BLACK LABEL SOCIETY Bassist Talks About WHITE LION Reunion, Recording With OZZY

BLACK LABEL SOCIETY bassist James Lomenzo recently spoke to SDMFWorldwide.com about his work with Zakk Wylde and his thoughts on a much-rumored WHITE LION reunion, among other topics. Several excerpts from the interview follow:

SDMFWorldwide.com: So just out of curiosity, I've heard you talk about Vito [Bratta, ex-WHITE LION guitarist] and Mike [Tramp, ex-WHITE LION singer]. What are your thoughts on the WHITE LION reunion?

James Lomenzo: "Yeah, I was hoping that it would work. Not just for me, I really couldn’t do it because we were already making plans with Zakk to come out here this summer… The problem was that Vito wouldn't do it, and I thought that was going to be really tough because when I played with Dave [Lee Roth] for the past four years, I ran into a lot of WHITE LION fans and I was really getting into the notion of doing it. It was really cool to meet them all and they all had the same question. 'It'd be great to see WHITE LION, what about it?' I was always saying, 'I’d be a part of it, you know if I weren't playing with Dave and we can get the other guys together.' But the one thing I realized is you really need to have Vito up there with Mike. You know? …And I know Vito just does not want to do it. He doesn't want to budge on it."

On being part of the early recording sessions for OZZY OSBOURNE's "Ozzmosis":

James Lomenzo: "We recorded that whole entire album, rehearsed it up — it was a great experience. Worked on the tunes out in Tahoe. Studio called Grammy's and then recorded the whole thing with the same guys that did 'No More Tears' and then Michael Wagener mixed it….

"I was sitting in the studio as Michael Wagener (who is a great friend of mine because we used to do all of the WHITE LION work together)…he was mixing it and I thought it was sounding stunning, you know? And the president of the company, it might have been Epic, walks in to the studio. I was there that very day as he listened to a few tunes. He kinda shook his head and he turned around to someone in the room and said, 'No, this isn’t it — this isn’t what I’m looking for.' Apparently what he wanted was for it to sound more like the grunge bands that were going on. So, you know, to my horror…not really — but as things turned around they ended up re-recording it using Geezer Butler and Dean Castronovo. They re-recorded the whole thing and I heard the album after it came out and my God, it's verbatim! But…there is some of my bass playing on there and I was delighted to hear it. There are some harmonic things on there. A lot of the stuff that Geezer did, and this isn't to besmirch him because he's my idol, you know, but he's playing a lot of the stuff I just played. I mean a lot of little turnarounds and stuff that I would do, he just kind of replaced it. I took that as a real compliment that he would even take the time to listen to it and to put the stuff in there."

Read James Lomenzo's entire interview with SDMFWorldwide.com at this location.