FAR BEYOND DRIVEN
IT’S BEEN A staggering 31 years since a 20-year-old Zakk Wylde exploded onto the rock scene as Ozzy Osbourne’s newest axeman in 1988. Since then, Zakk has become one of the hardest-working guitarists out there, in terms of recording and touring. He’s justifiably highly respected by the public, press and his peers and remains a popular cover-story artist for rock and guitar publications all over the globe. Hell, Zakk’s image has adorned the cover of Guitar World alone some 13 times! Not too shabby! Two thousand nineteen marks the 20th anniversary of Zakk’s beloved creation, Black Label Society. To celebrate this landmark, BLS released their 10th studio album, Grimmest Hits, earlier this year.
After all the well-earned coverage Zakk has received in the pages of GW over the past three decades, his fascinating career path is well known. And thanks to a number of “Private Lesson” features, his extremely popular “Brewtality” monthly columns and a much-lauded “Boot Camp” cover story in our July 2004 issue, so too are his teaching skills. We recently scored some quality time with Zakk on his tour bus in Dallas. He was there with one of his successful projects, Zakk Sabbath, performing at the 2019 Ride for Dimebash charity show, a reverent celebration of his dearly missed friend and fellow guitar great, the late Dimebag Darrell Abbott (or, as Zakk refers to him, “Saint Dime”) and Darrell’s recently departed brother, Vinnie Paul, who played drums with Darrell in the legendary metal outfit Pantera.
Intro over, take it away, Mr. Wylde…
“Did I expect Black Label Society to still be touring, recording and ‘successful’ today, when I first formed the band in 1999?” Zakk muses, repeating my opening question verbatim. The wry grin on his face braced me for one of his trademark comebacks. “Yes, of course. The whole project was planned to run up a massive bar tab, and then to be constantly working to pay the thing off. That was it — it was all by design. And right now, it’s going incredibly well. We work like dogs and I’m
