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Zakk Wylde



Black Label Society – more than just a band



Prologue
Life of Jeffrey Phillip Wielandt, otherwise known as Zakk Wylde, is a dream of any boy picking up his guitar for the first time and praying to the gods of rock’n’roll. Brought up and nurtured in the world of show-biz by none other than the Prince of Fucking Darkness himself – Ozzy Osbourne, Wylde is rightfully considered to be a guitar legend. Becoming a part of Ozzy’s solo project in his 20’s a few decades later Zakk still diligently works on all of his projects, be it his own band Black Label Society, a book, a movie script or anything else out of his endless stream of ideas. Not so long ago he had to leave his place by Ozzy’s side on stage, but Zakk doesn’t blame anybody for this. Instead of sitting and reminiscing the good times Wylde went on tour with Black Label Society in support of the band’s recent release The Order of the Black.
Zakk Wylde
La
Zakk Wylde
st year you released a new album “The Order of The Black”, tell us more about the recording process?

Zakk: It was written, recorded, mixed and mastered in 94 days. Just like with all the other Black Label albums, it didn’t take us six months to record a record, it never does. You just go in; you knock it out and call it a day. That’s about it.

I heard you recorded it at your own new studio.

Zakk: Yeah, at the Black Vatican. We recorded the new album at the new home studio, everything is there, it’s fantastic. We can actually make the donuts there, box them up and ship ‘em out.

The song that caught my attention the most on the album was “Chupacabra”, what’s with all t
Zakk Wylde
he flamenco stuff?

Zakk: Oh the little guitar thing? It’s just my little ode to Eddie Van Halen’s “Spanish Fly”, an ode to the guitarists that I love.

Do you usually prepare material for the new album between the recording cycles or do you go to the studio completely empty and start writing from the scratch?

Zakk: Yeah we usually go with nothing. I might write some mellow stuff, while we’re out on the road, piano thing or something on the acoustic guitar, but as far as the riffs go… Once we are out on the road, we’re in the show-mode, it’s not up to writing. So when we get home, get a little bit of a break and then it’s time to start writing again, I’ll be in the studio, I’ll just sta
Zakk Wylde
rt jamming on some riffs. Music is always the music first, then a melody and then I’ll start coming up with some lyrics. When it comes to song titles, I might see something that I read and go “oh my, cool title for a song”. Once you get the subject matter, what you’re singing about, then you can take it from there.

You got your own label now – Panworkz…

Zakk: Yeah, we’re gonna sign anything, it could be anything from a band like Guns ‘N’ Roses, a young bunch of kids or whatever, to Sarah McLachlan, it doesn’t matter. If I’m sitting in a bar some day and I see some girl sitting behind a piano and she’s amazing, I’d sign her, why not.

Is it still a part of E1 Records?

Zak
Zakk Wylde
k: Yeah, it’s a part of E1. Me and Scotty who is the main guy over at E1, me and him want to find some talent that we could use, we’ll sign them and then obviously I could produce it and then bring them to the Black Vatican and make the record.

You said that Black Label is bigger than a band, it’s a mentality. What kind of mentality is it?

Zakk: A very confused mentality (laughter). It’s its own religion, a religion of confusion. Nobody really knows what’s going on, so this way everybody’s happy. Black Label is not 24/7, it’s 25/8, 366 days a year and you know - suicide is not an option. Life’s a pain in the ass, but that’s part of it. You just have General-Patton-up and you got Black-Label-up and y
Zakk Wylde
ou just get through the day.

There were some recent changes in BLS line up and now you’ve got Johnny Kelly on drums, so how is that going?

Zakk: There’s another Black Label mentality: if we got a flat tire - fix the tire and keep rolling. Will had some commitments that he had made to Evanescence, so he did a right thing. You make a commitment, you go do it and then knock it out. We gave John a call. Within the music community everybody knows everybody, so I don’t have to sit around and audition musicians, you know who all the guys are. So we just called John up and go “John, what are you doing? You wanna come out for a month and a half or something like that?” and he was “Yeah, no problem, give me
Zakk Wylde
the tunes, I’ll learn the songs”. So it’s that easy.

