ZAKK WYLDE Would Be 'Beyond Honored' To Take Part In PANTERA Reunion

PureGrainAudio's Mitch Lafon conducted an interview with Zakk Wylde (BLACK LABEL SOCIETY, OZZY OSBOURNE) on October 20 at Le Métropolis in Montreal, Quebec, Canada. You can now watch the chat below.

Asked about a hypothetical PANTERA reunion with him filling in for the late "Dimebag" Darrell Abbott on guitar, Zakk said, "I'm friends with all the [former PANTERA members]. Phil [Anselmo, former PANTERA singer] called me up when they did that 'Metal Masters' thing. [A guy] who does security with us, he came over and said, 'Phil just wanted to say 'Hey.' He wanted to give you a call.' So I said, 'Yeah, tell Phil to call me whenever he wants.' So I got on the phone with Phil and I was just shooting the shit with him. He goes, 'Zakk, everyone thinks there's a rift [between us].' I said, 'Phil, I get along with everybody.' He said, 'I wish I could talk with Vin [former PANTERA drummer and Dimebag's brother, Vinnie Paul Abbott]' and this and that. So I said, 'Dude, just pour your heart out and talk to him.'"

He added, "It's up to the guys [if they ever want to play together again]. Put it this way: If they were, like, 'We're gonna do this and they asked me to play Dime's guitar parts, I'd be honored. I was a pallbearer for him, so he was my brother, man. And I know if he was on the side of the stage watching me play, he'd be laughing his balls off — that's just a fact. He'd go, 'Hey, jackass, you missed a couple of notes over here. You botched this one up,' or whatever. He'd love every second of it. But, of course, I'd be beyond honored to do that; why wouldn't I? But that's a call the guys [have to] make."

BLACK LABEL SOCIETY's long-talked-about "Unblackened" DVD, which was previously scheduled to be filmed in late August at The Mayan in Los Angeles, California, will now be shot in January. The set is expected to contain stripped-down versions of some of the band's most popular cuts. "We're gonna do the whole thing with a four-piece string section, a pedal steel guy, and I'm gonna have some of my musician buddies sit in on some of the songs and stuff like that," Wylde said a few months ago. "We're gonna have two solid weeks of rehearsal and then we're gonna knock this thing out. [It will be an] acoustic/electric type of thing. Kinda like how the Christmas record is or like how we did 'The Song Remains Not The Same' where you've got an acoustic and then you can put a rippin' solo something. So I'll still have the Marshalls going with the acoustic stuff. It'd be almost kinda like if PINK FLOYD was doing an unplugged thing and they did 'Comfortably Numb' but Dave [Gilmour] will be sitting down but he'll still rip that solo out. It'll still be electric and then we’ll have the string section behind it and the whole band and it'll be killer."

BLACK LABEL SOCIETY's "The Song Remains Not The Same" sold around 12,000 copies in the United States in its first week of release to land at position No. 41 on The Billboard 200 chart. Released on May 10, 2011 via Entertainment One Music, the offering featured unplugged versions of material from BLACK LABEL SOCIETY's latest album, "Order Of The Black", as well as additional material recorded during the "Order Of The Black" sessions. "The Song Remains Not The Same" was conceived, created and compiled by Wylde himself and the title is, of course, a nod to one of Wylde's favorite bands, LED ZEPPELIN.

"Order Of The Black" was released in North America in August 2010 via E1 Music. The CD featured four unique covers designed by Zakk Wylde himself — one for each territory: North America, Europe, Asia and Australia/New Zealand.