Interview with Zakk Wylde

Since February there has been a star-studded tour rolling through the US paying tribute to the man many say is the greatest guitarist who ever existed. It’s called Experience Hendrix and it features the likes of blues legend Buddy Guy, the soulful Jonny Lang, Kenny Wayne Shepherd and his gritty riffs and the metal madman known as Zakk Wylde, founding member of the rabble rousers Black Label Society and Ozzy Osbourne’s guitarist, among others. Before stops at The Hanover Theatre For The Performing Arts in Worcester, Massachusetts, on March 23 and at The Zeiterion Performing Arts Center the following night, I had a chat with Wylde about Hendrix’s influence on his career, getting punched in the face, playing a Hello Kitty guitar and the state of metal these days.

Rob Duguay: How has Hendrix influenced your musical career?

Zakk Wylde: You have to remember that aside from his performance and everything like that, the way he performed and his writing, how new everything really was with things like Marshall stacks and pedals. At the core of Jimi’s playing, obviously he’s a blues guitar player; everything is based in blues and around “Red House.” Then he took it from there with his writing, but I think he’ll always be the Jesus Christ and the messiah of the electric guitar for sure, no doubt.

RD: There’s a video of you lip syncing Adele’s “Hello” and someone punching you in the face. Did you come up with the idea for it and who’s doing the punching?

ZW: We always do these videos called the Black Label Fists of Fury. The whole thing is that we’ll make up a silly situation and one of us will get knocked out. I put this certain video on and it was when we were making the new record Book Of Shadows II, we were out on the back porch of the Black Vatican when we were mixing the record. I just said to our bassist John Deservio, “I’m gonna sing ‘Hello’ by Adele, knock me out, turn the music off and that’ll be enough of that.” We did it in one take and we all had a big laugh afterward.

There’s actually one we did after that where I’m singing again, John knocks me out and then he takes over and starts singing the chorus.

RD: A few weeks ago you played Black Sabbath’s “N.I.B.” on a Hello Kitty guitar on the internet. Was the guitar custom made or did you get it at a department store? Was it all planned out or did the people videotaping it give you that guitar?

ZW: The guys over at Loudwire put it together and they already had Mike Portnoy who used to be in Dream Theater and is now in The Winery Dogs on there with a Hello Kitty drum kit. They had Mike playing “YYZ” by Rush and all of this other crazy shit on that little drum kit. I guess they came up with the idea while we were doing promotion for the Book Of Shadows record and they said, ”Let’s get Zakk down here to play some tunes on a Hello Kitty guitar.” I just walked in there that day, they had the guitar there and they wanted me to play something so instead of being goofy with it I figured I would play a song that’s actually for real. If I played something for real it would be more beyond dumb with me throwing down on a Hello Kitty guitar. Along with me getting punched in the face that one came out ridiculous as well.

RD: Earlier this year the metal and rock world were shaken by the passing of Lemmy Kilmister from Motorhead. You were friends and you performed together a few times. If you can talk about one of your favorite memories of him from your time together what would it be?

ZW: Ozzy and Lemmy go back a while so the first time I met Lemmy was when we did the No More Tears tour and Lemmy was there for that. We hung out with Lemmy back then, drink and stuff like that. He was just cool, super sweet and a great human being. One thing you gotta commend him for is that he lived his life literally without anyone ever telling him what you gotta do, you gotta do this, you gotta do that. He was like, “No, I’ll do whatever I want to do and I’m not bothering anybody so just leave me the fuck alone.” You can’t ask for more than that, it really is the truth. Think about it, anybody first off telling you that you can’t do music or you can’t do anything you can be like “No, I’m gonna do music for a living.” Then they’ll say that you’re not going to make money doing that kind of music and then you’ll be like, “Well, I guess that’ll be too bad for me but why don’t you do fuck off because this is what I want to play, this is what I like playing and that’s that.” Then they’ll ask when are you going to start wearing normal clothes and when are you going to start wearing a suit and you’re like ”Never, I’m just going to wear my jeans, I’m going to wear my denim jacket and I’m gonna wear what I like wearing man.” Eventually Motorhead becomes successful and they were like, “This is what we do and that’s that. We’re steakhouse and if you don’t like steak then you should leave and go somewhere else.” It’s gotta be commended, Lemmy always did what he wanted to do and he liked drinking and doing his thing and if you didn’t like it just leave him the fuck alone.

