BLACK LABEL SOCIETY's ZAKK WYLDE Talks About The Making Of 'Order Of The Black', Health Issues

Zakk Wylde (BLACK LABEL SOCIETY, OZZY OSBOURNE) took part in a live media teleconference on August 3 where he answered questions from a number of journalists — including Steven Rosen of Ultimate-Guitar.com — regarding the new BLACK LABEL SOCIETY album, "Order Of The Black". A few excerpts from the chat follow below (courtesy of Ultimate-Guitar.com).

(Note: Although the questions here are all attributed to Ultimate-Guitar.com, some of them were actually posed by some of the other members of press taking part in the media teleconference.)

Ultimate-Guitar.com: You just built a home studio — the Black Label Bunker. What does that mean to have your own recording studio and be able to spend all the time you wanted on the "Order of the Black" album?

Zakk: I remember telling Ozzy when he put the studio in [at Ozzy's house], I just go, "Ozz, could you imagine how much money you must have spent in studio time since the first BLACK SABBATH album to now? I mean you could have basically bought a small country with the amount of money you've probably spent." Break it down: if it's a $1,000 a day, you're in there for 80 days, it's $80,000 right there. You know what I mean? It's just like buying a house; it's not so much the mortgage payment, it's the down payment on the house. I think any young band startin' especially when they used to get big record advances or whatever, the best thing would have probably been to do: buy your own recording studio and just record your album in there and then you always have this recording studio forever. Any band, when you get a record deal, you sign a record deal and then you have to pay the studio and then you have to pay the guy that's gonna engineer the record or whoever the producer guy is. The next thing you know there's $250,000 gone that you coulda used to buy a studio. Ya know what I'm sayin'? I'm just sayin' that's always what the case is. Obviously having a studio is gonna save me a ton of money down the line. Makin' this record obviously bought the studio but I keep makin' records for the next 15, 20 years, the whole thing will have paid itself off already.

Ultimate-Guitar.com: What has it felt like to be able to devote all the time you wanted to dial in guitar sounds and stuff like that?

Zakk: Put it this way, I never had any time restrictions; I never recorded like that back in the day. Every BLACK LABEL album we've done or Ozzy record, we go in there [and] miking up my rig is pretty simple. It's just a JCM800 and I've done enough records now so I know what types of mics to use and EQ settings and everything like that. When I want to get clean guitar tones, I use my Roland Jazz Chorus or I'll take my Marshall and dial it in or whatever or just like a little combo or something like that. I've been doing it long enough where you know what clean guitar tones you want to get and nice, warm, clean guitar sounds and acoustic or 12-Danelectro or whatever. That was never a problem in the past; we wouldn't take a week to get drum sounds. That's just insanity [and] obviously the engineer doesn't know what the hell he's doing. You know what I mean? It shouldn't take that long. I remember reading with Ozzy when they were doing "Bark at the Moon", or not "Bark at the Moon", "Ultimate Sin", Jake E. Lee was sayin', I remember readin' an article, he said, "Oh, yeah, it took us like four days to get a guitar tone." I mean that's insane and that's with Ron Nevison who worked with LED ZEPPELIN. Four days to get a guitar tone? I mean, are you guys smokin' crack? You take 10 minutes to get the guitar sound and then the rest of the whole day is just getting loaded? I don't understand it. I mean four days; give me a break, man. But I mean the whole thing is ridiculous. I'd end up breakin' somebody's legs if it took me four days to get me a guitar tone. You know what I mean? I never look at it that way. But havin' the Bunker, no, it's definitely great, man. Zack Fagan, who made Ozzy's studio, his company Under the Wire, they made the Bunker and put it this way: it's road-tested now. 'Cause originally and usually when you have the studio you're gonna need another place to mix or whatever. We recorded and I brought it to another place to mix which got a big ol' SSL board, the whole nine yards and all the bells and whistles, and the mixes from the studio like smoked it. So now I can actually make the donuts in here, actually wrap 'em up, box 'em, and send 'em out. Know what I mean? It's one-stop shoppin' now. So I mean I could actually do everything in the Bunker so I'm completely stoked.

