To accurately describe Zakk Wylde’s playing style, his electric guitar tone, his ability to impress his Beyond Thunderdome berserker persona upon the instrument, you occasionally have appropriate the language of the cryptozoological.

It’s like he belongs to a different taxonomy from the rest of us, from somewheres mythical. And yet sitting here in a hotel bar on Denmark Street, London, at the epicentre of the city’s guitar culture, he is reassuringly human, flesh and blood, who like the rest of us runs on caffeine judging by the size of the espresso he is nursing.

Wylde is in town to talk about Engines Of Demolition, the long-awaited new LP from Black Label Society, which is once more a showcase for his hydrocarbon metal guitar sound, a sound he says is a product of everything he has listened to, of core inspirations such as Tony Iommi and country guitar icon Albert Lee, and those out-there players such as John McLaughlin and Frank Marino, technicians of sublime vision who took the instrument one step beyond.

And yet it has to be the product of something deeper than that; Wylde has had a crazy last four years. Much of it has been spent paying tribute to the late Dimebag Darrel and his brother, Vinnie Paul, in the Pantera reunion/celebration tour that finds frontman Phil Anselmo and bass guitar player Rex Brown joined by Wylde on guitar, Anthrax’s Charlie Benante on drums.

Night after night, he’s playing Dimebag’s riffs. Any downtime he had, he was writing his own, sketching out tracks for when he got back home.

“My whole thing is just writing and writing and writing,” he says, saying he started writing this record just before Pantera rehearsals. “From then to us sitting right now, that’s already over four years! But it went by like that. [clicks fingers]. Usually, when Black Label would do it, it was just one implosion of ideas, and we record it, mix it, and ship it out.”

Then there has been the emotional weight of losing his mentor. Wylde’s career will be inextricably linked to the late Ozzy Osbourne’s. It was with Ozzy he became a star, with whom he got to perform with one last time at last year’s epic Black Sabbath farewell show at Villa Park, Back To The Beginning. Shortly after, Ozzy would pass away, and once Wylde got back home to gather his thoughts he found he had one last song to write, for Ozzy.

Here he explains how that tribute came together, why he had to bring the Grail out of retirement to record it, and why music is all about the sharing of inspirations and carrying the torch for the next generation.

So much life has passed in those four years. With Ozzy passing, celebrating Dimebag and Vinnie, was there an extra emotional dynamic going into this record?

“No, its like I always tell people that are like, ‘Hey, Zakk, you got any advice for my son or my daughter? They’re an aspiring musician.’ I go, ‘Yeah, whatever music it is you love, that’s what you should be playing.’ It’s like why would you eat food you don't enjoy? I mean, unless me and you were on a diet ‘cos we work at Chippendales and we gotta be sexy. [Laughs] So we got we got to maintain a six-pack of abs at all times.

“But I mean, enjoy your life. You have to play music that moves you. If you love Led Zeppelin, and you love Black Sabbath, and you love the Stones, and you love all that stuff – you love Elton John and you love the Eagles – I mean, all the bands I’m mentioning, are the bands that move me. And when I hear it, I go, ‘Wow, this is magic. This is amazing.’”

Well I’m glad you mention the Stones because how you open this record, with Name In Blood, that little intro motif has a wee bit of Gimme Shelter going on.

“Oh, with the intro? Totally, then when the band kicks in and stuff like that, yeah!”

It’s a reminder that this is a rock ’n’ roll record.

“Totally! Without a doubt. It’s just like when you listen to Keith Richards, his love for Chuck Berry, and that’s what moved him. And it’s him with all that love of Chuck Berry is coming out in his songwriting, and that is what inspires him. That’s a beacon of light – and that’s what'll guide you, man. So, yeah, I just think you have to play what you love and what moves you.

“Whatever trends are in or what’s popular, if you’re inspired by it, like, the Stones doing Miss You – disco was real big at the time – but Mick was like, ‘I love this stuff!’ There’s nothing wrong with that. If you’re inspired by something, and then you’re like, ‘I love it!’ You should do something like this. But if you’re only chasing it because you want to fit in, or think this is what’s popular...

“I mean, you look at AC/DC throughout all those years, whatever was popular, it didn’t even matter. They would just plow through plow through mountains – and it didn’t even matter. It’s like, ‘Are you guys aware of what’s going on around you?’ And they’re like, ‘No, we don’t need to know what’s going on around this. This is what we like, and this is what we're gonna do.’ It’s Like McDonald’s. We make the Big Mac and we make fries and we don’t care about doing sushi, you know what I mean!?”

Playing Dimebag’s riffs night after night, did any of his style rub off on you, in how you phrased things, or did it directly inspire you at all?

“I think what’s on the record is Dime’s enthusiasm and his energy, and his life force, because every night when you’re playing those songs, it’s Dime’s infectious energy that is in those songs. When he’d walk in a room, you could not notice it; you’d feel his life force when he walks into the room, and his light. But yeah, I think that’s in the writing. His energy is within the album.”

You shared so many influences shared that appreciation of groove. You guys were some of the first players to play country licks in a metal jam.

“Yeah, totally. I mean, it’s just like with Dime, a love of Eddie Van Halen, Randy Rhoads, and everything. It’s their energy they brought to the guitar playing.”

Albert Lee was such a huge influence in you when you were growing up.

“Totally, chicken pickin’ and stuff like that.”

Do you think it’s valuable for young metal guitar players to listen widely to other styles and try and find different things that inspire them, and bring that into metal? It helps them develop a style that’s their own.

“Without a doubt. The solo I play in Better Days & Wiser Times, that’s a David Lindley thing, like when you listen to David Lindley on all the Jackson Browne stuff, him doing the lap steel and playing pedal steel.

“When I was playing guitar, I’m not bending the notes, I’m just using a whammy bar, but it’s in a way of a David Lindley-type voicing, like a Running On Empty kind of thing. So, all the beautiful stuff that David Lindley does on the lap steel and anything like that, that’s an influence, too, because I’m like, ‘Oh, man, it’ll be cool to put something like this here. Not a ripping thing.

“It’s more of a melodic thing, like a singing kind of thing, and that’s how I approach it. That's why I’m not bending notes, ‘cos on a lap steel you can’t bend the notes unless you got the foot pedal. Everything you digest goes into your DNA.”

And these influences get passed on and passed on. Some young kid might check out David Lindley because you’ve mentioned him and then take something completely different from it.

“That’s the beautiful thing about life. Everybody, we all inspire each other. You should be a beacon of light for everybody, like Elvis was a beacon of light for Jimmy Page, and then Jimmy Page became a beacon of light to millions of other guitar players. But it was Elvis who was the spark for him, and then he passed it on, then whoever’s passing it on from there…

“It’s like how the Shadows inspired Tony Iommi, Tony Iommi inspired Dimebag, and now all these kids, 14-year-old kids, are being inspired by Dimebag. If you look at the lineage of where it went, it all started back with the Shadows, and Barney Kessel and all the guys that Tony Iommi liked.”

And if you take one of those players out, music is not the same, because it’s all filtered through these references and inspirations. Who influences you from an acoustic guitar point of view.

“It’s my love for Neil Young, Heart Of Gold, then the Stones’ Wild Horses. Obviously, Elton John, the Band, the Eagles.”

What acoustic were you playing on the record. It’s got a really sweet tone.

“Oh, actually, I got my Wylde Audio, I was using my prototype on this thing. We got the prototype right now, and probably this year we are gonna go into production with them. We haven’t done an acoustic yet. It’s going to be a single-cutaway, kind of like my Epiphone.”

It sounds great on the record. Is it a big-bodied dreadnought?

“Oh no, not that massive, just your normal acoustic, man. But I’m sure we’re going to be doing jumbos and all types of the small ones, the blues guitars.”

Has your rig changed much for this record?

“No, it’s just my Wylde Audio heads and everything like that. I just double-track them, especially for the heavy stuff. I always double-track the rhythms. And then for the clean stuff, I would just turn the amp down, turn the pedals off, and that’s your clean tone.

“I’ve got my Dunlop pedals, the Berserker distortion. So if I’m playing [the amp], it’s just like AC/DC distorted, like Highway To Hell, Back In Black, but for solos, I need that pedal on. Because it gives you more of the amp; it just sustains."

Did you double any of the solos?

“No, I’m trying to think… Anything that is doubled, that’s me and Dario [Lorina, rhythm guitar] playing together. But I'm not doubling any of solos. Usually solos, I’m just keeping them single now.”

The Hand Of Tomorrow’s Grave solo, with that ascending line, it’s got this tension between the diatonic and the pentatonic, and it’s like you’ve got the booksmarts with the diatonic then the streetsmarts with the pentatonics…

“Basically, I’ll base everything off the pentatonic, but if you really think about me and JD [John DeServio], JD went to Berkeley and everything like that, but we always talk about the pentatonic scale as the most lyrical scale because you sing in pentatonic. You don’t sing really in diatonic. But no, if a diatonic fits, I’ll throw it in there, but, most of the time I try to base everything off of pentatonic, just ‘cos I like the sound of it.

“But not only that, when I first started with Ozzy, I was like, ‘Well, how am I gonna sound like me?’ Because Yngwie was the last meteor to hit the planet, guitar-wise – where everybody gravitated to. He upped everybody’s technique.

“Everybody in Berkeley, they were opening up wings of Bach, Beethoven, Mozart, Paganini, all because of Yngwie. but the whole thing is like, ‘Oh, if you don't want to sound like Yngwie, don’t do three notes a string, and don’t do harmonic minor, and don’t do arpeggios. No sweep picking, and no diminished.’

“And so it was like, ‘All right, well, if you don't want to sound like Eddie Van Halen, then don’t do taps.’ It’s almost like take these things off the table. Don’t put stripes on your guitar if you don’t want to look like Eddie. Don’t put polka dots on your guitar if you don’t want to be like Randy Rhoads. Eliminate everything on the list, what not to do.”

And that left you with the pentatonics.

“Yeah. And I said, ‘Well, I’ll just pick them, almost, like, John McLaughlin from Mahavishnu Orchestra. You know, when you’re listening to Jerry and Jan Hammer and John, when they’d be like [widdle noises]. It is a different sound from three notes a string.”

It makes the guitar sound like a non-western instrument.

“Yeah, and when you listen to that Mahavishnu stuff, those scales, it’s a different sound. Not only that but I love Frank Marino, and Frank Marino is a perfect example of pentatonic scales and blues as a Formula One race car.

“Because lot of people who are blues, they’re slow, like Red House, and BB King. They’re not these lightning fast licks played at Formula One race car speed. Whereas that’s Frank Marino. You listen to that [Mahogany Rush] Live album. His guitar playing is just otherworldly. I mean, it’s phenomenal.”

You also studied jazz for a little bit.

“I’ll listen to Pat Martino. I’ll listen to Joe Pass, just listening to them while I’m playing, like, Voodoo Child E minor. I’ll just be noodling without an amp on while I’m listening on my phone, just while I’m having my Odinforce, drinking a cup of java, and I’ll hear them playing licks then I’ll just try and incorporate something that sounds like it.

“It’s a butchered version of it but it’s trying to incorporate it within what I do, within a rock thing, so it sounds passable and you can make it fit.”

You don’t have to master Joe Pass but you can step into his shoes for a few bars and it can make the solo really jump out.

“For me, when you get that window of where the solo is, just construct the solo, like Stairway to Heaven or Hotel California, where it’s part of the song. Or like Randy Roads’ Crazy Train – whether it’s me playing it, Jake [E Lee] playing it, Gus G, Joe Holmes, Brad Gillis, you gotta play Crazy Train the way Randy wrote it.”

What was your favourite Randy solo to play?