Can you give me an insight on your upcoming book “Bringing Metal to the Children”?

Zakk: It’s pretty ridiculous actually, just like everything else that’s Black Label. You know, me and my buddy Eric who’s working on the book right now. I was just sitting around talking about goofy, ridiculous stories about this business, shit that has happened. Whenever this ridiculous stuff happens, I never get pissed off or anything, I just laugh and I go “that’s another one for the book”. The funny thing is that people were saying “Man, did you make up these stories?” and I said “No, the sad part is I didn’t make up any of these stories”. Even when I was like
Zakk Wylde
15 years old, what you think is the music business and how it’s supposed to be and then you have reality. And then you just look at the comedy in between it. So that’s what the book is all about. It just tells about being on the road and just the music business in general. Because the beautiful thing about the music business is that you don’t have to have a degree in anything to be in the music business: to be a manager, to be an agent, to be a lead singer, nothing. You don’t have to have any qualifications what so ever, so that’s the reason why you get all this cast of characters that make up the whole industry. But that’s the beauty of it.

When you were filming the “Overlord” video, was it hard not to laugh the
Zakk Wylde
whole time when you were shooting it?

Zakk: Oh we were cracking up the whole time. The whole day everybody was crying laughing. The way that came about us doing this, I said I was just tired of making another video of me playing the guitar. I said no instruments at all in the video and let’s just do the most stupid, ridiculous video possible. I’m sure that’s the first opinion that will be coming out.

What would you say was the most important thing you learned during the years you’ve spent with Ozzy?

Zakk: I was blessed with the fact that I had my father and I have Ozzy, both of them have certain work ethics, more or less they just led by example, they didn’t have to tell you what to d
Zakk Wylde
o, they just did it.

I heard you are working on a collaboration with William Shatner…

Zakk: Oh, the William Shatner thing. I love Star Trek. The funny thing is that just between Ozzy and William Shatner that’s my whole childhood right there: Black Sabbath records and Star Trek. The running joke was that we were saying “now very few people can say ‘I played with the Prince of Darkness and I also jammed with the greatest star fleet commander of all time’”. It’s funny. He’s a really super cool guy

Have you played any of your songs in Guitar Hero?

Zakk: I’ve actually played it before, my kids kick my ass at it all the time. But then I bust their balls and say “Well pick up the real guitar!” It’s a great game though. I think it’s awesome the fact that thing will probably spawn off the next Randy Rhoads or Eddy Van Halen or Dimebag Darrell, Jimmy Hendrix.

Nowadays a lot of musicians use various social networks to interact with their fans. You are on Twitter, for example. In your opinion, what kind of changes such interactive communication brought into the relationship between the artists and the fans?

Zakk: I think it’s great. If back in the days I was able to tweet to Randy Rhoads or Jimmy Page, I’d be like “Oh my god!” It’s also a great way to keep in touch with the Black Label family. I could be out in California and keeping in touch with somebody over here in Finland, just right there. I think it’s awesome.

You have a pretty impressive beard. Does it get any special treatment?

Zakk: (laughter) Yeah, when I want to point at things, it’s a pointer now (picks up the beard and starts pointing at things – auth.). Here’s your recorder, these are my vitamins over there. The funny thing is that my son Hendrix who is 8 now, he’s never seen me without facial hair. He only saw me having a beard. I ended up growing it just because I got tired of shaving every day. At first we did it just as a joke, to see who can grow the stupidest beard and I am still the only jackass that still has it. I don’t know if I ever shave it off or not.

Does it ever get stuck anywhere?

Zakk: Well every now and then it gets stuck in the strings, but it hasn’t got stuck in my wife’s eye or anything or choke her when we were making love, if that’s what you wanna call it (laughter).

Interview: Tanja Caciur
29 èþí 2011
the End


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