Ultimate-Guitar.com: Craig Nunenmacher is gone and has been replaced by new drummer Will Hunt. What is that about?

Zakk: With Craigo, he just said, he was like, "Zakk, unless we're tourin' year-round, I've gotta move on and start doin' some other thing. Either getting into the medical field or whatever." I said, "Alright, well, Craig, you know you always have a home here." Like I said nobody's ever been fired or quit BLACK LABEL. If you can make more money playin' drums with Celine Dion, I'm not gonna stop ya from doin' that. You can always come back to BLACK LABEL; you always got a gig here. You know what I'm sayin'? That's the beautiful thing about BLACK LABEL, you know what I mean? You could always come and go, do whatever, and that's the beautiful thing about it.

Ultimate-Guitar.com: What has it been like working with Will Hunt on drums?

Zakk: I'm at this point in my career where we don't have to like set up 50,000 drum auditions and go through tapes. The whole thing is Will was out on the road on the Pedal to the Metal Tour and he was jammin' with STATIC-X so we all hung out; we all hang out with each other. When Craigo told me, he said, "Zakky, I'm not gonna be able to keep rollin' on this thing anymore" so the first thing I did was I spoke with Nick and then I said, "Dude, what's Will doin'? See if he's doin' anything with EVANESCENCE or he's doin' the STATIC-X thing. See what his status is." And we talked with Will and he said, "Nah, Zakk, I'm just chillin' out right now. I got nothin' going on." He goes, "Yeah, I'll come out, we'll make a record" and he goes, "We'll take it from there. If I'm gonna be jammin' with EVANESCENCE again." I said, "Well, dude, we'd love to have you if you want to do the record and do the tour you're more than welcome to do that." So Will just came out and knocked the record out and now he's doin' the tour so it's game on. Will is awesome. The two requisites to be in BLACK LABEL, to be in the band: can't be an asshole and you have to know how to play your instrument. So Will fits the job description fine. So you know, everything is killer, man; Will is awesome.

Ultimate-Guitar.com: Back in the day you'd always be working on BLACK LABEL and Ozzy records. Now that you just have BLS to think about is it different knowing you can let it all fly without having to hold anything back musically for an Ozzy record down the road?

Zakk: No, you know why? The only thing that I ever said, "Well, I'll definitely use this and I'm not gonna bring this to the Boss" was when I was doing the PRIDE & GLORY stuff. You know what I mean? You're not gonna have banjos and mandolins flyin' around on an Ozzy record you know what I mean? So it was just like if I had all those PRIDE & GLORY ideas, I would just leave those to themselves. No, whenever I would go in and write an Ozzy record, it was just like I'd write the riffs just like I was gonna write a BLACK LABEL album. It's gotta be a metal or a rock riff, a hard rock riff. I never approach it that way: I'm gonna save this for BLACK LABEL. It's like Jimmy Page if they woulda wrote "Stairway to Heaven" on the first album, they would have put it on the first album. It's like, "Oh, well save this one for down the line." I mean you know it's like, "Dude, you got it now. We might die in a bizarre gardening accident later on today. I mean, just friggin' record the thing."

Ultimate-Guitar.com: Is there any meaning behind the title of the new album: "Order of the Black"?

Zakk: Nah, I just thought that would be a cool [title.] I read a lot of stuff. I'm Catholic and everything but I just like religion and Crowley [and] all types of stuff. You know, whether it's covens, lodges, the order and with BLACK LABEL it has to be the Order of the Black and then the Black Label Order and everything like that. Because BLACK LABEL is just one gigantic family. That's why I always say, "We don't have fans, we have fams." The fam club. As regards to that, it's just like, "The Order?" I said, "Yeah, we'll just name it almost like a religious movement." On the one album, "Mafia", it was just one gigantic family.

Ultimate-Guitar.com: How does the songwriting process work for you?