“I mean, I love them all, but the solo in S.A.T.O. is just amazing. Obviously, everyone gravitates towards Mr Crowley, and Crazy Train, and things like that, but, like, the solo to S.A.T.O. – and Diary [Of A Madman], Revelation (Mother Earth) – is lights out! It’s crazy. It is crazy, ambitious, and so out of the box. It’s like nothing you’d ever heard before.”

That Ozzy Osbourne gig was perfect for him. It was the making of him and of Ozzy as a solo artist.

“I mean, it’s incredible, him being in Quiet Riot, ‘cos they were more of like a pop-rock band. Without Ozzy as a foil, Randy would have never been able to do Diary Of A Madman, Revelation (Mother Earth), like, all that stuff. The classical elements in his playing would have never fit in Quiet Riot. It was not what that band was. And it worked perfect with Ozzy because of him coming from Black Sabbath. Perfect.”

And he brought that classical guitar influence to mainstream metal.

“Obviously, Ritchie Blackmore and Uli Jon Roth were doing all the classical stuff, between [Deep Purple’s] Highway Star and [Scorpions’] Catch Your Train. Like, Randy’s influenced by Ritchie Blackmore, obviously, between all the stuff he did with Jon Lord in Deep Purple, all that classical stuff, and Ritchie Blackmore was killing it!

“Then Uli Jon Roth with the Scorpions? Forget about it! It’s classical, arpeggios, diminished – and he would use harmonic minor, too. But then Randy, it was that classical element in there as well.”

As a big fan of Johnny Cash and the Cramps, who both played in institutional facilities, I wanted to ask you about your first gig with Ozzy, because it was at Wormwood Scrubs, a high-security prison.

“Well, the only thing I was worried about was I was the closest thing to Pamela Anderson that these guys were ever gonna be seeing again! Hopefully, I pass the audition, and they’re not gonna leave me here. [Laughs]”

What do you remember of the show. Was there not serial killers supporting you or something?

“No, it was just like us up there jamming these songs. The room was about the size of this. It was a little cafeteria. The guards were in there, and then you had all the inmates in there. It was almost like something out of the Blues Brothers. ‘We’re on a mission from God!’

Anything’s easy after that.

“Every other gig was tame after that one. Wormwood Scrubs! [Laughs] Like I say, I was just hoping they don’t leave me behind. This was before I had the beard.”

Playing with Ozzy, you might expect to end up in Wormwood Scrubs, not playing it…

“But it was definitely exciting. I remember that one. And I remember my first one in Pensacola, Florida, the first arena show. I’m just thinking, No Rest For The Wicked, in 2028, it will have been 40 years ago.”

Looking to the future, you obviously enjoyed the Pantera shows. Do you think you guys might record something together?

“Well, I mean, Phil’s busy right now. He’s doing a Down thing, and then he has En Minor. I think he’s doing a Scour thing, too. So Phil’s doing that. I think Rex is still writing, and he’s doing another Rex Brown record, and then, obviously, Charlie has Anthrax, so he’s been doing that, and then, obviously, we got the new Black Label, so I don’t know.

“I don’t know. But you never say never. Because it’s just like, we could all [be sitting there] one day, Philip might just call and go, ‘Guys, why don’t we get together, and we’ll do something, all of us – and we’ll get two other of our buddies in here, and then we’ll do a band.’ You know what I mean?

“So yeah, you never know. Like the Eagles or whatever! They have six guys in a band or something like that, and everybody’s singing or whatever. We could do something as like The Traveling Wilburys or something! [Laughs] Nah, you know what I mean, call it something different.”

Finally, tell us about the Ozzy tribute on the record. How did that come together?

“I had the music but I wrote the lyrics after we laid Ozzy to rest. It was when I came home, and I sat in the library at our house. I was just sitting there with the fireplace going on, and there was actually one of Ozzy’s books up there, Last Rites, and I ended up writing the lyrics.”

And you used your Bullseye Les Paul Custom, the Grail?

“Adam Fuller, who does the records with us, Adam was like, ‘Well, Zakk, for the solo, you should get the Grail and play it on this thing, man – ‘cause it’s Ozzy’s Song, so it makes sense.’ The first song I ever wrote with Ozzy is Miracle Man, and obviously, this is the last thing in tribute to him.”

• Engines Of Demolition is out now via MNRK Heavy.

Every Ozzy Osbourne fan has their own favourite Randy Rhoads solo. Some might choose the crystalline perfection of Crazy Train, all composed order and narrative logic meets wild Friday night thrills, kind of like a rollercoaster with a first-class safety record.

Others might choose Suicide Solution, often augmented in concert with an extended guitar solo. That stately paean to an occultist, Mr Crowley, has to be in the conversation, too, and let us throw in a vote for the fretboard incandescence of Believer.

But Zakk Wylde, as the late Prince of Darkness long-standing guitarist – a player who had to succeed not only Rhoads but Jake E. Lee and Brad Gillis. too – brings us a unique perspective on things, and as we are sitting here with him on London’s Denmark Street, with Wylde in town to talk about the new Black Label Society album, Engines Of Demolition, we had to ask him.

First off. He had some thoughts on what it was like to perform Rhoads’ solos – to perform any of the recorded material from his predecessors in the Double-O’s band. You’ve got to be faithful to the source, and recognise that the solo is part of the song.

“Randy Roads’ Crazy Train, whether it’s me playing it, Jake playing it, Gus G, Joe Holmes, Brad Gillis. You gotta play Crazy Train the way Randy wrote it,” he says. “Because it’s part of the song. It’s like Ozzy has to sing the melody line, because otherwise it’s not the same and people are like, ‘What song is this!?’”

From stepping out in Quiet Riot to assuming his role as the Prince of Darkness’ hot-shot guitarist, Rhoads’ playing style underwent a radical transformation. He had a freedom to shape an all-new sound.

It is often said that Rhoads saved Ozzy’s career; the right man, the right time, with the sound that gave electric guitar its most exciting talent since Eddie Van Halen (with whom there became this tangible sense of rivalry, not least among their respective fanbases). And all that is true. Ozzy was at a low ebb. Out of Black Sabbath, running out of road. Enter, Randy Rhoads, and salvation.

But Wylde says it goes both ways. Ozzy’s burgeoning solo career teased the darkness out of Rhoads’ playing; it made him the player he was, and this new direction invited Rhoads to dig into his classical vocabulary to reinvent metal guitar, to be more out-there than he ever would have been in Quiet Riot.

“I mean, it’s incredible, him being in Quiet Riot, ‘cos they were more of like a pop-rock band,” says Wylde. “Without Ozzy as a foil, Randy would have never been able to do Diary Of A Madman, Revelation (Mother Earth), like, all that stuff. The classical elements in his playing would have never fit in Quiet Riot. It was not what that band was. And it worked perfect with Ozzy because of him coming from Black Sabbath. Perfect.”

So then, what was, or rather what is Wylde’s favourite Rhoads solo? He puffs out his cheeks but there’s little hesitation…

“I mean, I love them all, but the solo in S.A.T.O. is just amazing,” says Wylde. “Obviously, everyone gravitates towards Mr Crowley, and Crazy Train, and things like that, but, like, the solo to S.A.T.O. – and Diary [Of A Madman], Revelation (Mother Earth) – is lights out! It’s crazy. It is crazy, ambitious, and so out of the box. It’s like nothing you’d ever heard before.”

It was something that we would hear again, throughout the ‘80s – or at least we would hear players attempting to copy Rhoads’ style.

Rhoads left us all too soon, dying in a plane crash in 1982, aged just 25, but he inspired a subsequent generations of players who decided that it was maybe worthwhile sitting down to learn their scales after all – to think about modalities, and harmony, and the kinds of techniques that would be necessary to bring these highfalutin ideas to bear on the fretboard.

As Wylde says, Rhoads was not the first to introduce classical ideas to rock guitar. He simply took it further, and did something new with it.

“Obviously, Ritchie Blackmore and Uli Jon Roth were doing all the classical stuff, between [Deep Purple’s] Highway Star and [Scorpions’] Catch Your Train,” says Wylde. “Like, Randy’s influenced by Ritchie Blackmore, obviously, between all the stuff he did with Jon Lord in Deep Purple, all that classical stuff, and Ritchie Blackmore was killing it!

“Then Uli Jon Roth with the Scorpions? Forget about it! It’s classical, arpeggios, diminished – and he would use harmonic minor, too. But then Randy, it was that classical element in there as well.”

Wylde could appreciate it, he could play it, but the classical approach was not for Wylde. He just had to learn how to play the solos. As soon as he got the gig with Ozzy, he needed to be his own man and find his niche at a time when the world’s most high-profile players – e.g. Mr Yngwie Malmsteen – were turning on the neoclassical afterburners. It’s not like Wylde does not know which diatonic scale goes with what; it’s that he prefers the pentatonic.

“I mean, if a diatonic fits, I’ll throw it in there, but I try to base everything off of pentatonic, just ‘cos I like the sound of it,” he says. “When I first started with Ozzy, I was like, ‘Well, how am I gonna sound like me!?’ Because Yngwie was just... He was the last meteor to hit the planet, guitar-wise.

“He upped everybody’s technique, everybody in Berklee, they were opening up wings of Bach, Beethoven, Mozart, Paganini, all because of Yngwie! But I was like, ‘Oh, if you don’t want to sound like Yngwie, don’t do three-notes-a-string, and don’t do harmonic minor, and don’t do arpeggios, no sweep picking, and no diminished.”

And no tapping, either. That was Eddie Van Halen’s thing. Ditto stripes on the guitars. And no polka dots on the guitars – that was Rhoads’ thing. Wylde was searching for his own identity.

When he got his cream 1981 Les Paul Custom, aka “the Grail”after landing his gig with Ozzy, he took a look in the mirror and realised it was not that unlike the 1974 Alpine White Custom that Rhoads used to play.

He had an idea. He put it in for a custom graphic finish, wanting Saul Bass’ spiralised artwork for Hitchcock’s Vertigo. What he got was a bullseye. A happy accident all things considered, and though retired since 2016. The Grail would be brought out of retirement on Engines Of Demolition, with Wylde using it for the solo to his tribute to his old boss and friend, Ozzy’s Song.

“I used it for the last song. I ended up using it on the solo on Ozzy’s Song,” says Wylde. “Adam Fuller, who does the records with us, Adam was like, ‘Well, Zakk, for the solo, you should get the Grail and play it on this thing, man – ‘cause it’s Ozzy’s Song, so it makes sense.’ The first song I ever wrote with Ozzy is Miracle Man, and obviously, this is the last thing in tribute to him.”

Black Label Society’s Engines Of Demolition is available to pre-order, out 30 March via Napalm.

• Zakk Wylde says it's possible that the Pantera tribute lineup could record music together

Zakk Wylde has revealed that his “Grail” Les Paul Custom came out of retirement to make a starring cameo on the new Black Label Society album, Engines Of Demolition, as he put the finishing touches to his tribute to the late Ozzy Osbourne – and it brought his career with the Prince of Darkness full circle.

The Grail was the electric guitar Wylde wrote Miracle Man on, the first song he ever wrote as Ozzy guitarist when he made his debut on 1988’s No Rest For The Wicked. It had, however, been out of commission for 10 years. Wylde had been exclusively playing guitars from his own gear brand, Wylde Audio, on the record.

But when it came time to put a solo on the song, Adam Fuller, Black Label Society’s engineer, suggested that maybe this was one track that demanded a different approach – a guitar that spoke to the history between Wylde and his former boss.

“I used it for the last song. I ended up using it on the solo on Ozzy’s Song,” says Wylde, speaking to MusicRadar. “Adam Fuller, who does the records with us, Adam was like, ‘Well, Zakk, for the solo, you should get the Grail and play it on this thing, man – ‘cause it’s Ozzy’s Song, so it makes sense.’ The first song I ever wrote with Ozzy is Miracle Man, and obviously, this is the last thing in tribute to him.”

