ZAKK WYLDE: 'OZZY Knows I'll Always Be There For Him'

On Track Magazine recently conducted an exclusive interview with BLACK LABEL SOCIETY mainman Zakk Wylde. A couple of excerpts from the chat follow:

On Track Magazine: In light of your success with BLACK LABEL, recently there was an announcement made that Ozzy is seeking a new guitar player to work on his next solo effort. He also stated that he knows you would be on board for anything that he does but he didn't want to pull you away from BLACK LABEL. What are your feelings on this?

Zakk: "Ozzy knows I'll always be there for him. What comes around goes around, 'cause I remember Ozzy, awhile ago when he was lookin' for a guitar player, he goes, 'Zakk, it's a nightmare.' When I first arrived on the scene I was comin' in at the end of the '80s and guitar players were a lot better, then the solos kinda went, but what's old is new again and what's new is old. I've just always figured that you just gotta know how to play your goddamned instrument, you know what I mean? As far as today goes there's a lot of potential within the rest of the BLACK LABEL chapters. There's a whole bunch of kids, and they're all like seventeen years old, eighteen years old, and they all play, like, ten hours a day and you love jammin' again, you know what I mean? When I got the job with Ozzy, there were actually some decent guitar players around, I just happened to fall through the cracks."

On Track Magazine: So are you gonna pursue writing with him and recording with him again?

Zakk: "Um, yeah, I mean the bottom line is, with Oz, he makes the calls, he's the boss, you know what I mean? Whenever he tells me to jump, I ask, 'How high?' With us it's real easy, Sharon [Osbourne] calls Barbara Ann, my wife, and goes, 'Tell the idiot to be down at rehearsals on Wednesday.' 'What time?' 'Tell him to be there at 1 o'clock.'"

On Track Magazine: I know that [Dimebag's] death has had a massive impact on anyone and everyone who knew who he was, but when I first heard the news of what happened, I was beyond shock. I immediately thought of you because that night in L.A. was the last memory I'd had of him there with you. Man, I just kinda stood back and I saw the love between you guys and it was something really heartfelt and it really did a number on me.

Zakk: "Without a doubt, man. It's like, 'In This River' video just came out the other night and every night when I play the song on stage, I gotta try not to cry every time I do it. No, it's crazy, the cop that actually ended up takin' that guy out came on the bus, really super cool guy, young kid too, man. He was the first one on the call to get there, they said there was a shooting goin' on in the club and he was the first one closest to it so he pulled in, just grabbed his 12-gauge and came into the club. He went behind the amps and he saw that dude shootin' and wavin' the gun at the crowd, re-loadin' his gun and then he was gonna shoot…., he had Kat [PANTERA/DAMAGEPLAN drum tech John 'Kat' Brooks] around the neck and he put the gun up near Kat's head and it was like one of those, 'Well you're either shootin' or you ain't,' and that's why he shot him. And then he went over to see if the dude was still down, he was done, and Kat climbed back up on the stage and took off, 'cause they both fell off the stage. But he just said, 'Yeah, it was f*cked up.' 'Cause he ran into the guy's mother — the guy who murdered Dime — he ran into the mother and the mother apologized and said, 'I don't know what happened. We didn't raise our son to be like that.' 'Cause its f*cked up for every family involved, you know what I mean? It'd be like you tellin' me, 'I can't believe my son murdered two people. Where did I go wrong?' As a parent, that's something you don't get over and then you gotta feel bad for the other family 'cause they lost one of their children. So it's just bad news all around."

Read the entire interview at OnTrackMagazine.com.