Zakk Wylde’s life-story is the stuff Hollywood screenwriters dream of writing. Zakk Wylde went from being an unknown local musician to metal God, Ozzy Osbourne’s lead axe-slinger. Along the way, he managed to start Black Label Society, one of the most hard-rocking bands to ever blast out of a set of speakers. BLS’s seventh release MAFIA is the ultimate and finest testament to Wylde’s musical virtuosity.
Wylde’s tale begins at the age of eight when he quit his regimented piano lessons. The curriculum of playing “Mary Had A Little Lamb” over and over again just didn’t suit him. Instead of nursery rhymes, he sat down and taught himself the “Crocodile Rock.” As he entered high school, the kid who now only wanted to play line-backer on the football team realized he was too small for the position. Zakk Wylde, unlike many his age, took his lemon and made a shit-load of lemonade.
“I was at my coach’s house one day and saw a Les Paul on the wall. My coach’s son picked it up and began playing,” Wylde explains. “It was mind blowing to see someone do it in front of me. I was like ‘Holy Christ!’ I went home and practiced ten to twelve hours a day from the minute I got home from school to the minute I went to bed.”
Fortunately for all lovers of rock, the little guy from Jersey never stopped playing the thing. Upon graduating, Wylde saved up enough money to buy a Gibson Les Paul Custom (this guitar now resides in the Rock ‘n’ Roll Hall of Fame) and began gigging around Jersey.
Screenwriters pay attention: Wylde was shredding a club up one night in 1986 with his band Stone Henge, when a rock photographer offered to pass along a tape of him to Ozzy Osbourne and his manager-wife Sharon. Osbourne had recently lost his lead guitarist Randy Rhoads in a plane crash.
“I thought this guy’s out of his mind,” he says boisterously of the photographers’ offer. “But I was working at a gas station, so what did I have to lose? I was a huge Black Sabbath, Randy Rhoads and Ozzy fan so I sent them a tape demoing a couple of solos,” Zakk recounts with a huge grin. “Next thing I know I get a call from Sharon at my mom and dad’s house and was flown out to England and began writing with Ozzy! I was nineteen! It was fuckin’ nuts man!”
Zakk went on to co-write some of Ozzy’s best-selling and multi-platinum albums, including NO REST FOR THE WICKED, NO MORE TEARS and OZZMOSIS. He toured all around the world with Ozzy, playing his signature bulls-eye Les Paul, in
front of huge crowds and became a ferociously praised and accomplished musician, as well as one of the most widely known guitarists in the metal kingdom. In 2003, Guitar Player Magazine voted Zakk one of the Greatest Guitarist EVER. The hard-living axe-wielder has also won Guitar World’s “MVP” award numerous times and was recently voted by the magazine’s readers the biggest “Contemporary Metal Icon” alive.
In 1994, the guitar magazine cover star formed the southern-fried Pride & Glory. The kick-ass power-trio released a self-titled album before hanging it up. Four years later Zakk released his first and only solo album, BOOK OF SHADOWS. The album was a glimpse of what was soon to come: Black Label Society.
BLS (as they are also known) is how Zakk gets his rocks off when he’s not roaming around the globe with Ozzy. The band, as Zakk likes to say, is “pure fuckin’ brewtality!” and he’s not kidding. Black Label is rowdy, aggressive head-banging metal in its finest and most true form. After five studio releases, one live album and one DVD, BLS has sold in excess of a million records. As a result, branches of fans have formed all over the world, (known as Black Label Chapters); they exist solely to get together and rock out with the Society! “The chapters are a bunch of buddies hooking up together and hanging out. It’s like two Yankees fans running into each other in Seattle. They’ll slap each other on the back and say ‘I’m Joe, wanna get a drink?’” Wylde proudly explains. To all the BLS chapter members out there Wylde has one message: “Stay strong, brothers, and keep on bleeding Black fuckin’ Label!”