Wylde had been writing for Engines Of Demolition ever since he set out on the Pantera tribute tour in 2022. Between each leg of the tour – any chance he’d get – he would squirrel away ideas for songs, riffs, lyrics, then he’d get BLS back in session and get them finished.

“Usually, when Black Label would do it, it was just one implosion of ideas, and we record it, mix it, and ship it out,” says Wylde. “But now it was, like we would go out for a year, I’d come back, and it’d be, like, a quarter of a bunch of songs.

“I’d write some other riffs, and go, ‘Maybe we’ll get the guys to come back out and we’ll track some more stuff.’ And then I’d write an acoustic thing or whatever. ‘Oh, well, bring the guys back out and we’ll put some stuff on this one.’”

And so it went on. Wylde says the years went by a flash. By the summer of 2025, the Pantera tribute tour was still going strong, bearing down on Villa Park for Ozzy and Black Sabbath’s farewell show, Back To The Beginning on 5 July. Wylde was pulling a double shift, playing with Pantera, then with Ozzy.

When he finally got home, maybe they could get the album mixed down and Fuller would do a mastering job on it and then that would be that, the long-awaited follow up to 2021’s Doom Crew Inc. would be complete.

Ozzy’s death on the 22 July changed that. Wylde had some music but it wasn’t until after Ozzy’s funeral that the song came to him.

“I had the music but I wrote the lyrics after we laid Ozzy to rest,” he says. “It was when I came home, and I sat in the library at our house. I was just sitting there with the fireplace going on, and there was actually one of Ozzy’s books up there, Last Rites, and I ended up writing the lyrics.”

The Grail is a guitar with a lot of history. It has had a life. This is the guitar that fell out of the back of a truck, survived thanks to the indestructible nature of a Gibson 'Chainsaw' guitar case, ended up in pawnshop, was then in the ownership of someone who recognised it was Wylde’s and sold it back him three years later. Kismet.

Wylde acquired the Grail after he landed the Ozzy gig and Gibson added him to its artist roster. Would it have been easier to have asked Gibson for a Les Paul? Maybe. But Wylde had his designs set on a particular Les Paul, the 1981 Custom owned by his friend Scott Quinn.

He told Guitar Player that Quinn worked at Garden State Music at the time and was up for a trade. Wylde had just the thing.

“Scott, a huge John McLaughlin fan, said that if I could get him a double-neck, he’d trade the Grail for it,” said Wylde. “Gibson hooked me up, and I made the trade.”

Wylde set about customising it, adding a set of active EMG humbuckers to it after one of his guitar students turned him onto electric guitar pickups.

There was nothing wrong with the guitar but when you are taking a spot in Ozzy’s band that was first occupied by Randy Rhoads – who famously favoured an Alpine White ’74 Les Paul Custom that had aged to a deep cream colour – you need something to differentiate yourself.

Wylde put the guitar in for a custom graphic finish. He had Saul Bass’s psychedelic art for Hitchcock’s Vertigo in mind. Unfortunately, the artist Wylde found was not a big film buff. It came back with a bullseye finish and it turned out to be a happy accident.

“I realised it was pretty cool anyway, and I’ve made it a signature look ever since,” he told Guitar Player. “Most of the records I did with Ozzy featured this guitar.”

Engines Of Demolition is available to pre-order, out on 27 March via Spinefarm. Black Label are on tour in the US from February. See Black Label Society for more details.

Zakk Wylde says he is ruling nothing out when it comes to the possibility of the Pantera tribute lineup recording new music together – but it wouldn’t be under the Pantera name.

“Yeah, you never know,” says Wylde, speaking to MusicRadar. “We could do something as like The Traveling Wilburys or something! [Laughs] Nah, you know what I mean, call it something different.”

The Pantera tribute/reunion tour started out in Mexico, in December 2022, with frontman Phil Anselmo and bassist Rex Brown joined by Wylde on guitar, Charlie Benante of Anthrax on drums, with the shows honouring the memory of the late Abbott Brothers, guitarist Dimebag Darrell and drummer Vinnie Paul.

European summer festival shows followed, then support slots with Metallica on their blockbuster M72 Tour, with more in the diary for 2026. There were headlining arena tours, Knotfest in Australia… Black Sabbath and Ozzy Osbourne’s farewell at Back To The Beginning last summer. Might this Pantera tribute one day take them to a recording studio?

That is a conversation that is yet to be had, but Wylde, in London to promote the forthcoming release of Black Label Society’s new album, Engines Of Demolition, remains open to it – even if scheduling something beyond their current touring commitments would be difficult.

“Well, I mean, Phil’s busy right now. He’s doing a Down thing, and then he has En Minor,” says Wylde. “I think he’s doing a Scour thing, too. So Phil’s doing that. I think Rex is still writing, and he’s doing another Rex Brown record, and then, obviously, Charlie has Anthrax, so he’s been doing that, and then, obviously, we got the new Black Label, so I don’t know.”

Playing in this Pantera lineup is not something that Wylde has taken lightly. He and Dimebag we’re close friends.

Stylistically, they approached metal guitar with similar sense of animalism, augmenting its rigid form with pyrotechnic flair, leaning upon country and southern rock influences to spice it up, give it a different flavour.

After playing his riffs and solos night after night, Wylde says you might hear some of Dimebag’s influence in this new BLS record, but not in the way that you might expect.

“I think what’s on the record is Dime’s enthusiasm and his energy, and his life force, because every night when you’re playing those songs, it’s Dime’s infectious energy that is in those songs,” says Wylde. “When he’d walk in a room, you could not notice it; you’d feel his life force when he walks into the room, and his light. But yeah, I think that’s in the writing, his energy is within the album.”

Pantera’s next live show is scheduled for 24 May, as they embark on a four-date European run supporting Metallica.

By the time those dates swing around, Engines Of Damnation will have been released, Wylde and Black Label Society will have toured the US. Anselmo’s Down entered the studio on 5 January, with an album released mooted for the third quarter of 2026. Benante’s Anthrax has finished mixing their new album.

Like Wylde says, it’s all systems go for all involved. But doing original music, a band together? It is possible.

“I don’t know. But you never say never,” he says. “Because it’s just like, we could all [be sitting there] one day, Philip might just call and go, ‘Guys, why don’t we get together, and we’ll do something, all of us – and we’ll get two other of our buddies in here, and then we’ll do a band.’ You know what I mean? So yeah, you never know.”

How might this band shape up? Well, it's all speculation, hypotheticals and what have you, but Wylde says if they did do something together it might not even be a quartet. This could end up a heavy metal version of Henley, Meisner, Frey, Felder and Walsh all up there doing Hotel California.

“Like the Eagles or whatever!” says Wylde. “They have six guys in a band or something like that, and everybody's kind of singing or whatever, you know?”

In the meantime, there's a lot to music to come. Engines Of Demolition is available to pre-order via Spinefarm, shipping and in record stores on 27 March.

Black Label Society’s US tour kicks off on 27 February in San Antonio, Texas. They play three UK dates in May. See Black Label Society for dates and ticket details.

When you think of rock anthems, the roaring riffs of electric guitars often steal the spotlight. Yet, tucked away beneath the layers of distortion, many of your favourite hits have a surprising origin: they were initially crafted on the humble piano before transforming into the powerhouse, guitar-driven masterpieces we adore today.

From the haunting melodies of Fleetwood Mac to the hard-hitting nu metal tracks of Papa Roach, the piano has played a crucial role in shaping the sound of rock music. These timeless classics might even inspire you to ditch the guitar and explore the sonic possibilities of a digital piano when searching for fresh songwriting inspiration.

Today, we delve into the stories behind legendary tracks from artists like Ozzy Osbourne and George Harrison, revealing how a simple piano riff can evolve into rock magic. Get ready to view your favourite songs in an entirely new light.

1. Ozzy Osbourne – Mama, I’m Coming Home

Ozzy Osbourne's Mama, I’m Coming Home is a heartfelt ballad that has resonated deeply with metal fans since its release in 1991, and its impact has only intensified following the legendary singer's passing. The song serves as a poignant reflection on love and longing, highlighting the raw vulnerability that lies beneath Ozzy's heavy metal persona.

The powerful lyrics were written by another metal icon, Lemmy of Motörhead, while the music was created by Ozzy’s longtime collaborator, Zakk Wylde. In an interview with our sister publication, Guitar World, Zakk explained that the song initially began as a piano piece that he and Ozzy were experimenting with.

“That actually came from me and Oz jamming on the piano in my apartment in North Hollywood,” he recalls. “So it started on piano, and then when we got in the studio, I transposed it to guitar. It’s in open E, which is where I developed the guitar line that moves from E to A. My love for the Allman Brothers and Lynyrd Skynyrd also influenced the Albert Lee-style country bends at the beginning."

2. Papa Roach – Last Resort

When discussing nu metal anthems, Last Resort by Papa Roach stands out as one of the most enduring tracks of the decade. Released as the lead single from the band's Infest album in early 2000, the song explores struggles with mental health and the isolation that often accompanies such challenges. Its candid lyrics tackle themes of depression and suicidal thoughts, giving voice to those who face similar experiences.

At the heart of the track is an infectious, looping guitar riff that drives the entire song. Interestingly, this metal classic originated as a classical-inspired piano line crafted by bassist Tobin Esperance.

In an interview with Metal Hammer, lead vocalist Jacoby Shaddix reveals the story behind the now-iconic riff: “We were living in this infamous house in Sacramento with some other bands from the scene, and we were rehearsing in there at the time. The first time the Last Resort riff came around, Tobin was playing it on piano. It sounded like a classical music piece, but we put it on the guitar, gave it that beat, and I remember our manager heard it through the wall and he barged through, like, ‘Play that again, man! That was sick!’ I was like, ‘We need to put this on the record.’”

3. Argent – God Gave Rock and Roll to You

God Gave Rock And Roll To You is such a positive and uplifting track that it's hard to imagine its writer, Russ Ballard, going through one of the darkest periods of his life while composing this classic.

Written during a tumultuous time for Ballard, the song reflects his journey from despair to hope, showcasing the emotional depth rock music can convey. With its uplifting lyrics and infectious energy, the track celebrates the joy of creativity and the belief that music can serve as a guiding light in challenging times.

“I felt blissful when I started writing 'God Gave Rock And Roll To You,'” Ballard recalls in Classic Rock issue 0271. “That was the opposite of how I’d felt the year before. My parents had both been really ill; my dad had prostate cancer, and my mum had bowel cancer simultaneously. I had felt so low.”

However, "God Gave Rock And Roll To You" marked the end of his darkness. “It was wonderful to feel myself come out of that depression,” Ballard remembers. “I felt so uplifted. It probably only took me twenty minutes to write it. I’ve always liked gospel music. With the lyrics, I was expressing that we live on this incredible planet, and when you find a passion, everything makes sense. On the other hand, if you settle for just a job to pay the bills, that’s very sad.”

He adds, “The song was written on this heavy Eavestaff upright piano I received for my twenty-first birthday. That may seem strange for a rock song, but I also wrote Since You’ve Been Gone on a piano. As a kid, I learned classical piano, and as soon as my mum and dad left the room, I would play like Jerry Lee Lewis."

4. Fleetwood Mac – Rhiannon

Inspired by the Welsh mythological figure, the haunting Rhiannon tells the story of a woman who embodies freedom and independence. With Stevie Nicks’ ethereal vocals leading the way, andLindsey Buckingham's now legendary guitar riff providing the backing, it's difficult to imagine Nicks sitting down at the piano to write the song - and it's even more difficult to comprehend that it only took her 10 minutes!