If anything that should be Lemmy’s overall influence aside of music, [it’s] the positivity of his actual life force. I’m just like no kids, be like Uncle Lemmy in the regard that if somebody tells you that you can’t do something then just tell them to go fuck off. Whatever it is you do that makes you happy is why you’re here and don’t be an asshole. Just listen to Uncle Lemmy and if you can do that just do that.

RD: You’ve been talking about your upcoming solo album Book Of Shadows II that’s due out in April. It’s your second solo release. Is there any differences between what you do while making a solo record in the studio versus making a Black Label Society album or an album with Ozzy?

ZW: No, not to me, not at all. To me it’s all the same thing, you’re playing music. It’s just labeled a different thing. But with Ozzy, as far as the music goes, he’ll ask “Zakk, what you got?” and that’s my job. I’m the defensive coordinator, my job is to get the defense together and Ozzy is the head coach. It’s usually about what riffs I got or what piano stuff I got or what mellow stuff I got. Ozzy will pick what he likes and it’s just easy. You’re writing songs and you’re doing what you love doing so it’s not a chore. It’s like being married; when people say “Marriage is work” I say “Who the fuck wants that?” I don’t work at being friends with my friends, we’re just friends. They’re my buddies man, I love them and I enjoy hanging out with them. We don’t work at anything and we don’t see a counselor, if you need a counselor to be friends with your friends then you shouldn’t be friends with them anymore.

The whole thing is just that you sit and you write. I don’t usually ever have just bits and pieces where you have a beginning and you just put it aside for a little while. Usually if I pick up something whether if it’s “Autumn Changes” or any of the other stuff on the new record I just write the music from the beginning to the end with the verse, chorus, intro, outro, bridge, guitar solo and all of that. I just usually write from beginning to end.

RD: For promo photos for Book Of Shadows II there’s you holding an acoustic version of your trademark bullseye guitar. That design has been an iconic part of you as a musician. What’s the story behind the bullseye?

ZW: Obviously Eddie [Van Halen] had the stripes, Randy [Rhodes] had the polka dots, George Lynch had the tiger print, Warren DeMartini had the snakeskin guitar and everybody had a cool looking guitar that you identified them with. When I got the gig with Ozzy I wanted to come up with my own thing and I remember seeing the vertigo symbol that was in the Alfred Hitchcock movie and I thought it would be really cool to do a vertigo on the guitar. I remember asking my buddy Max to paint the guitar and I remember opening it up and it was a bullseye. It was the day of the photo shoot and I said, “Max, this is a bullseye bro and I was asking for the vertigo thing.” He was like, “Oops.” (laughs) That was it and I had to settle for the bullseye for the photo shoots and everything like that so that’s how that came about.

RD: Metal today is in a very interesting state with there being a lot of subgenres. What do you think of metal’s diversity these days? Do you think it’s becoming way too homogenized or do you appreciate all the different types of metal bands?

ZW: I think it’s great. Obviously everyone is playing what they love playing, they’re pulling all the influences like if they were chefs with pulling all their favorite tastes and flavors of foods from around the world that they dig and they’re using it for their restaurant. I think it’s awesome because it’s not just one thing, its bits of elements of everything just like Sabbath had elements of jazz in their songs. One of Tony Iommi’s favorite musicians was Barney Kessel and Barney is a legendary jazz guitar player. Same thing with Jimmy Page, he loved all the folk guitar players and everything like that and then he would incorporate that into Led Zeppelin. Also with Middle Eastern music and the Celtic stuff he would also throw in there and tons of blues stuff. Led Zeppelin was coming from a whole bunch of different places and the same thing with Sabbath with the tempo changes and everything like that. It’s always been there and that’s a healthy thing.

Grab tickets to Experience Hendrix at The Hanover Theatre For The Performing Arts in Worcester, MA on March 23: thehanovertheatre.org/experiencehendrix; Grab tickets to Experience Hendrix at The Zeiterion Performing Arts Center in New Bedford, Mass, on March 24: http://zeiterion.org/experience-hendrix; Experience Hendrix’s Website: experiencehendrixtour.com; Zakk Wylde’s Website: zakkwylde.com