MAFIA, Black Label’s seventh album is a celebration of all things BLS. “Mafia is my family, my band, and the fans. But remember,” Wylde warns “you don’t want to fuck with the mafia, man”. “I look around,” he adds “and BLS is growing like one beautiful family.” The self-produced MAFIA contains songs such as the head-bashing, balls-to-the wall “Fire It Up.” The song is a hell-raiser, yet catchy like nothing BLS has ever laid down before. “I just knocked that one right out,” Zakk proudly boasts. “I don’t think it will be getting on Nickelodeon, but it’s so fuckin’ fun to play, man.”
From there we get to the album’s first single “Suicide Messiah,” a tour de force of fist throwing swagger coupled with an extra dose of “Black Label brewtality” thrown in to get the heads banging and the house stomping. Of the single Billboard wrote, “The first growls recall Sabbath classics ‘Iron Man’ and ‘Paranoid,’ but then Wylde gets down to business, producing a thick menacing dirge as he saws away on his axe.” Then we have “In This River,” a melancholy and beautiful ballad written before tragedy struck, but is now a heartfelt tribute to Wylde’s fallen friend and musical brother, Dimebag Darrell. The song finds Zakk on the piano he long ago taught himself how to play, grieving the loss of his closest friend. “It’s Dime’s song now. It didn’t start out that way, but it’s his ballad now,” the slinger musters up.
MAFIA offers up eleven other spoonfuls of menacing metal, but alas only leaves you craving more. Metal Edge’s review proclaims: “For any self-respecting metal fans out there who’ve yet to bear witness to the Black Label, consider MAFIA your initiation. Pay your respects and join the family - You’re long overdue, and it just doesn’t get any better than this.”
“With Black Label we all hang out and enjoy each other’s company. The only requirement to be in BLS is you can’t be an asshole and you got to be able to play your goddamn instrument.” The man who owns some seventy guitars takes that last rule very much to heart. “When I wake up I look forward to playing and practicing. I still practice every day, whether it’s for a couple of hours or forty-five minutes. It’s like I always say - you’ll always be forty-five minutes better than you were the day before.” He goes on, “The sky’s the limit. It’s endless, man. You got to stay hungry and keep trying hard. And you never disrespect the warriors who came before you,” Zakk announces at his most humble.
MAFIA finds Wylde joined by Nick Catanese (guitars), Craig Nunemacher (drums), and James Lomenzo (bass). “I love these guys,” he states. “We all hang out on the road. I could never be in a band if I didn’t like somebody. Life’s just too goddamned short for that shit,” he adds.
In addition to BLS’s five studio albums, and their one slamming live album, the band star in Boozed, Broozed, and Broken-Boned, their dynamic live DVD. Rollingstone.com on the show captured wrote, “There’s a lot of reasons to give one’s liver a serious workout…apparently three thousand Zakk Wylde fans share our opinion, as evidenced by their spectacular performance.”
Besides being a bona-fide rock ‘n’ roll institution of his own, Zakk Wylde can also list movie star on his resume. Wylde starred in 2001’s Rock Star featuring Mark Wahlberg and Jennifer Aniston. Naturally, Wylde played the lead guitarist in Wahlberg’s band, Steel Dragon. Black Label guitarist Nick Catanese also appeared in Rock Star as the guitar player in Steel Dragon’s rival band, Blood Pollution.
What many do not know about the man known for his awesome finger work on the fretboard and explosive personality is that he is a devoted family man. “Rock ‘n’ roll, are you fucking kidding me?” Wylde questions. “I’m the Al Bundy of rock ‘n’ roll - I’m married with children. But hey,” he adds, “I just want to play some music, whip some fucking ass, drink a little beer and hang out with the family. That’s all I need.”
When asked about MAFIA, Zakk Wylde is bound to crack a joke. “If you dig the Carpenters, you’re gonna like Mafia,” he smiles. “No seriously,” he says gravely, “Buy this album cause my kid’s need to eat and I got a humongous beer tab to pay off. Please pay this beer tab off for me!” Wylde blurts out, doubled over in a raucous laughter.
Did you Know this about Zakk Wylde?
Official Website: www.zakkwylde.com
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