“I just fell in love with the name, sat down, and wrote the song in about 10 minutes," Nicks says. "I found out later that the whole story is already written in Welsh mythology,” she explained. “I play piano terribly, [but I] can sit down, and 20 minutes later come up with a complete song, lyrics and all,” she mused. “Lindsey’s going, ‘I’ve been playing since I was eight years old, and I practise every day, and I have to kill myself to write a song’.”

5. George Harrison - Something

Considered one of the finest songs in Harrison’s catalogue, Something was written in 1968 during the White Album sessions. As with other Harrison tracks, such as Old Brown Shoe, he would use the piano rather than a guitar to write the song. It’s difficult to separate the song from its rather unique and very Harrison guitar tone, but we can certainly see how the song would start life as a piano-based song.

Taken from a Guitar Player interview, Harrison talks about writing the song, saying, “There was a period during that album when we were all in different studios doing different things trying to get it finished, and I used to take some time out,” he says. “So I went into an empty studio and wrote Something.”

In hindsight, Something is seen as one of the most beautiful love songs ever written, but fellow Beatles Paul McCartney and John Lennon were initially lukewarm about the track, questioning its commercial appeal and Harrison's ability as a songwriter. Despite this doubt, Something would go on to earn immense acclaim, with Frank Sinatra famously calling it “the greatest love song ever written.” Its heartfelt lyrics and enchanting melody have ultimately secured its place in music history, showcasing Harrison's exceptional talent and the complex dynamics within the band at the time.

Feeling inspired? 

If you’re feeling inspired by the stories of these piano-based songs, it might be the perfect time to ditch the guitar and jump on the piano! Check out our guide to the best beginner digital pianos to help you find the right instrument to channel your new found creativity.

Whether you're just starting out or looking for an upgrade, our guide has got you covered for your musical journey – and if you fancy getting better at playing, be sure to take a look at our guide to the best online piano lessons.

Zakk Wylde, Ozzy Osbourne’s guitarist and close friend for decades, has spoken for the first time since the Sabbath frontman’s sudden passing last week.

In a new interview with Guitar World, Wylde, who first played with Ozzy on his 1988 album No Rest For The Wicked and stayed with him on and off right until the very end, at Villa Park earlier this month, revealed that, like so many people, that night was the last time he saw him.

“Everybody and their mother were in the backstage dressing room and I just wanted to give him a break,” he told the magazine. “I figured we’d see him later on – the next day or whatever. But no. The last text I got from Oz was saying, ‘Zakky, sorry, it was like a madhouse back there. I didn’t see you.’ He goes, ‘Thanks for everything.’ It was just us talking, saying, ‘I love you, buddy.’ That was it.”

“Oz was just the best,” the guitarist said, reflecting on their relationship. “I have my father, who was a World War II veteran; and then Ozzy, who was almost like an older brother. There was almost a 20-year age gap between us. With our relationship, there was the fun drinking – but if I ever needed advice, I could talk to him.”

“There were issues on how to drink and how not to drink; you know, the important factors in life!”

Asked why he thought Ozzy chose him as a guitarist, Wylde suggested that personal chemistry was the most important factor: “Forget the guitar playing; the way I made ham sandwiches was amazing… my ham sandwiches with Coleman’s are on par with Randy (Rhoads) and Jake’s (Lee’s) greatness on guitar!”

“But with anything, if it works, and it’s easy, that’s how it should be with bands. And relationships in general. Your wife, your friends, anyone – if they don’t bring you peace, why are you with these people? Who needs to be sticking their hand in a boiling pot of water?”

Like most of his friends, whilst Wylde knew Ozzy was ill he had no idea he would leave us so soon. But he reflects: “I’m blessed and grateful, man. Anything other than that would be selfish.”

“And on top of it, to go out with what’s the biggest-grossing charity event of all? That’s unbelievable. He helped a whole lot of people instead of making a profit. My God, what an incredible master. What an incredible life.”

Ozzy Osbourne hiring a then-unknown 19-year-old by the name of Zakk Wylde might have seemed risky but 1988’s No Rest For The Wicked soon proved they had chemistry together. This coltish firebrand had a flair for the electric guitar – and he proved he had the temperament to handle the gig.

When it was time to record its follow-up, No More Tears, Ozzy, Wylde et al were on a roll.

Speaking to MusicRadar in 2021, Wylde says he explicitly gamed out his approach. We had just lived through the ‘80s. There was a lot of guitar. Everything had been done to death. Three note per string diatonic phrases? Passé. He’d just be another imitator.

“I was wondering how I could sound like me and no-one else. I made a grocery list,” he said. “If you don’t want to sound like Yngwie, who was still at the height of his dominance, don’t do any harmonic minor or classical arpeggios and sweeps. Cross that off the list. If you don’t wanna sound like Eddie, don’t do any taps, harmonics, divebombs or whammy bar stuff.”

Pentatonic scales were all that was left. Wylde decided he was going to rip them like no one had ripped them before.

No More Tears found Ozzy reaching out to Lemmy of Motörhead for help with the lyrics. But the band itself needed little direction. There was Wylde on guitar, the redoubtable Randy Castillo on drums, and John Sinclair on keyboards. Mike Inez had joined on bass guitar, but Bob Daisley was to handle bass on the record.

Left to their own devices they were doing just fine. I Don’t Want To Change The World came together as a joke when they were messing about and goofing off. The songs were coming together nicely. But as they began pre-production, they still didn’t have a title for the record.

They found it from an unexpected source. Inez plugged in and started playing. No More Tears just fell into place. Wylde says it was Inez’s track.

““He pretty much wrote the whole song! Mike instigated that whole thing,” said Wylde. “We were in rehearsals and he just started playing that bass line and we all knew it was killer. Randy started playing drums just like how you hear it in on the record and then John Sinclair came in with that keyboard line. And I did a slide thing based on my love for the Allman Brothers and Skynyrd.”

The Allman Brothers Band would be a leitmotif of Wylde’s playing on No More Tears. Mama I’m Coming Home’s modulation between major and minor is a nod to the Allmans and Dickey Betts. On No More Tears, Wylde was leaning more towards Gary Rossington.

“The part I play is like an ode to Freebird; it’s not too different to the Freebird intro,” said Wylde. “Then we stopped for a bit and wondering what to do next. Ozzy suggested doing something like War Pigs and Black Dog, where the vocal line is followed by guitar – that whole call and answer thing.”

The verse riff owes its shape and form to Tony Iommi. When it came time for a solo, Wylde finally found a use for all those pentatonic runs he had been practising. He let it rip. One take, in and out.

“Yeah, what you hear on the record is just one pass! I constructed it to fit the keyboard part and then go into something else,” he said. “There’s a lot of pentatonic licks in the beginning and then for the big ascend at the end, that’s just me fitting along to the chords going up. So I knew what I was going to be playing and had it ready to nail in one take.”

Pretty cool. But No More Tears, it’s all about that bassline

Ozzy Osbourne knew how to pick a guitar player. It was one of his many gifts. He had the uncanny knack of sniffing out talent. Whenever his career was in need of uplift, shocked back to life with electric guitar, he somehow found the right man for the job.

It would be no exaggeration to say that Randy Rhoads saved him. In 1979, Ozzy was on the skids, out of Black Sabbath, out of luck. Enter this diminutive, book-smart maverick from Santa Monica. Everything changed.

Ozzy launched his solo career with the hottest player in hard rock and metal since Eddie Van Halen. Rhoads’ death in 1982, aged 25, in a plane crash in Florida, was devastating.

Those who stepped up in the aftermath, such as Bernie Tormé, who had just left Gillan, then Brad Gillis of Night Ranger, did their bit. Theirs may have been a cameo turn in the Ozzy Osbourne story but they kept the wheels moving, and before Gillis’ time with the Prince of Darkness was over, he at least got to record the live album Speak Of The Devil.

When it came to replace Rhoads on a studio album, Jake E Lee stepped up. He was reportedly a toss-up between Lee and George Lynch of Dokken, with Ozzy preferring the latter.

That makes an interesting alternate history; Lynch would have been ideal for the Ozzy gig. But Lee proved he had the stuff. His work on Bark Of The Moon was total box-office ‘80s metal, a Friday night thrill fest. Ron Nevison’s production on its follow-up, The Ultimate Sin, might have disappointed Ozzy but Lee’s playing was unimpeachable.

It didn’t save him. Ozzy’s wife and manager, Sharon, fired Lee. And by 1987, auditions were open again, and this time Ozzy would find his longest-serving six-string lieutenant, Zakk Wylde.

Hiring Wylde, then just a coltish 19-year-old, set the wheels in motion for Ozzy’s hitherto most successful solo album, No More Tears, and a collaboration that lasted until Black Sabbath and Ozzy’s final bow at Villa Park, Birmingham, for the Back To The Beginning all-dayer.

Wylde made his debut on 1988’s No Rest For The Wicked. Speaking to MusicRadar in 2021 for No More Tears' 30th anniversary, Wylde recalled how he drew upon Randy Rhoads’ influence for how he approached his solos.

“It was a very composed solo, like a lot of my Ozzy stuff. That’s what came out of the Randy Rhoads school of soloing, where everything had a beginning, a middle and an end,” said Wylde. “The solos were composed to be part of the song, as opposed to just improv and shredding over the whole thing. It’s the chord progressions that accommodate the solos… and I still do that today. I’ll sit there with my practice amp listening to a homework CD or playlist of backing tracks, coming out with different ideas until I find something I’m happy with.”

Wylde scarcely had time to think. But for its follow-up, he had settled upon a style. He was going to forego the neoclassical stuff that was all very much of the day. Play arpeggios and you would sound like Yngwie, he reasoned. Similarly, two-handed tapping, natural harmonics, all that stuff could see you written off as just another EVH clone – and there were many.

“At the time, three note per-string diatonic scales were super popular and everybody was playing in the vein,” said Wylde. “I was looking at the list and figured the only thing left would be pentatonic scales. So it was like taking all the crayons out of the box, leaving myself just four to play with and seeing what I could draw with that. It forces you to come up with something, when you are working with less.”

It worked. Wylde’s hydrocarbon tone – fuelled by the one/two punch of his Les Paul’s active EMG81/85 humbucker pairing, a JCM800 with a Boss SD-1 overdrive pedal in front – was just the thing to set those pentatonics alight. And he hit those strings hard. Wylde was off to the races.

But one of the break-out hits from No More Tears was not the product of careful consideration. Far from it. When I Don’t Want To Change The World came together, Wylde says it was all a big joke.

Ozzy was not in the building. The band were making their own entertainment.

“I remember when the man riff came about. We were at Joe’s Garage in Burbank, just rehearsing and writing material for the record,” recalled Wylde. “Ozzy hadn’t gotten there yet. I remember jamming that riff as a joke because we’d fill in the pauses, just talking into the mic.”

What follows is a reminder to all that you should keep a tape running in the rehearsal room. You never know what might happen, a riff that could make the cut. But back then, Wylde was just goofing off, vamping on the mic.

‘The whole premise was how we could never get a date, so I’d sing something like, ‘Hi, my name’s Zakk and I don’t have a job and live with my parents!’ before going back into the riff,” he explained. “The joke was you don’t have a home, a car or a job and you probably won’t be getting laid anytime soon. We were doing that riff and cracking up laughing the whole time.”

The laughing stopped when the boss opened the door. Ozzy heard something in it. The rest is history.

“Ozzy walked in and said, ‘What’s that riff?’ and I said, ‘Ozzy, we’re just goofing around!’ So he told us to remember it and we’ll use it for something,” said Wylde. “Later we ended up winning a Grammy with that song.”

It’s true. I Don’t Want To Change The World came out of a joke riff and a goof-off and really did take home the Grammy for Best Metal Performance – only not the recording we hear on No More Tears. It was the Live & Loud version, recorded at a 1992 Orlando, Florida Ozzy show, that took home the award. You never know where your joke riffs might take you.

