Thorium Photography a eu la chance de rencontrer Zakk Wylde pour une entrevue d’une dizaine de minutes. Au menu, le déroulement de la tournée, la participation du batteur Chad Szalinger (Breaking Benjamin) au groupe, une discussion sur le rock n’ roll et les rock stars, le nouveau livre racontant les expériences de tournées de Wylde et la conciliation travail-famille d’un guitar god.

Thorium – So far, how goes the tour?

Zakk Wylde – The guys are cool, we only had to bail ’em out of jail twice now, and we’ve only done two shows. Beside of that they’re great fellas.

T – So, we’re in for a surprise?

ZW – Yeah, well, you know what I mean, they’re not involved in drugs or anything like that, they’re just kleptomaniacs and stuff like that. It’s just, it’s a disease and I have to keep making up excuses and  bailing ’em out But they’re good guys, you know… It’s a shame.

T – It’s been about a year since you started working with Breaking Benjamin’s drummer Chad Szeliga. Did that affect the way the band works?

ZW – The great thing and the unique thing about Black Label Society is, there are two prerequisites when you join the band : You have to know how to play your instrument and you can’t be a fucking douchebag, because I leave all the douchebaggery up to me, you know? (Laughs) I consume all of it for everybody! But, you know, it’d be like Ozz going, « Zakk, would you know any guitar players I could invite if something happens and you couldn’t do it? » and I’d be like,  I know a bunch of my buddies that are kickass guitar players that could fuckin’ fill in for these fucking two weeks, and he’s a cool guy and he’d be fucking flooring down like it’s nobody’s business. Good musicians hang out with good musicians, and all the guys who’ve ever played in Black Label were all unique and brought their own herbs and spices to the fuckin’ soup. I’m just saying, as a coach, what you do is you let the player be the player, that’s what makes them unique. If you have a running quarterback, you don’t make him into a pocket passer, that’s what he does! Right now, Chad has some family issues he has to take care of, right before we came out. I was like, « Dude, what the fuck are we gonna do? » So I asked Phil (The tour manager), « do you know any drummers? » And he was « Let me see if my buddy Jeff is working right now » Luckily Jeff was layin’ low at the house, so it was good job finding him at this moment. We flew Jeff out, and he’s been killing it, every night.

T-  You released an acoustic album last year called The Song Remains Not The Same, containing acoustic versions of songs from Order of The Black. Did the acoustic arrangements come naturally?

ZW- Yeah, it’s just, whenever we’re sitting in the studio, whenever we’re doing the heavy stuff and getting burnt on it, falling in the same riff patterns or chord progressions, going to certain spots, it’s like, dude, you know what, let’s just take a break from this and do the mellow shit for a little while, just to get away from riffs. And then, yeah, as soon as we get burnt out on the mellow stuff we get right back to the heavy stuff again. At the end of the night, I just had the lyrics laying around, and I used them as working lyrics and I’d be doing mellow versions of stuff from back in the day, like Stillborn, and I asked, why don’t we record this shit? Now, I got a recording studio so it’s not a matter of time and all that shit – like that ever mattered anyway back in the day when we were paying for everything.

T- You have southern rock that transpires in your music, and even released an album called Pride and Glory in that genre. Is southern rock something you want to indulge in again?

ZW – I still love it, I’m always gonna love The Allman Brothers, Skynyrd and all that. I just got something with Brian Tichy (Drummer for Whitesnake, Ozzy Osbourne, and recorded Pride And Glory) over at the Marshall 50th anniversary thing, and me, JD and Brian were doing that. Of course, we could do another Pride and Glory album if we wanted to, just go to the vatican  and knock out another P&G record. But we got so much shit on our plate right now it’s ridiculous. Once we get done with this tour, we’re gonna be doing on January 16th the Unblackened DVD in California.

T- You released a book this year called Bringing Metal To The Children, where you share life and tour experiences with the reader. How did the book come about?

ZW – How it happened it was just me and Eric (Hendrikx), sitting in a pub and laughing our balls off, talking about goofy ass shit, some « you’re not gonna fucking believe this one » or « You’re making this shit up! » stuff, and unfortunately no, I’m not fucking making any of it up. You just go, you have to be fucking kidding me, man. I was just laughing at how fucking ridiculous all that bullshit is and I go, we should just write a fucking book about that dumbass shit, we want to be laughing talking about how ridiculous it is. There is no rules in the music business, and that’s why you get this tremendous cast of characters, cartoon characters, because there are no job qualifications. If I’m a welder, I need to have a licence. In the music business, it’s « Have you managed a band before? » and it’s always « I’ve known them since fuckin’ high school. » Stuff like that.