Zakk: It's always gotta be the riff, man. I don't know how you come up with a melody without [a riff.] I mean I could sing a melody off the top of my head. But I'm sure when Paul McCartney wrote "Yesterday" or "Long and Winding Road", usually you're sittin' because you're playing behind a piano or something and then the chords will inspire you to sing a melody over it. So usually with me when I'm writin' on a piano or an acoustic guitar or we're gonna do somethin' heavy, the riff will dictate kinda what the melody's gonna be over it. Whether I'm gonna sing the riff or how Ozz always had his trademark things whether he was gonna sing a riff on certain ones and other ones he'd just do a polyrhythm against the riff or whatever. The sky's the limit. For me it's always usually the music first and then a melody and then I'll start singin' or somethin' like that. Or else I'll see somethin' like a cool line goin' to see a movie or I see a title in the newspaper. And I go, "Man, that would be a great name for a song." I'll write it down and then later on down the road it'll be like, "Yeah, I wanna use that as a title for a song." And then that'll be like a chorus or whatever and I'll write the song about that.

Ultimate-Guitar.com: You went through some health scares a while ago. How are you feeling?

Zakk: The longest I ever went [without] drinking was if we had a contest and I went like three months when I was doing the vocals for "Blessed Hellride". And then that last day of the third month, we all went out and got tanked. With the blood clots, the back of my leg was freakin' killin' me. I was puttin' ice on it, the whole nine yards. I was just like, "What the hell did I do to my leg?" We were tryin' to troubleshoot it: maybe we went out drinkin', hit an Irish pub, and I was doin' like David Lee Roth splits off the bar top or something. I don't know what ridiculous thing we were doing. When we're onstage doing the BLACK LABEL gigs, I'm strapped up with that microphone. It's not like with an Ozzy gig where I'm jumping off of things or whatever. When I got the ultrasound, the doctor was just like, "Yeah, Zakk, you got like three blood clots." I was like, "How the hell did I get these things?" And he was just like, "Well, Zakk, do you travel much?" And I said, "Well, yeah, I'm a musician." And I said we're either in the submarine, the tour bus, or we're going air force or otherwise flying planes. And he just goes, "Well, Zakk, usually truck drivers will get it or airplane pilots." I go, "Why because they're sitting around? For that matter people working on a laptop, sittin' there for 12 hours a day on a laptop doing that for a living, a graphic artist or something." And he goes, "Yeah, well, pretty much. Zakk, if you're just stationary in one position like that that's the reason why these things happen." Anyways basically all I was taking were these coumadin pills because he said your body has to break 'em down. It's not like havin' a toothache where you just go and you get a root canal and you're good to go. He said that it's not like that. He said, "Zakk, your body physically has to break it down." As far as the alcohol went, he was just like, "Well, Zakk, you gonna be on board?"Then he goes, "Look at it this way: you don't drink like one or two beers and be watchin' 'Monday Night Football' with the guys or nothing like that? Or you're watching the Super Bowl?" I go, "No, probably not one or two beers." He was just like, "Alright, you could be out watching a fight at Hooters with the guys. And Zakk, if you guys are berzerkin' and you're like hammering 'em down like it's nobody's business, between the blood thinners and the alcohol which is a blood thinner, you'll just start spillin' over, bleedin' out inside. Literally, you'll be bleedin' out of your eyes, your mouth, you're done, dude." And I go, "So it's safe to say the pub is closed for Zakk Wylde." And he goes, "Yeah, pretty much, jackass." Some of these guys were asking me, they were like, "Well good for you, brother, well you're with the 12-step program?" I go, "No, the BLACK LABEL one-step: that's it, you're done. OK?" I don't need to spend $40,000 on some guy telling me that I shouldn't be drinkin'. The doctor told me, "That's it; you're done." You just quit; I don't know what to tell you. How'd you learn how to play "Stairway to Heaven"? You practice. I don't know what to tell you — I'll show you how to play the chords, you've got to put in the time. It's that easy. That's why in BLACK LABEL the colors are black and white. The gray issue? Yeah, there's a lot of gray issues but the only thing that anyone cares about is what happens from point A and the final result. So there you go. You know what I mean? As far as do I miss like drinkin' with the guys? I still go to pubs and I still hang out 'cause I like the whole social thing and just like chillin' and getting away from the whole music thing and the biz part of everything. Just to go out and hang out with my buddies and talk about anything that's going on in the news, sports or anything.

Read the entire interview from Ultimate-Guitar.com.