sports: it was the same thing. You don’t show up to come into second place. We’re coming up to win a championship otherwise why show up? Why bother?

“You play to win and then you go home. It’s just like, we’re getting ready to tour. We’re going to be out the road, we’re going to go around the world in 26 days. The goal, the game plan is, like a bunch of navy seals, we’re going to get ready, we’re going to go whoop some ass, and then we’re coming home. That’s that. There is no other game plan. There is only one.”

Born Jeffrey Phillip Wielandt, Zakk doesn’t seem like the obvious choice for a nom de plume.

“It was Jeffrey for a while,” Wylde laughs, “then my girlfriend – my wife now, obviously – she’s like, ‘you know what would be a great name if we ever had kids – if we named them Zakk or something like that.’ I was just like, ‘that’s a cool name’ and I just nicked it right there!”

Wylde was twenty and a veteran of local New Jersey bands Stone Henge and Zyris when he heard that Ozzy Osbourne was searching for a replacement for lead guitarist Jake E Lee. Feeling up to the task, he sent in a demo tape – one of hundreds received by the singer. How much confidence did he have that he had the shit to get that job?

“First off, I’m like, a huge Sabbath fan,” he explains. “Then I’m a huge fan of Randy [Rhoads, guitarist with Ozzy’s first solo band], and Jake. To me that was my favourite team. If you were a kid growing up and your favourite team was Sydney Rugby and you have [pictures of] all the players on your walls, and you knew all the stats of all the guys and then you actually get drafted by them, that uniform isn’t just another uniform. You have so much pride that goes into that uniform, and a respect that you have for that uniform, and the team and the legacy and everything that’s behind it.

“When I was auditioning, there were other guys that were there. To them it was just a gig, they didn’t care. But I was completely blown away by it. I was just like, ‘yeah, but you get a chance to play with Ozzy, man.’ The legacy that goes before that, between Randy and Jake, to me that’s like sacred material. There were amazing players that were down there. It’s funny, I mean Ozzy said of all the boxes [of demo tapes and applications for the job] and everything that was in there, he said he looked at a picture of me – the only one that he saw – and he just goes, ‘look at this kid, he obviously loves Randy Rhoads.’ Then when he saw me at the audition he was just like, ‘have I met you before?’ and I was like, ‘no – unless you saw me out in the audience of the last show at the Spectrum.’ When he looked back on it he said, ‘no, that’s that kid that was in that picture, and I said yeah he must love Randy Rhoads.’ It’s funny, man.”

It’s amazing and that was the start of this awesome career. Wylde went on to make six studio albums with Osbourne over the next twenty years. How big an influence was Ozzy on him becoming a lead singer in his own right?

“He’s definitely one of my favourite singers for sure,” says Wylde. “His approach to melody and his voice is just so unique. Obviously, yeah without a doubt, Ozzy… and my favourite singers are probably Ozzy, Greg Allman, obviously Ray Charles is amazing, Bob Seger, I love his voice.

“Without a doubt all of those guys are all amazing, but Ozzy is just amazing as well, without a doubt. I love Neil Young too, and Elton John. As far as singing, when we’re doing covers and stuff like that, he would always be doing the singing and stuff like that. To me it’s just a lot of fun. Like you said, a lot of guys don’t enjoy doing it all, they’d just rather do one thing. I love the singing part. I love the playing. I also love writing lyrics. I love coming up with the melodies. To me coming up with the melodies is just as fun as writing the guitar solos because you’re constantly writing and creating. I love coming up with the designs on the guitar bodies, designing the amps, designing the cosmetics, how the amp is going to look. Designing the artwork with the band, the merchandise, the album covers. To me it’s just super interesting, all of it. The creating, that’s what it’s all about at the end of the day.”

And our time is up.

“I can’t wait to get down there with the rest of the fellas,” he says as we wrap up. “Looking forward to it. Tell the rest of our Australian Black Label family to stay strong, keep bleeding Black Label, and God bless. Take care, brother.”

Category: Interviews