Zakk Wylde has revealed that the current line-up of Pantera may yet record new music based on demos recorded by the late Darrell ‘Dimebag’ Abbott.

In an interview with Guitar Interactive, Wylde says that discussions about new recordings are already in progress between himself, singer Phil Anselmo, bassist Rex Brown, drummer Charlie Benante and Dimebag’s former girlfriend Rita Haney.

Haney is in possession of Dimebag’s demos.

Wylde tells Guitar Interactive: “The fellows [Anselmo and Brown] were talking about doing something, and Rita [Haney] has tons of cassette recordings of Dime writing riffs and stuff like that.”

At one point in this interview, Wylde refers to the classic line-up of Pantera - Dimebag, Anselmo, Brown and Dime’s brother Vinnie Paul - and insists: “Pantera is those four guys.”

But he says he is open to working on previously unreleased material from Dimebag’s demos: “If they were, obviously, Dime's original riffs and ideas, yeah, of course,” he says. “That would be cool… if it was something Dime wrote and him and Vinnie were working on or whatever…”

In a previous interview with Eddie Trunk in 2024, Wylde stated that any new music recorded by the quartet of himself, Anselmo, Brown and Benante should not be released under the Pantera name.

“I think you would have to call it something else,” he said. “You know what I mean? Pantera is those four guys. So, yeah, you can't replace that.”

But in that interview Wylde did hint at using Dimebag’s old demos.

"I mean, how could you call it Pantera unless it was just pre-existing material and we were gonna record it — stuff that was in demo state or whatever, and it is songs that the guys wrote. But as far as new songs… you’d call it something else.”

When Phil Anselmo spoke to The Metallica Report podcast in 2024, he claimed that Dimebag and Vinnie Paul would have approved of the new-look Pantera.

"Only thing I can say is, man, I know for a damn fact Vince and Dime would want us to do this, hands down,” Anselmo said. “They would want the Pantera brand or the legacy to go on.

“And I don't know what you believe in, but sometimes, you know, you would like to think that them old fellas are looking down on us, giving us the thumbs-up.”

Vinnie Paul, however, had always maintained that Pantera was finished the day that his brother died.

"They call it a reunion for a reason,” Paul said. “It's called bringing the original members back to what it was.

"So there's a lot of these things that they call reunions that aren't really reunions. They've got one dude from the band floating around in them. That's not a true reunion. With Pantera, it'll never be possible.”

Paul added in a separate interview: "Without Dimebag Darrell, there is no reunion. And that's all there is to it.

“We were a very influential band, and we touched millions and millions of people with that band, but it's over.

“People really have to come to grips with that, and that's all there is to it.”

Wylde Audio has unveiled its latest made-for-metal electric guitar for current Pantera reunion shredder, Black Label Society founder and Ozzy Osbourne guitarist Zakk Wylde, and it looks like something straight out of the encyclopedia of medieval weaponry.

Immediately assuming the opposite end of the aesthetic spectrum as the Hello Kitty Stratocaster, the evocatively titled Berzerker is a metal guitar through and through. No jazz, please. Ration those blues licks, and if you must play them, play them through a high-gain metal amp. Come on, just look at this thing.

“Crafted for the true metal enthusiast, this axe embodies the soul of legendary guitarist Zakk Wylde,” says Wylde Audio. “Equipped with high-output EMG active pickups, the Blood Skull Berzerker delivers an iconic tone with unparalleled clarity and sustain.”

Where do you start with a body shape like this? Well, maybe with the finishes.

Wylde Audio is offering this in Blood Skull graphic finish, a Slayer fan’s fever dream if ever we’ve seen it, and in this raw-topped Corridors finish, which has an Escher-esque vibe.

Nose to tail the design of this is brutal. It is with some satisfaction to see that this has a reverse six-in-line headstock. And being a Zakk Wylde production, you’ve got a pair of active EMG humbuckers to help put some weight – not to mention clarity – behind those riffs.

There is an EMG 81 at the bridge and an EMG 85 at the neck. These are controlled by dual volume controls plus a master tone knob, with a three-way pickup selector mounted… Well, it’s kind of hard to see on this model but you’ll find it on the lower horn.

For all intents and purposes, this is a double-cutaway. But really it’s a quadruple cutaway. It will be interesting to see how this feels on a guitar strap, or played seated.

As for the fundamentals, the Berzerker has a mahogany body – the Corridors has some maple on the top to give it that surrealist look.

The neck is three-piece maple, fashioned into Wylde’s signature C shape, and joinis the body with a deep-set, glued-in neck joint. The fingerboard is ebony, inlaid with runes, and has a 14” radius.

There’s some Gibson-esque DNA here, what with Wylde a former user and abuser of the Gibson Les Paul Custom. We have a Tonespro Locking Tune-O-Matic bridge and tailpiece, and the guitar has a 24.625” scale length. The black Speed Knobs are perhaps a nod to his old Custom, too.

Other details include Grover tuners, the frets are extra-jumbo, the nut is a Graph Tech Tusq XL and the nut width is 43mm.

Schecter is listing this at $1,699, and the price does not include a guitar case. For more details head over to the Wylde Audio page at Schecter Guitars.

Tetrarch guitarist Diamond Rowe recently made history with the launch of her signature guitar - the first signature Jackson for a female player, and as the first artist model for a black female performing heavy metal for the industry as a whole.

Now she tells MusicRadar all about her evolution as a player, her formative influences and her approach to creating super-heavy tones.

Your band recently released a new song called Live Not Fantasize, which almost has a Rob Zombie kind of stomp to it…

“A lot of people have mentioned they can hear Rob Zombie in there. The main riff actually started out as a joke! I was at home, it was late, probably around one in the morning, and I was sat at my computer experiencing writer’s block. I started demoing the dumbest riffs, almost as if to go back to square one.

“And I remember thinking it had that four-on-the-floor beat, that Rob Zombie stomp type thing. We went into the studio with 20 songs and for some reason this one kept making the cut.”

Well, it’s funny how the music can guide you in ways like that…

“The working title for it was Ha Ha and because we couldn’t get rid of it, we kept adding things to it. The more we added in terms of electronics and other sounds, the more cool it started to sound cool. So it’s funny, this lead single started its life as a throwaway!”

There are some interesting effects and electronics, which adds to the industrial flavour…

“When I started to get a vision for the song, after we realised it wasn’t going away, I decided it would be cool to push the industrial element. We’d never really done that before, so that’s why the strong effects and electronics ended up being really prominent. My DigiTech Whammy is literally everywhere. Now when we all meet up, they ask me ‘So did you bring your Whammy?’ It seems I’m the Whammy girl now.”

You even use the Whammy to divebomb, almost like using a bar…

“I do! I’ve started to do that a lot. You’re right... good ear, man! Funnily enough, I tracked the solo to that song with a Jackson Soloist, so there was a bar on the guitar which I ended up using as well as the Whammy, making it all sound even crazier.”

There’s a tapping section in your solo. Where did you learn how to do that?

“I think that bit came from all the Metallica songs I learned as a teenager. They’re my all-time favourite band and I had all the tab books. I spent months jamming along really badly, trying to get better and better. After that my influences were all over the place.

“As a kid, I never discriminated over different types of metal – you know, you get people who only listen to hardcore or metalcore or whatever. I would listen to Korn, Disturbed, Nirvana, Linkin Park... anything heavy. It didn’t matter what kind of heavy. The tapping stuff came from Kirk Hammett and Dimebag Darrell. When we started thinking about what Tetrarch was going to sound like, we wanted a lot of that nu-metal vibe – big choruses and creepy melodies. But a lot of those bands didn’t have guitar solos.”

So that’s something you had to learn how to implement?

“Yeah, I made it my mission to fit solos into that kind of sound. I’m a lead player, that’s just what I love. I worked at bringing those shred techniques into our sound, while also using things like the Whammy to make it all sound weird and uncomfortable. But it’s the older generation like Zakk Wylde and Dimebag who taught me how to solo.”

What kind of amps are you using on the latest recordings? We noticed you were plugged into an EVH head for some of the Jackson promo footage...

“The new album was tracked with Neural DSP Gojira plug-in and then we reamped later through the EVH heads. What’s funny is that the reason we tried out EVH heads was also because of Gojira. I believe Joe Duplantier uses the Stealth and Christian Andreu has the EL34. We tried those exact amps because of how crushing Gojira sound live and it worked out great for us.”

Other than the Whammy, what kind of pedals would we find on your ‘board?

“We call my tone ‘The Freak Tone’ because it has the modulated, Korn-inspired kind of sound. We stumbled upon it years ago and were actually using Line 6 Pod Farm to obtain it. I think there was this sine-wave chorus that we couldn’t find anywhere else. Now Pod Farm is antiquated, apparently, so we use analogue pedals. I have a Dunlop Uni-Vibe, a Boss DD7 and a Boss Super Chorus, but all at the same time to create one effect.”

You mentioned there’s a new album on the way. What makes it different to 2021’s Unstable?

“On these new songs, we’ve really tried to write the biggest choruses we can. We’re really proud of that. Our influences were always gateway metal bands that anybody could listen to and enjoy. Obviously we make music for metal fans first and foremost, but we want everyone to enjoy listening to us.

“It’s the same as Enter Sandman – anyone can listen to that, even if they’re not a metalhead. This album has moments that are really catchy, some of my best lead work and some interesting electronics, like on the first single. Some of the songs are quite basic when you strip away the leads and textures, but that’s how we created so much character and personality. I sing on this record, too!”

That’s interesting! What do you sound like as a singer?

“I’ve done some backing vocals in the past, just for textural stuff. But this time round I’ve actually sung my own verses and sections. It came out really cool. Honestly, I don’t know how I sound!”

From a production standpoint, what’s the secret to the aggressive guitar tones you are best known for?

“Anything EQ-related is [singer/guitarist] Josh’s wheelhouse. He’s the audiophile in the band, along with our producer Dave Otero, who is a death metal guy. Dave has done Allegaeon, Cattle Decapitation and Fallujah... those types of records. We’re the softest band he’s worked with!

“So I think some of the aggression comes from how he mixes, that’s just what he’s used to. I think it’s cool because we don’t get mixed like other bands in our genre, and it makes us sound extra heavy. Josh and I are heavy right-hand pickers. We both hit our guitars hard. We don’t play super technical riffs, instead we write ones that bite and make you go ‘Hell yeah!’ We play really clean so you can hear all the intricacies. The heaviness is a mixture of different things.”

There’s something special about the chemistry between you and Josh. What’s the secret?

“Josh and I have been playing together since we were 12, so we’re very locked into each other. We grew up together as guitar players, so it’s a very natural chemistry. What I’m lacking, he picks up and vice versa. I’m a gain fanatic, you’d probably think ‘Oh my god’ if you saw how much I usually turn it up to. I will start at five and work my way up to seven! Josh is more moderate, on the other hand, and wouldn’t go that high. So that works out really cool.

“My tone is more saturated, his is more clean. I have the body and heaviness, he has the clarity. He uses the EVH Stealth and ESP pickups with the EMG 57/66 set, which is aggressive but more vintage-sounding than my 81/85. A lot of people have mentioned that it’s good to see EMGs in a signature again. And I realised that recently a lot of signatures have had Fishmans or Seymour Duncans or whatever. I always tell EMG ‘I’m your girl’ because they always sound great.”

If you could get a guitar lesson from any of your heroes, who would you choose?

“I’d choose Kirk and James from Metallica. I started playing guitar along to those guys, watching all their DVDs and documentaries. They were my teachers. I’d love to jam with them. I know so many of their songs, it would be fun to pick up some guitars and run through Master Of Puppets or One.

“That would be a full-circle moment for me. I’d also love to hang with them as human beings. Because it’s easy to see them as larger-than-life gods who are untouchable. It would be nice to hang out as normal people and just talk about music and life in general.”