T- All you need to be a rock star is a guitar and a record deal, it seems.

ZW – Pretty much. It is what it is, that’s why you get the cream of the crop though, falling through the cracks. But it’s also what makes it fun, that’s where you get all the crazy stories from.

T – You’ve been on the scene for 25 years. Did you feel it has changed in any way through that time?

ZW – No, I think you’re still gonna have the best bands making it, Metallica making it, Guns and Roses, Stone Temple Pilots, Soundgarden, Alice in chains… You’ll have those bands that just last and make it to the top because they’re really good! It’s been going on that way since Ozzy, the way we talk about it. Ozzy said for him, how it changed, he goes way back, and we started when it was us, Deep Purple, Jethro Tull, whatever. There was no MTV, no bullshit. The cream of the crop got signed. And then it got to the point, he said, where anyone that had long hair had a record deal. Back in the day you had to be pretty good, a good band. For Ozzy, that’s how it changed for him. I just think that rings true. If Guns And Roses came out today, it’d be just as succesful. Whether it’s as massive as it was, I still think they’d have success, y’know what I mean? Same thing with Metallica, if Metallica came out today, the baby Metallica with Ride The Lightning, they’re still gonna have succes because, it was good. I think all the bands that we love, whether it would be Led Zeppelin, Black Sabbath, AC DC, whatever, it would be the same. The only thing that changed, really, it’s for good and for bad, now with Youtube, the downloading and all that, the days of Appetite for Destruction or Back in Black are gone, but you could be 29 years old and instead of going « The dream is over, I gotta get a shitty job at the factory, and, fuck, I can’t play music anymore », you can just put your stuff up online, play gigs, still play music and make a living. That’s pretty cool.

T- With Ozzy, you were thrown quite young on the international success music scene. Did it change your views on music as an art?

ZQ – No. I’ll put it this way : Anybody that changes, when people go « Man, he changed ever since he got money », dude, the guy always an asshole, except now he’s got money and he’s famous, and he’s still an asshole!

T- He’s just a publicised asshole now.

ZW – Yeah! He was an asshole before, I knew the guy before he was famous he was a fucking jerkoff then, and now he’s just a jerkoff with a lot of money. I don’t believe that bullshit. I still love guitar, I still love music, Black Sabbath, Led Zeppelin, Elton John, Neil Young and all the music I loved when I was 14 years old, I still love it as much. I still love Randy Rhoades and Eddie Van Halen, none of that changed. Any of my buddies that is a real musician,they still love playing. Whether you’re playing Madison Square Garden or in front of 20 people at a coffee house. It’s just about the love of playing.

T – How do you conciliate the life of a rock n’ roll icon and the life of a father?

ZW – Easy. If I was a truck driver I’d be doing the same shit. If I had any other job, a normal 9 to 5, I’d come home and hang out with my family. I don’t think it’s any different because I’m doing what I love. As far as being away, it always equated to me as being like my father, he got up at 4:30 in the morning he’d be out of the house and not be back ’till seven at night. He’d work all day and by the time he’d got back at the house I’d be going to football practice or whatever, but my dad was always there for my little league games or my football games. He was always there for everything. It’s not like you’re spending quality time, my dad would get home and eat, watch some of the Yankees game, and he’s like, dude, I have to get up at 4:30 in the morning and he’s back to bed. Doing what I do for a living, we travel a lot, we’ve been on the road for two years but as a break in between there, when little Sabbath Paige was born, I had a chance to hang out with them for two months. It was not really a break, because even though we were not touring, there’s still a ton of Black Label shit going on every day, which is the way I love it. I got a chance to spend some time at home. Whatever what it is, you make it work. You divvy up your schedule, you make it happen. That’s how we roll in BLS, it’s like a military operation.

T- Well, that’s all I had for you.

ZW – Good, now get the fuck out of here. THAT’S ENOUGH !

The wide grin and handshake that followed were quite reassuring – The part where he tears our faces off only came later that night, at the show, with his trademark guitar solos.

Le grand sourire et la poignée de main de Zakk Wylde étaient plutôt rassurantes après ces paroles. La partie où il nous déchire en pièces est venue plus tard dans la soirée, lors de son spectacle au Metropolis, à grands coups des solos criants dont il a le secret. Vous pouvez retrouver le compte-rendu de la soirée ICI.

Auteur: Phil Mandeville

Photographe: Paul Blondé

Pour en savoir plus: Zakk Wylde, Black Label Society