ZAKK WYLDE On His 1995 Jams With GUNS N' ROSES: 'We Had A Good Time' But 'Nothing Was Ever Materializing'

During an appearance on the latest episode of the Go With Elmo Lovano podcast, Zakk Wylde once again explained why he did not end up joining GUNS N' ROSES in the mid-1990s despite being one of the guitarists considered for the job. Wylde, who famously auditioned for GUNS N' ROSES in 1995, said that the entire thing took place while he was working on an Ozzy Osbourne album. He said (as transcribed by BLABBERMOUTH.NET): "We were working on 'Ozzmosis' at the time in New York City in Paris, with Ozz. I knew Slash [GUNS N' ROSES guitarist], and I knew Duff [McKagan, GUNS N' ROSES bassist] and Steven [Adler, GUNS N' ROSES drummer]. I had never met Axl [Rose, GUNS N' ROSES singer]. I had never met Izzy [Stradlin, GUNS N' ROSES guitarist]. So I didn't know any of the guys. Axl called me up the one day and it was just, like, 'Oh, Zakk.' We were talking about guitar players, 'cause at the time, Gilby [Clarke, GUNS N' ROSES guitarist] — who I'm buddies with now — but Gilby had left, and they were looking for another guitar player. So they were just throwing names out there of guys they know. 'Bro, do you know Zakk? or whatever. And Slash was, like, 'Yeah, I'm friends with Zakk,' or whatever. And Axl was, like, 'Let me just call Zakk up and see if he wants to come down and jam or whatever.' So I was, like, 'Yeah, sure. No problem, man.' We came down and jammed for a bit, and I think we demoed a couple of ideas over at Duff's house on his his portable home-studio type thing. And then we all hung out together. And then in the room one day, it was Matt [Sorum, GUNS N' ROSES drummer], Slash, Duff, Axl, me, and Dizzy [Reed, GUNS N' ROSES keyboardist] was down there and all the guys. And we were just hanging out, and we had a good time. But nothing was ever materializing out of everything. And then me playing with Ozz. Ozz was, like, 'Zakk, are you gonna jam with the fellas or are you gonna jam with me?' I mean, nowadays, you just make it work, 'cause I'm playing with PANTERA celebration, you got BLACK LABEL [SOCIETY], ZAKK SABBATH. If I do 'Experience Hendrix', I go out and do that. And 'Generation Axe' with Steve Vai and Nuno [Bettencourt] and Yngwie [Malmsteen] and Tosin [Abasi], when we got together and did that. When there's a gap in time and there you go, 'Yeah, let's do it in May or whatever. I'm not doing anything then. We'll knock it out then.' But then it was kind of, like, 'Bro, you gotta do one or the…' — not 'one or the other' kind of thing. But it was just, like, 'Well, let's see if we can make this thing work' or whatever. But Ozz was, like, 'Zakk, I can't be waiting around to see what's gonna happen here. I gotta make a move and I gotta get somebody else.' So then that's when Ozz got Joe Holmes in the band. And Joe is amazing, and I'm buddies with Joe. But, yeah, Ozz went and did that. And then so Ozz had Joe. They went out and toured behind the record. Then nothing was happening with the GN'R thing. But I did [the 1996 solo album] 'Book Of Shadows' after that, because I was just writing mellow stuff all the time. 'Cause like after we got done doing the 'Ozzmosis' sessions, I'd go over to this place called Brew's, and in the jukebox they had like old [THE ROLLING] STONES records, CREEDENCE [CLEARWATER REVIVAL], EAGLES, THE BAND and just like all this stuff in the jukebox, Elton John — everything like that. I mean, basic classic rock — BAD COMPANY, everything like that. So I would just go there, drinking over there till like 7:00 in the morning every night, after we got done jamming. And that was in New York City. So then I'd go back to the room and start writing songs, Neil Young, whatever. And then I had all those acoustic things, and I ended up recording that 'Book Of Shadows' record after that. And then after that, we toured that. Around '98, I was just, like, 'Well, I'm not ready to be a singer-songwriter guy and sitting in a chair. I still wanna do some of the heavy stuff.' So that's when BLACK LABEL was born. So I was, like, 'All right, well, then I'm gonna do this.' And then the rest is history. Here we are 30 years later, almost."

Zakk previously said that he is "still friends" with all the members of GUNS N' ROSES. "We've opened up for them — BLACK LABEL has opened up — and then with the 'Book Of Shadows' stuff, we opened up for GUNS N' ROSES at an Arizona stadium. So I'm still buddies with all the guys, and everything is good, man."

Asked what a Slash/Wylde combo in GUNS N' ROSES would have sounded like, Zakk told Gibson.com in a 2015 interview: "It sounded like the riffs I write and the way I write, mixed in with the way the guys write, you know what I mean?! It would have been like… When I was jamming with Slash and all the guys, even if I'm in the band, there's only one guy that's playing the solos to 'November Rain', 'Sweet Child O' Mine' and all those classic songs. I'm not going to do anything there. But the future stuff that we would have been writing, it would have been cool! Because I love Slash's playing and I'm buddies with him. It would have been cool, but with those guys, there was nothing happening, so we were jamming, but it wasn't going anywhere."

Last year, Wylde told "The Magnificent Others With Billy Corgan" podcast that he and the GUNS N' ROSES guys met at a rehearsal space and started "jamming and noodling ideas". He also recalled they went as far as "recording a couple of riffs", one of which later surfaced on a BLACK LABEL SOCIETY LP.

"Well, one of them was 'The Rose Petalled Garden' that ended up on the first BLACK LABEL album [1998's 'Sonic Brew']," Wylde told AL.com when asked about the material that came from his jams with GUNS. "And then I'm trying to think … It was more in that vein of that kind of stuff. Kind of chunky. But 'Rose Petalled Garden' was one of the ones that we had during that session that never made it, so I was just like, 'I'll put lyrics to it.'"

In a 2000 interview with Rolling Stone, Zakk said that things between him and GUNS N' ROSES didn't quite develop in the way he hoped.

"There were never any melodies," Wylde recalled. "There were never any lyrics. I'd say [to Axl], 'Dude, did you come up with any lyrics yet?' And he's just like, 'Dude, I got people suing me right now'," apparently a reference to Rose's 1994 separate legal troubles with ex-wife Erin Everly and former girlfriend Stephanie Seymour.

In his 2011 autobiography, Duff reflected on Wylde's brief involvement with GUNS, writing: "[Zakk] brought energy and enthusiasm that was lacking within GUNS at the time. 'We can build on the legacy,' he said excitedly. 'We can make something great. Listen to this.' He saw a piano against the wall and sat down and elegantly played it. I had no idea he could play piano at all, much less like this.

"We recorded a few demos with him, but nothing panned out," Duff added.