What’s next for you as a player – how exactly do you hope to develop?

“That’s a good question. I always happen upon new things I want to try by accident. I never really set my mind to things. Because when I do that, I just crash and burn out. If I organically walk into something new, I will find it more interesting to explore. I’m definitely the kind of player who is song-focussed and looking to make even the most basic song sound interesting. I like to layer different leads and melodies on top of each other, a bit like how Korn do.

“I could sit in a room with pedals for hours, making up weird sounds and layering them over each other. Josh will come into the room and ask ‘Are you high or something?’ And I don’t even smoke, I just like getting lost in the music. My main ambition is to keep on getting better at writing songs and creating sounds, rather than learning new techniques and things like that.”

And do you ever absorb much from players outside of metal?

“As I’ve gotten older, I’ve started to look at players from other genres and appreciate what they do. I was watching footage of John Mayer the other day and thought, ‘That dude’s a really freaking good guitar player!’ His stuff is so out of my wheelhouse but it did inspire me to sit down and mess around with that kind of sound. I think his chords and tones are awesome. But coming from a metal and hard rock background, I’ve never spent much time learning other styles. I’m all about Dime, Zakk and players like that!”

On 15 October it was reported that Jake E. Lee, former guitarist for Ozzy Osbourne, had been shot multiple times in an apparently random incident in Las Vegas. His management stated: “Lee is fully conscious and doing well in an intensive care unit at a Las Vegas hospital. He is expected to fully recover. Las Vegas authorities believe the shooting was completely random and occurred while Lee took his dog out for a walk in the early morning hours.”

Ozzy issued his own statement via TMZ: “It’s been 37 years since I’ve seen Jake E. Lee, but that still doesn’t take away from the shock of hearing what happened to him today. It’s just another senseless act of gun violence. I send my thoughts to him and his beautiful daughter, Jade. I just hope he’ll be ok.”

Jake was a member of Ozzy’s band between 1982 and 1987, and played on two multi-platinum albums, Bark At The Moon (1983) and The Ultimate Sin (1986).

He was hired by Ozzy in the aftermath of a tragedy. On 19 March 1982, Ozzy’s guitarist Randy Rhoads was killed in a plane crash in Florida during a US tour. That tour was completed with two guitarists: first, Bernie Torme (ex-Gillan) and then Brad Gillis of Night Ranger. But in late ’82 Ozzy sought a permanent replacement for Rhoads, and as Jake recalled in an interview with Classic Rock, he got the job in a surprising turn of events.

At this stage, Jake was well known on the LA rock circuit, having played briefly in Ratt and Rough Cutt. He’d also been approached by Mötley Crüe (he claimed that they wanted him as either a replacement for guitarist Mick Mars or to make them a two-guitar band). And he’d been in an early line-up of Dio, led by Ronnie James Dio, the singer who had replaced Ozzy in Black Sabbath in 1979.

Jake sent a tape and a photo to Ozzy’s wife and manager, Sharon. He then heard on the LA grapevine that George Lynch, the guitarist for Dokken, had joined Ozzy on tour to rehearse during soundchecks. “George had got the gig,” Jake recalled. “Everybody knew it.”

But when Ozzy’s tour reached LA, an audition for Jake was held at a rehearsal studio. As soon as it was done, Ozzy offered him the gig. Jake, incredulous, said yes. A minute later, George Lynch breezed into the room, oblivious to what had just gone down. According to Jake, Ozzy simply turned to Lynch and said flatly: “It’s gone. You’ve lost it.” Pointing to Jake, he announced: “He’s the new guitar player.” And with that he walked away.

“I did feel bad,” Jake admitted, “but not as bad as I felt good. And at least I had an early experience of how Ozzy fires people.”

Jake was eventually fired in 1987, to be replaced by Zakk Wylde. But as Jake told Classic Rock, he remained grateful for the time he had with Ozzy. “It was amazing,” he said.

And most of all, he felt that following in the footsteps of Randy Rhoads had made him raise his own game. “I realised that those were big shoes to fill,” he said. “Randy was the best guitar player since Eddie Van Halen. But I was a good player. I just became a better player because I had to follow Randy.”

How time flies. Zakk Wylde has been a Jim Dunlop signature artist for 20 years now, and to make the occasion they are releasing a special anniversary series of guitar effects pedals, with the MXR Wylde Audio Overdrive, Phase and Chorus now available to order.

And there looks like there is more to come with Wylde taking to Instagram to tease the return of his signature Dunlop Cry Baby wah pedal and Dunlop Rotovibe. Like the three pedals announced last night (Monday, 2 October), these all have a new look, albeit one that’s similar to the sort of psychedelic finishes that are applied to Wylde Audio electric guitar catalogue. Wylde’s signature shares space with the MXR logo on the bottom of the pedal.

The sounds will be familiar, too. The MXR Wylde Audio Overdrive has a similar configuration to the new out-of-production Zakk Wylde Berzerker overdrive pedal, with dials for Output, Tone, and Gain. 

If you are living your guitar life just like Wylde, splitting the atom with Pantera and Jamming Black Label Society tunes, then you’ll have this as an always-on drive pedal, another stage of gain to make your guitar amp scream.

The Chorus is described as Wylde’s “secret weapon for thickening up walls of distortion and adding liquid dimension and texture to clean passages”, and has your typical  Level, Rate and Depth chorus pedal controls alongside Low and High cut knobs that allow you to fine-tune the EQ of the effect. 

Like the MXR M234 Analog Chorus, from which this MXR Wylde Audio model is based on, or is, given that it’s surely the same bucket brigade-driven circuit – you can run this in stereo or mono.

Finally, for now, is the MXR Wylde Audio Phase, which has the same single-knob setup as the out-of-production ZW90 Zakk Wylde Phase 90, with a single Speed knob on an orange enclosure, black text, no script just a heady swirly pattern that looks like the pedal sounds. 

How does it sound? “Take it from a slow grind to a jack hammering pulse, or use it as Zakk does, at the 9 o’clock position for a slow burning sweep,” explains Dunlop.

After bringing back Wyldes signature overdrive, phaser and chorus with a refreshed design, the 20th Anniversary Series would not be complete without the return of Wylde’s signature Cry Baby or Rotovibe – the latter a treadle-controlled chorus/vibrato, much loved by the likes of Jerry Cantrell. 

Well, there’s nothing official on that score yet, but Zakk Wylde has them on his pedalboard and he has given us an idea of how they’ll look. 

The 20th Anniversary MXR Wylde Audio Overdrive, Phase and Chorus pedals are available to preorder, with a street price of £145, £135 and £169 respectively. They ship from 15 October. 

See Jim Dunlop for more details.

John Petrucci’s Guitar Universe 4.0 took place this weekend and kicked off with a bit of electric guitar history as Petrucci and Zakk Wylde performed live for the first time ever, teaming up on an extended rendition of Black Label Society's Suicide Messiah.

Billed as an event for guitar players of all age, John Petrucci’s Guitar Universe is four days of “Non-stop rock ’n’ roll guitar”, masterclasses, beach time (it is in Fort Lauderdale, FL), entertainment, barbecue, and perhaps group therapy for guitar superfans. This year’s lineup bore testament to the Dream Theater guitarist’s convening powers, featuring the likes of Lari Basilio, Ola Englund, Polyphia’s Scott LePage and Tim Henson, Plini, Guthrie Govan, Fredrik Akesson, Tosin Abasi and more. 

That Zakk Wylde was in attendance as special guest tells you everything you need to know about the JPGU’s pull. He is currently on tour with Pantera, supporting Metallica, and the day after his appearance he would hot-tail it up to New Jersey to play the MetLife Stadium before 80,000 people.

Abasi and Petrucci, of course, had just come off the end of the epic Dreamsonic tour, which saw Animals As Leaders and Dream Theater joined by Devin Townsend for the hottest prog metal guitar ticket of the year – highlights of which included Abasi and Townsend joining Dream Theater onstage to somehow make The Spirit Carries On even more epic. Petrucci and Wylde? 

This, remarkably, was something new, but you wouldn’t know it to see it. Granted, Suicide Messiah, from 2005’s Mafia, is a primal riffer, Cro-Magnon biker metal informed by Black Sabbath. There was no way JP was going to trouble locking in with the riff. 

• Tosin Abasi declares John Petrucci the GOAT and gifts him an Abasi Concepts ēmi 8-string in a cult classic Picasso finish

Nailing the solo, though, playing it in lockstep with Wylde was pure shred Jedi, and after the mid section, where Dave LaRue on bass guitar assumes responsibility for keeping the melody going, it was time for Petrucci and Wylde to stretch out, Petrucci taking the first solo, Wylde the next, both sending us back to the woodshed to think again. 

Petrucci sure makes that Ernie Ball Music Man Majesty 6 sing in this fan-shot clip from the event. His tip for making solos stand out? Speaking to MusicRadar in 2016, he said melody – and maybe a little romanticism – was key.

“I’ve always employed a melodic style with my leads, placing strong emphasis on infusing romantic sensibilities into what I’m trying to say. Those big, epic melodies come from influences like Pink Floyd, Journey, Marillion… bands that have these guitar parts that are just soaring!” he said.

Technique and theory will play a part. Once you have that down, however, saucing your lead playing with a delay pedal can add the sort of grandeur you are looking for.

“To get that big soaring sound, I must admit, I’m a sucker for delay,” said Petrucci. “It’s a big part of my tone, this stereo left/right delay that’s been offset by a dotted-eighth rhythm or one side could be 600 milliseconds and the other might be 300. Whenever you hear me solo, you’re gonna hear that delay sound!”

Spare a thought for Zakk Wylde right now. The frontman and shredder-in-chief of Black Label Society has taken on some tough gigs in his time – not least as sole guitarist in Ozzy’s band – but stepping in for the late Dimebag Darrell for the forthcoming Pantera reunion shows takes the cake.

Setting aside the controversy for a second, with naysayers arguing that Pantera without Dimebag and his brother Vinnie Paul on the drums is not a reunion – and Wylde would agree, framing it as a tribute – but there’s also the small matter of learning Dimebag’s parts front to back, and furthermore, replicating one of the most distinctive tones in metal guitar.

Speaking to Solar Guitars supremo and Haunted guitarist Ola Englund on his YouTube channel, Wylde outlined some of the challenges, and likened it to the times when he had to step up and learn Randy Rhoads’ parts when playing for Ozzy. This, he says, is no different. 

But there are fundamental differences when it comes to tone and approach. Dimebag was a regular jockey of the Floyd Rose double-locking vibrato – Rhoads, like Wylde, was not. Also, Dimebag pedalboard setup was not like most players, and Wylde admits that his friend’s taste for super-saturated distortion has made him reconsider his rig.

“With Dime’s stuff, Dime would have two distortion pedals on at the same time!” said Wylde. “I remember, he goes, ‘Zakk, what pedals do you use?’ Like I said, one of my Berzerker pedals, one of my overdrives. He had one of those on his ‘board. I said, ‘Dime, it’s probably not even adding anything ‘cos you’ve got so much overdrive on there.’ But for him there wasn’t enough gain. He loved it.”

• 5 songs guitarists need to hear by… Dimebag Darrell

Wylde’s tone is hardly a reference for clean tone enthusiasts. No one is mistaking the sound of his Wylde Audio custom electric guitars through a Marshall stack for Hank Marvin or Cory Wong. But Dimebag was the gain extremist’s extremist. He took it that little bit further than anyone else. 

His tone was pure chainsaw, and when talking power tools, safety measures need to be taken. And Wylde says for the first time in his career he has had to deploy a noise gate just as Dimebag did.

