Wylde at Heart Unleash your inner guitar hero with Zakk Wylde’s show-stoppingriffs Photos & textby Jude Gold IF THE PHRASE “less is more” wer e a can of reissue and a cold bre w. Now, get ready to ex- b5 (Bb), which makes sever al appearances in this be e r , Zakk Wylde would crack it open against his p l o re his fiery ri f f s. lick. Use your 4th finger only to fret the high- skull, guzzle the contents, and then crush the est note, A. To get this example up to speed, try empty aluminum shell with one hand. Nex t , Pent-UpAggression looping it, as Wylde does when he’s prac t i c i n g . st a r ing menacingly at the crowd like a caged lion, “A lot of what I play is based on pentatonic (Notice that the last four pitches are identical the feroc i o u s gu i t a r ist would launch into a ca- s c a l e s,” explains Wy l d e, as he uses standard to the first four, which makes bar 2’s fourt h denza of bliste r ing blues licks, lightning-fast fi n g e r ing to fret the B minor pentatonic scale in beat a great place to restart the phrase.) single-note run s , apocalyptic diminished flurrie s , Ex . 1. The firew o r ks begin in Ex . 2, where Wyl d e Wylde demonstrates an even more as- and bone-crushing detuned passages—all de- applies a repeating six-note pattern to the scale tounding blues-inflected lick in Ex. 4, which li ve r ed through walls of Marshall full-stacks so using alternating pick strok e s . Once you get gains an edgy chromaticism from both the n3 hu g e , they’re probably visible from space. Wyl d e the moves down, try playing the sixteenth- (G#) and the juicy, sliding tritone (bar 2, an d of is a maximalist to the core, and ever y time the larg- notes as sex t u p l e t s —six notes per downbeat. If beat one). Pla y ed fast or sl o w, this tasty lead is er -than-life guitarist steps onstage, he proves yo u’ve noticed there is no tempo mark i n g , sonic gravy for the ears. co n c l u s i v ely that mo r eis , in fact, still more. th a t ’s simply because Wylde—as he does with Asked what it takes to rock tens of thou- almost all of the examples in this lesson—plays TheSecretWeapon sands of screaming metalheads, Wylde rep l i e s , this pattern as fast as is humanly possible. When Wylde is moving his extra-heavy Dun l o p “You gotta go out there and beat some ass.” “To get fast on guitar,” he advises, “you just Tortex pick at full throttle, a hummingbird’s And, twice a day, that’s exactly what he does at have to play everything a million times. It’s a wings seem slow by comparison. But when Ozzfest. First, he’ll play a rowdy set fronting his matter of repetition and practice. If you don’t you hear those blazing riffs pouring out of own band, Black Label Soc i e t y . Later, when dark- use it, you’ll lose it.” Wyl d e ’s signature Marshall heads, rea l i z e that ness falls, he’ll hit the stage again to deliver his sometimes the guitarist is employing a sneaky ex p l o s i v e guitar heroics with Ozzy Osb o u rn e . BlueFlames tr ick more common to Nashville pickers than Despite his over -the-top onstage persona, “Sometimes burning through scales sounds balls-to-the-wall metal mongers. Wylde is an inspiring player who has forged a too mechanical—like finger exerc i s e s,” ob- “I often throw in notes plucked by my pick- un i q u e , high-octane brand of lead guitar from serves Wylde.“That’s why I have always loved ing hand’s middle finger,” he reve a l s , playing Ex . metal, blues, classical, and even chicken pickin’. bluesy rock players like Frank Ma rino and 5 while slightly dampening the strings with His tremendous dedication to practicing has Robin Trower . To me, blues stuff sounds more the heel of his picking hand. “It’s a chicken yielded amazing dividends in the raw chops de- like music.” p i c k i n’ thing that allows you to skip stri n g s pa r tment. Let’s pretend the wild guitarist from To illustra t e, Wylde shifts the pentatonic without sacrificing speed. Her e, I’m flatpicking New Jersey has just invited you onto his tour box up to E minor and plays Ex. 3—one of his the open fifth string, hammering with my 2nd bus and handed you a gorgeous ’58 Les Pa u l fa vo r ite phras e s . The blue tinge comes from the f i n g e r, and plucking the open fourth stri n g with my middle finger. It’s a repeating pat- ClassicRiffs GeneralLee plays a vicious blues move where, once again, he 14th fret, which he slowly rel e a s e s , pulling off fr om one of his GHS signature series sets. Wit h te r n. You can also include fretted notes on the To practice this hybrid picking/plucking at- “I loved Randy Rhoads,” says Wylde of his leg- uses his picking hand’s middle finger to eliminate to the 12th fret. Next, he taps at the 21st fret with a string this fat, low power chords sound utterly f o u rth string [plays E x . 6]. Or, s t a rt with a tack, try looping the classical motif Wylde plays en d a r y predecessor in the Osb o u r ne guitar chair. st r ing skips. The double-stops in bar 2 are plucked the picking hand middle finger, gradually bend- br utal. Even if you don’t detune your guitar to plucked note and then pull off [plays Ex. 7].” in Ex . 9. In this phrase—which is inspired by the “Anybody from my generation and in my genre with the middle and ring (a) fingers. ing this note up a whole-step before pulling it play the B 5 in E x . 1 3, be sure to test-dri ve Things get even more exciting in E x . 8, Isaac Albéniz piece “Le ye n d a” — e ve r y other who says they didn’t is full of it. But having blond off to a pre-bent B that slowly drops to A. Wy l d e’s chunky strumming pattern. This is where Wylde switches from triplet sixteenth- note is a plucked, open B string. These open ha i r , a Les Paul, and being heavily influenced by Two-HandTerror one instance where he do e s n ’tuse alterna t in g notes to straight sixteenths. This head-turni n g notes function as upper pedal tones against the classical music, I didn’t want to be seen as a “I do play finger-t a p s ,” admits Wyl d e , “but that’s DeepIssues pick strok e s , opting instead for a meaty dow n - riff covers three strings and sounds like a true descending B Phrygian line. Randy clone. Ozzy told me, ‘Just be you r s e l f . ’ mostly when I’m playing stuff that Randy wrot e “I don’t use many crazy tunings,” explains Wyl d e , up-down-down picking sequence. k n u c k l e - b u s t e r, but is actually easy to play. “I like to try flamenco-sounding ideas, as But that’s hard to do when you don’t know who for solos like ‘Crazy Trai n ’ and ‘Flying High Again.’” “because I don’t want to drastically alter the It’s characteristic of Wylde’s steel-string play- well,” says Wylde, playing Ex.10. In the key of you are. Then I saw an Albert Lee video.” Int e re s t i n g l y , one of Wyl d e ’s bluesiest—and way the scales run on the fret b o a r d. Most often, OhSoloMío ing, which you can hear in solo acoustic pieces D minor, this triplet pattern includes several Le e ’s snappy twang and mind-boggling hy- sl ow e s t —p h r ases is the two-handed E mi n o r I simply lower my sixth string to D or B.” “It’s about seven minutes long,” says Wyl d e , de- on the Black Label Society albums 1919 Eter - middle-finger plucks. br id picking inspired Wylde to inject those sounds pentatonic bender in E x .1 2. He begins with a When dropping the low string a perf e c t s c ribing the length of the extended guitar ca- nal and Sonic Brew[Spitfire Records]. into his hard- r ocking solos. In E x .1 1, Wyl d e whole-step pre-bend on the third string at the f o u rth to B, Wylde uses an ultra-heavy .070 denza he takes during eve ry Os b o u rne set.