“I got my rig, and obviously Dime used stuff that I don’t use,” he said. “Obviously, his noise gate. If you’re gonna be going [hums Cowboys From Hell verse riff]. There is an art to controlling it. Ask any guitar player, if they’re not used to playing with a distortion pedal on – any of our buddies that just play without one – they’re like, ‘Bro, how do you play with that thing?’ Even with my rig, to me it’s not even that dirty but with Dime’s stuff you’ve got to have a noise gate on for sure. So now I am a proud owner of a noise gate as well! [Laughs]”

Wylde also revealed a little of what we can expect from the Pantera set. Cowboys From Hell, where the aforementioned noise gate is essential for the staccato rhythm figures, is a no-brainer, an ever-present in any Pantera set. Talking about other tracks he is looking forward to performing, Wylde mentioned Walk, A New Level, Fucking Hostile, and Goddamn Electric – “That solo is beyond. All the solos are blazing; they’re all awesome.”

He also said that he looked to YouTube’s roster of virtuoso players – including Englund himself – for pointers on how to nail specific songs. Becoming was one of those, and this, of course, required another addition to his ‘board in the shape of a DigiTech Whammy Pedal.

Dimebag was a pioneer of the Whammy Pedal, using it for the stepped-on-the-cat squawk  in the Becoming verse riff, and for adding an extra pitch-shifting squeal in those big harmonics in his solos. As for electric guitars, Wylde will be using the Dean Dime signature models that the man himself gave to him.

In the meantime, what’s needed is practice, and lots of it. Once Wylde can play it without the record in the background, he’ll know he’s ready.

“Playing it with the record is one thing, but then you take the record away and say ‘play it for me,’” he says. “Playing it with the record is the guideline, it’s like colour-by-numbers; you know you’re going. [Without the record] is like taking the GPS off your car.”

Wylde also discussed the Berzerker Guitar Camp, a new online guitar lessons programme that he developed with Riffhard, in which he breaks down how to play some of the biggest tracks in the catalogue. As with learning Dimebag’s material, the devil is in the detail. You can read more about the Berzerker Guitar Camp here. And check out his full interview with Englund above.

Do you ever wake up in a cold sweat wondering how you could ever master the superhuman picking patterns and pinch squeals of Zakk Wylde? How you might harness the the power of an electric guitar with a vertigo-inducing finish to nail Wylde’s solo to Ozzy Osbourne classic cut No More Tears? 

Well, help is at hand, and from the man himself, as the Black Label Society main man has hooked up with Riffhard for the Zakk Wylde Berzerker Guitar Camp – an online guitar lessons platform that takes a deep dive into Wylde’s back catalogue to offer lessons in how to master his style and tone.

“We’re gonna be coverin’ scales, chords, songs,” says Wylde. And, it seems, tracks from all periods in the hirsute berzerker’s career, including Pride & Glory tracks such as Losin’ Your Mind and Ozzy’s Mama I’m Coming Home, to Black Label Society face-rippers Stillborn and Suicide Messiah.

The course comprises over 12 hours of educational content spread over 90 videos, demonstrating how to master Wylde’s approach to bending and vibrato, harmonics, chicken pickin’, scales and arpeggios. There are a sample lessons in pinch harmonics and the No More Tears solo on the website, where you can order the lessons bundle.

• Zakk Wylde: my playlist – “I guess Smoke On The Water is the one universal riff that we all know”

Riffhard brands itself as “the world’s best online school for metal guitarists” and lists the likes of Tom Quayle, Spiritbox’s Mike Stringer and former Cradle Of Filth guitarist Richard Shaw among its instructors.

The video lessons are offered with or without complementary backing tracks, with tab published in PDF and Guitar Pro formats. 

And there are rewards for excellence, with Riffworks hosting a competition to see whose performance of the Stillborn solo is the best. 

Prizes include one of Wylde’s Doom Crew signature guitars, signed by the man himself, plus Zakk Wydle signature EMG electric guitar pickups, again, signed by Wylde, a Positive Grid Spark Mini guitar amp with custom grille cloth, and Death Wish coffee to aid late night practice. 

All entrants receiving a Positive Grid Bias FX 2 plugin for taking part.

The Zakk Wylde Berzerker Guitar Camp can be accessed on phone, tablet or computer, is for beginner guitar players and experts, and is priced $79 for lifetime access to the lessons.

Head over to Riffhard for more information

Ozzy Osbourne has released Nothing Feels Right, the latest track to be taken from his forthcoming 13th solo studio album, Patient Number 9, and a song that welcomes long-time guitarist Zakk Wylde back to the fold.

Featuring guest spots from Jeff Beck, Eric Clapton, Pearl Jam’s Mike McCready and fellow Black Sabbath alum Tony Iommi, Patient Number 9 promises to be one of the box office electric guitar releases of the year – but it is also notable that it’ll be the first Ozzy album since 2007’s Black Rain to feature Wylde. 

Wylde was 19 when he joined Ozzy’s band, and made his Ozzy debut with 1988’s No Rest For The Wicked, following that with 1991 smash-hit album No More Tears, establishing himself as Ozzy's chosen six-string lieutenant, heir to the Randy Rhoads throne.

Speaking to MusicRadar last year, Wylde said it was “an honour” to be playing on an album that features an all-star cast of his guitar heroes.

“The new Ozzy stuff is sounding great,” he said. “And for sure, it’s an honour to play on a record with all my heroes. It’s pretty cool… I can’t wait for everyone to hear it. I’ve always loved Blow By Blow and Wired, but honestly every record Jeff Beck has put out is amazing.

“It definitely sounds slamming. The same goes for all the guys – what Tony Iommi played, and then Eric Clapton and Jeff Beck, it’s all killer for sure. On those tracks I’m playing rhythm guitar for my heroes… it’s crazy! It sounds awesome and I’m beyond honoured to be doing it.”

Wylde also explained how is approach to guitar solos changed after joining a band whose six-string lineage came from with Rhoads’ fusion of metal and classical music, and the nigh-on Aristotelian approach he took to lead guitar.

“[Miracle Man] was a very composed solo, like a lot of my Ozzy stuff,” he said. “That’s what came out of the Randy Rhoads school of soloing, where everything had a beginning, a middle and an end. 

“The solos were composed to be part of the song, as opposed to just improv and shredding over the whole thing. It’s the chord progressions that accommodate the solos… and I still do that today. I’ll sit there with my practice amp listening to a homework CD or playlist of backing tracks, coming out with different ideas until I find something I’m happy with.”

Nothing Feels Right is a classic Ozzy/Wylde track, Ozzy’s voice pulling focus over a faintly psychedelic sequence of arpeggios, before a super-sized but faintly seasick chorus. And then there’s the solo at 3:26min in, at which point Wylde brings all of his Ozzy lead vocabulary to the fore. 

There’s some neck pickup tones in there – what Ozzy calls “the cow tone” – and big notes, and hyper-kinetic alternate picked runs. It makes for a précis of Wylde’s style when Ozzy is helming the session. You can listen to it in full in the video at the top of the page.

Patient Number 9 was produced by Andrew Watt, who also occupied the control room for 2020’s Ordinary Man. It is released on 9 September via Sony. 

Pull out your diaries, calendars and over-sized jumbo marker pens, Marshall has announced a massive 50th anniversary show, '50 Years Of Loud... Live!', at Wembley Arena for 22 September.

UPDATE: Slayer's Kerry King, Andy Fraser of Free and Al Murray added to the bill!

Among those set to appear at the showwill be some of the biggest names in guitar land, including Joe Satriani, Paul Gilbert, Yngwie Malmsteen and Zakk Wylde, alongside a stellar line-up of Billy Duffy (The Cult), Nicko McBrain (Iron Maiden), Corey Taylor (Slipknot), Doug Aldrich and Brian Tichy (Whitesnake).

There are more names still to be announced and it's being supported by your favourite guitar mag (that's us, in case you didn't know) and this here web-behemoth, MusicRadar.

Paul Marshall, the firm's Head Of Artist Liaison, told TG:

"Artists play a massive role in the company, and are very much part of the 'Marshall Family'. Over the five decades of Marshall's history, practically every guitar hero has used Marshall, Richie Blackmore, Jeff Beck, Gary Moore, Slash, the list goes on…. This event is a celebration of the Marshall family and we are honoured so many artists want to get involved!"

Tickets for the event will go sale this Friday (9 March) at 9am from www.livenation.co.uk. Set your alarms, put an annoying reminder on your phone, or tattoo it on your forehead - just DO NOT miss this gig!

Back in January, we reported that Zakk Wylde had teamed up with William Shatner to record a cover of Black Sabbath classic 'Iron Man' and now you can stream the track right here.

TG caught up with Zakk when he featured on the cover of Total Guitar issue 214 earlier this year and we used the opportunity to ask about working with Shatner.

"[It was] amazing," Wylde told TG back in April. "I'm in some elite company right now. How many people can say that they've jammed with the Prince Of Daftness and one of the greatest Starfleet commanders of all time?

"He was a really cool guy. We were talking to him on the day and I told him that I remember being 11 years old and going to a Star Trek convention with my dad in the city.

"I mean, the guy's a f***ing legend, just like Ozzy. I've been blessed, in that all my heroes that I've met have been super cool. Or I've just never caught them on a bad day."

Stream the track below and hear Zakk doing his best Ozzy impression in the background… It's pretty good!

Stream Zakk Wylde & William Shatner's 'Iron Man' cover

William Shatner's new album 'Seeking Major Tom' (featuring Zakk Wylde, Brian May and Peter Frampton) is released on 17 October.

The latest issue of the new-look Total Guitar magazine is on sale now. Featuring Zakk Wylde, Steve Craddock, KT Tunstall, Periphery and the chance to learn AC/DC's classic Back In Black in an overhauled Learn To Play section.

In the mag

Zakk Wylde
The Wylde man is back, sober and better than ever. We meet the shred berzerker on his British invasion with Black Label Society. Zakk tells all about jamming with Captain Kirk, gives a guided tour of his Black Vatican studio and reveals a Black Label Guitar Bible for fans of his playing.

Djent
The story of djent, the new wave of progressive metal, told to you by its pioneers and leaders: Meshuggah, Periphery, Tesseract and Monuments. The experts explain all.

Steve Craddock
The 21st Century Mod, Paul Weller's trusted collaborator and Ocean Colour Scene man invites us into his Devon studio for an exclusive peak into his world of playing and vintage gear.

KT Tunstall
We take your questions on songwriting, looping pedals and rhythm playing tips to the Scottish acoustic star.

Learn To Play
Read the stories behind the songs, get the sound with any setup and play along with backing tracks on the CD.

AC/DC - Back In Black
Black Label Society - Bleed For Me
Guns N' Roses - Live And Let Die
Radiohead - Karma Police
Sex Pistols - God Save The Queen
Extreme - More Than Words
Trivium - Down From The Sky

Gear - massive new section
Over 20 pages of reviews and advice including the PRS SE 245, Gibson SG Special '60s Tribute, Squier Vintage Modified Jaguar HH, Manson MA-1, a distortion pedal GroupTest, acoustic Head To Head between Recording King and Tanglewood and the awesome new Bare Knuckle Aftermath humbuckers.

On the site

Video Lessons
All of TG's Video Lessons are now hosted online through www.totalguitar.co.uk/video, but you'll have to buy the mag to get the most out of them. Here are all of the videos from TG214.

TG214: Sneak preview
Have a look inside the new issue right here!

Competition: Win a LTD Alexi 600 Blacky guitar worth £1,299!
Bag yourself a serious slab of signature metal guitar, as played by Children Of Bodom guitarist Alexi Laiho.

Image: © Kevin Estrada /Retna Ltd./Corbis

Reports are emerging that Zakk Wylde has recorded a cover of Black Sabbath classic 'Iron Man' with 'Star Trek'-turned-comic pop star William Shatner.

Famous for his spoken-word renditions of rock and pop hits, such as Elton John's 'Rocket Man' (see below) and, of course, for his star turn as Captain James T Kirk in the original series of 'Star Trek', Shatner leaked the news on his Twitter, stating: "Just watched tracks being laid down by Zakk Wylde of Black Label Society for my upcoming record SEEKING MAJOR TOM [sic]." Before following up with another tweet, explaining: "Zakk is one of the great guitarists who played with Ozzy Osbourne. A master playing a cover of IRON MAN. He's fantastic! I'm energized."

How successful would this pairing be? We're yet to decide… but we do know that we NEED to hear that track. Check out the video below for a taste of Shatner's previous musical endeavours.

Bow down and worship at the altar of Uncle Tony Iommi, the godfather of the heavy metal guitar and the single most influential metal axeman that ever applied pick to string in anger.

Every metal guitarist owes a greater or lesser debt to the great Black Sabbath/Heaven And Hell founder, and here TG places him in a chain of inspiration that leads from the mid 20th century to the modern era.

This gallery of riffage has been assembled for us by Joel McIver, whose books ‘Sabbath Bloody Sabbath’ and ‘The 100 Greatest Metal Guitarists’ make him the ideal man for the job. It all starts with a legendary player who you may not be expecting…

Total Guitar issue 210 (originally on sale 24 December - 20 January) featured Tony Iommi on the cover and contained 11-pages of Iommi coverage, including an in-depth interview and a complete tab of 'Planet Caravan'.

Django Reinhardt

Main years active: 1928-1953

Sure, the late, unbelievably great Django was jamming away in the sky 20 years before heavy metal was even thought of, but his influence on the scene is incalculable. Why so, you ask? Well, when the teenage Iommi chopped off two fingertips in an industrial accident, he assumed that his playing career was over – until a buddy told him about Django, who shredded like a demon even though two of his fretting hand fingers had been paralysed in a fire. Inspired, Iommi fitted plastic caps on his knacked fingers, down-tuned his guitar for ease of playing – and accidentally invented heavy metal. Respect the Reinhardt!

Hot Club de France ‘J’Attendrai Swing’

Total Guitar issue 210 (originally on sale 24 December - 20 January) featured Tony Iommi on the cover and contained 11-pages of Iommi coverage, including an in-depth interview and a complete tab of 'Planet Caravan'.

Tony Iommi (Black Sabbath, Heaven And Hell)

Main years active: 1970 to date

With his playing given renewed inspiration by the example of Django Reinhardt, Iommi spent the late 60s refining a taut, choppy style that – despite the relatively primitive effects and amplifier technology of the day – was still heavier than anyone before him. By the time Black Sabbath were up and running in 1970, Iommi was writing music that literally had never been heard before. Just as Jimi Hendrix had pioneered the art of overdriven lead guitar a couple of years before, Iommi had all the as-yet-unwritten riffs in the world to play with, such as the immortal ‘War Pigs’.

Black Sabbath ‘War Pigs’

Total Guitar issue 210 (originally on sale 24 December - 20 January) featured Tony Iommi on the cover and contained 11-pages of Iommi coverage, including an in-depth interview and a complete tab of 'Planet Caravan'.

KK Downing (Judas Priest)

Main years active: 1974 to date

While Judas Priest often labelled themselves the world’s first heavy metal band (as Sabbath incorporated some blues and rock into their sound), Iommi’s influence on the two Priest guitarists’ style was obvious. Both KK Downing and Glen Tipton used a warm, bluesy tone on their earlier records, with rhythms anchored by staccato downstrokes from the drawer marked ‘Paranoid’. Later on, the two axemen focused on a duelling style that the one-guitar Sabbath obviously couldn’t replicate, and KK and Glen incorporated techniques such as sweep picking that Iommi rarely (if ever) used, but there’s no denying that he cast a huge shadow on the early Priest albums.

Judas Priest ‘Victim Of Changes’

Total Guitar issue 210 (originally on sale 24 December - 20 January) featured Tony Iommi on the cover and contained 11-pages of Iommi coverage, including an in-depth interview and a complete tab of 'Planet Caravan'.

James Hetfield (Metallica)

Main years active: 1981-1993

Readers of a certain age will recall 1991, when the San Franciscan thrash metal legends Metallica decided to take a deep breath, slow down and play heavy rather than fast. A generation of thrashers mourned, and continues to mourn, but it has to be admitted that the new, MTV-friendly ’Tallica had its moments – not least in the superb Sabbath homage ‘Sad But True’, one of the highlights of the planet-shafting Black Album. James Hetfield’s millimetrically perfect downstrokes, coupled with a strutting groove and a very Iommi-like down tuning to straight D made ‘Sad But True’ one of the biggest, most crushing songs Metallica ever recorded.

Metallica ‘Sad But True’

Total Guitar issue 210 (originally on sale 24 December - 20 January) featured Tony Iommi on the cover and contained 11-pages of Iommi coverage, including an in-depth interview and a complete tab of 'Planet Caravan'.

Kerry King (Slayer)

Main years active: 1983 to date

Slayer are best known for insanely fast thrash metal albums such as ‘Reign In Blood’ (1986), but at times even their nippiest songs included a slow groove that nodded directly towards vintage-era Sabbath. Occasionally, the primary songwriter, Kerry King, even penned a fully slow-and-heavy song that owed most of its sound to the template established by Iommi two decades before. One example is ‘Gemini’, which appeared on the otherwise regrettable ‘Undisputed Attitude’ album in 1996: the song stood out among the tepid punk covers on the rest of the record thanks to its vast opening riff, courtesy of King’s first ever seven-string BC Rich.

Slayer ‘Gemini’

Total Guitar issue 210 (originally on sale 24 December - 20 January) featured Tony Iommi on the cover and contained 11-pages of Iommi coverage, including an in-depth interview and a complete tab of 'Planet Caravan'.

Jim Martin (Faith No More)

Main years active: 1985-1993

Yes, we do mean the bearded legend from ‘Bill & Ted’s Bogus Journey’, but bear with us for a minute. Jim Martin may have played a variety of guitar styles in his time with Faith No More, The Officially Greatest Band That Ever Lived™, but when he was in a metal mood he played his Gibson Flying V with a crushing commitment that rivalled any of FNM’s contemporaries on the 1980s metal scene. ‘Surprise! You’re Dead!’ is a particularly uncompromising example, and it’s no surprise that its parent album – 1989’s ‘The Real Thing’ – also featured a cover of Sabbath’s ‘War Pigs’.

Faith No More ‘Surprise! You’re Dead!’

Total Guitar issue 210 (originally on sale 24 December - 20 January) featured Tony Iommi on the cover and contained 11-pages of Iommi coverage, including an in-depth interview and a complete tab of 'Planet Caravan'.

Josh Homme (Kyuss, Queens Of The Stone Age)

Main years active: 1988-1995

Nowadays, Josh Homme struts the stage with arch rockers Queens Of The Stone Age, but a few years back he was a key member of The Second Officially Greatest Band That Ever Lived™, Kyuss. Jamming the nights away in the Coachella desert, California, the band evolved a massively heavy but melodic sound that owed much to Sabbath (although Homme always insisted that he’d never heard the Sabs until much later on). This song, from the awe-inspiring ‘Welcome To Sky Valley’ (1994), shows what happens when you tune down to C#, neck a bunch of peyote and leave civilisation behind.

Kyuss ‘Gardenia’

Total Guitar issue 210 (originally on sale 24 December - 20 January) featured Tony Iommi on the cover and contained 11-pages of Iommi coverage, including an in-depth interview and a complete tab of 'Planet Caravan'.

Darrell ‘Dimebag’ Abbott (Pantera, Damageplan)

Main years active: 1985-2004

Even if you discounted Pantera’s ace 1994 cover of Sabbath’s ‘Planet Caravan’, you’d still see signs of Iommi’s influence all over Dimebag’s playing. Check his beautiful, melodic solos; his almost painfully accurate downstrokes, as in ‘Walk’ and dozens of other Pantera songs; his commitment to the heaviest sound possible; and perhaps most of all, the huge presence in the mix of the rhythm guitars. Interestingly, Dime appeared to be moving towards a looser, more relaxed picking style with his last band, Damageplan, but we’ll never know where he would have gone with it because he was murdered in 2004.

Pantera ‘Walk’

Total Guitar issue 210 (originally on sale 24 December - 20 January) featured Tony Iommi on the cover and contained 11-pages of Iommi coverage, including an in-depth interview and a complete tab of 'Planet Caravan'.

Zakk Wylde (Black Label Society, ex-Ozzy Osbourne)

Main years active: 1965-1989 to date

We’ve looked at how immense Tony Iommi’s riffs are, but perhaps we’ve neglected his world-class soloing a bit. Sorry, Tony. Let’s redress this by taking a long hard look at one of the most accomplished lead guitarists playing today, Zakk Wylde. Now, Zakk is a man with more knowledge of Iommi’s guitar playing than most people, having spent over 20 years as a member of Ozzy Osbourne’s band, in which he regularly played Sabbath songs. A key feature of both Zakk’s and Tony’s guitar technique is their ridiculously advanced alternate picking, gained after literally decades of practice. Think you can do it too? Watch this…

Zakk Wylde ‘2002 Solo’

Total Guitar issue 210 (originally on sale 24 December - 20 January) featured Tony Iommi on the cover and contained 11-pages of Iommi coverage, including an in-depth interview and a complete tab of 'Planet Caravan'.

Matt Pike (High On Fire)

Main years active: 1998 to date

Wait – we’re on the last page already, and we haven’t even looked at doom metal and stoner rock? Well, that’s what happens when you’re writing about a guy who’s been playing the guitar for almost 50 years. In that case, let’s raise a glass to High On Fire, one of the more dynamic stoner-doom-rockers of the last decade or so. Their most recent album, ‘Snakes For The Divine’, produced this tasty single, based on a full-fat guitar riff that has ‘Borrowed From Tony’ stamped all over it.

It only remains to doff a hat to Iommi, who inspired all this lot and hundreds of others. Long may he reign.

High On Fire ‘Frost Hammer’

More Tony Iommi features

Total Guitar issue 210 (originally on sale 24 December - 20 January) featured Tony Iommi on the cover and contained 11-pages of Iommi coverage, including an in-depth interview and a complete tab of 'Planet Caravan'.

Zakk Wylde's been beavering away in the Black Label bunker for a while now and the new album 'Order Of The Black' is due in August. Here's the first full song we've heard from it, 'Parade Of The Dead'.

The new full length is due to be released on 9 August with four different album covers - which one you get depends on your location, be it Europe, North America, South America or Asia, or Australia.

Finally, if you haven't already, check out Zakk's awesome new press shot (above). Classy, no? If you've forgotten your glasses, you can see a larger version of it here.

You might not know this, but heavy metal, as a genre, is well good at social networking. It's appropriate then, that Zakk Wylde has chosen to reveal his plans for a new album with the Black Label Society through his Twitter page.

Wylde told fans on 11 February: "Yeah BLACK LABEL is gonna fire up the Machine in June ... Start Recording new Album this Month (sic)."

The guitarist then proceeded to post a string of pictures of their recording studio, the 'Black Label Bunker', which you can view below. It's kind of like watching a poorly made MTV 'Cribs' where you have to do your own voice-over. Nevertheless, they're worth checking out, mainly just to ogle the sweet equipment that he has lying about the place.

Zakk Wylde/Black Label Society Studio Pictures:

http://moby.to/ewbxcj
http://moby.to/g0kdse
http://moby.to/807drh
http://moby.to/0tfn58
http://moby.to/3b6q2r
http://moby.to/esq6xn
http://moby.to/pfdgba
http://moby.to/x5h5co
http://moby.to/yoldrz
http://moby.to/ebyfd2

You know who else is on Twitter? That's right, us! Follow @TotalGuitar