by Wylde, Zakk
“Get That Shit out of the House”—The Warden
AS YOU CAN PROBABLY TELL BY NOW, THE WHOLE STUDIO IS MAINLY black and white, from the checkered tile floor in the kitchen to the black walls throughout the interior. We did use red for one wall in the kitchen and also for the entire bathroom, which I’ve designed as a tribute to the 1973 film The Exorcist. The Pazuzu Loo, as we now call it, is decorated with original images and oddities from the movie, some signed by Linda Blair. At one point we were trying to get a small statue of Pazuzu for the Pazuzu Loo.
That’s where the Warden put her foot down. She said it would bring bad spirits onto the property. I think that regardless, if JD is using the Pazuzu Loo, there’s gonna be some serious bad spirits in that toilet anyway. What would you expect from a guy whose nickname is Meatball Lasagna?
To give you a quick crash course in Babylonian demonology, Pazuzu is the king of the demons, ruler of the wind, and bearer of storms and drought. He has the body of a man, the head of a dog, eagle-clawed feet, two pairs of wings, a scorpion tail (which I think is to scale, otherwise it would be pretty ineffective), and a snake for a penis. And while he’s known for bringing famine during dry seasons and locusts during rainy seasons, I think he’s not all that bad as far as demons go. Pazuzu drives away other evil spirits and protects humans from plagues and other misfortunes. It sounds like he got a bad reputation after his appearance in the movie if you ask me. But the way he dragged Linda Blair’s character Regan around the ceilings also hints that he might have some anger issues or maybe didn’t get to enough hugs from his Babylonian mommy.
In The Exorcist, Pazuzu is responsible for the demonic possession of twelve-year-old Regan MacNeil, played by Linda Blair. Regan undergoes some seriously disturbing psychological and physical changes when she is possessed. It’s hard to forget those images of her scarred and bleeding face and now no one has to forget them, because I’ve practically wallpapered the studio’s bathroom with them to frighten the guys while they’re taking a piss. When I’m working in the studio, my eight-year-old son Hendrix loves to hang out in the lounge and play video games. But the poor little guy covers his eyes when he goes into the Pazuzu Loo because it’s “too scary” and he winds up pissing all over the place. You can be sure of one thing: I’m not gonna catch any of my friends whacking off in this bathroom. That’s what I thought at least. After recording the Order of the Black album, JD broke the news to me. He said initially he would bless himself with the holy water that we keep at the door every time he entered and exited the bathroom, but Pazuzu couldn’t deter him from exploding in there a few times. Now I’m wondering which pictures did it for him. Was it the shot of Regan foaming at the mouth or the shot of her with her head spinning around?
Pazuzu has become the practical joker of the Black Label Society. It seems like when something goes mysteriously wrong, he’s always behind it. The other night I was going over the final artwork for the Order of the Black album, reviewing all of the lyrics to make sure everything was written exactly how the songs were recorded. I went over it with a fine-toothed comb and got everything perfect. A couple of days later, after everything had gone to print and it was too late to make any changes, I was reading the lyrics to “Godspeed Hellbound” and found that the lyrics are flipflopped in some places. Sure enough, in the CD insert, that is the song with a picture of Pazuzu on the same page. It’s like Pazuzu is sitting at a pub in the sky with a couple of his buddies, laughing at us and saying, “Suck it, Trebek!”
Actually I had a dream about Pazuzu and asked him if he was behind the misprint on the lyrics. He said to me, “Don’t blame me for that shit. It had to be some fucking moron working in the printing department of your record company.”
My “Run-In” with Satanism
SATANISM. IT’S FUNNY HOW STUFF LIKE THIS GOT BLOWN UP IN THE media and people started using the “S” word. How anyone could ever think of Oz as a Satanist is beyond me. Within the Ozzy band, our running joke was that if you didn’t know anything about Catholicism or Christianity, you would be converted by the time you left the show because he says “God bless you” about ninety thousand times during any given night. I’ve never understood the whole Sabbath-and-Ozzy-Satanism thing. He’s always got the crucifix on the stage and on his clothes, and one around his neck made by his father. In fact, Ozzy’s father made the crosses that all the guys in Black Sabbath wear, with their names engraved on them. So yeah, it always puzzled me why anyone would think of him as satanic. The funniest and coolest guy on the planet? Definitely. Satanic? I don’t know what the fuck they’re talking about.
When we were working on the Ozzmosis record, we stayed at a hotel on Lexington Avenue in New York City. I would go into the studio with the guys and track music all day and then head out to the pubs at night. I also had an interest in reading up about all the occult stuff that Jimmy Page was interested in. I would go into this occult bookstore called the Magickal Childe—this place was absolutely amazing. It had books on everything from Christianity to Wicca to Judaism to Buddhism to Hinduism to Luciferianism to Satanism. I bought some books about and by Aleister Crowley to find out what the big deal was—you know, why Page was so into him. I picked up books on all the occult players—Anton LaVey’s Satanic Bible, The Golden Dawn, and stuff like that, just to check it all out.
It was also during those New York sessions that I wrote most of the songs that were on my Book of Shadows album. I would go over to this bar on Thirty-fourth and Lexington and drink until six or seven o’clock in the morning. The guys in the pub were cool, and I’d bring my guitar in there and jam cool songs all night—Neil Young and stuff like that.
Back in the hotel, Barbaranne didn’t like seeing all these books lying around. She said they were dark and evil and that we didn’t need that kind of shit around us. I would explain to her, “Barb, they’re only fucking books, just paper with words like any other book. It’s not a big deal.”
I told her, “If these guys were the enemy, then maybe it would actually be good to know what the fuck the enemy does—you know, as a soldier of Christ, shouldn’t I know what the opposition is up to?” That philosophy didn’t fly well with the Warden—we weren’t getting any laughter out of that one.
One afternoon I was looking for my books, The Satanic Bible and the Crowley books. I knew I had them in the hotel room because I was reading them that same morning before I left for the studio. But I couldn’t fuckin’ find them. When Barb got back to the room from cruising around the city all day, I asked her if she had seen my Satanic Bible and the Crowley books.
That’s when she told me, “Yeah, I fuckin’ heaved them out the goddamn window earlier, because we don’t need any bad, dark shit in our lives.”
Being the good Catholic and wonderful Samaritan that I am, it suddenly raised another concern. Our room was on the twenty-first floor. You wanna know fucking evil? Take a hit in the head from a Satanic Bible that dropped twenty-one fucking floors before colliding into your skull.
“Are you fucking kidding me?” I said. “You know what evil shit you should have heaved out the window? Those Cosmopolitan magazines that give advice on how to know if your man is cheating on you and whatever other bullshit they cram in there to ruin a hardworking guy’s day. Not even Anton LaVey would want to take credit for the evil manipulative shit in that rag.”
I could just imagine some guy down there sitting on a bench near the hotel—had a terrible day, his wife just left him, he lost the house, has nothing left, just lost his job. He’s just sitting there thinking to himself, “Please, God, give me some kind of sign. What do I do?” Then The Satanic Bible comes plunging down from the sky and plops right into his lap. Contradictory to Barb’s belief that she was doing good, she could have actually been converting people to Satanism, one book at a time.
The next morning I was out in front of the hotel getting a cup of coffee and talking to Tony, a hotel employee. I told him what happened to my books and that we were lucky that Barb didn’t
kill anyone when she tossed them out the fuckin’ window. Tony told me he saw the books out on the sidewalk the day before. They were gone by then. So once again, Barb was indirectly spreading Satanism rather than preventing it—out there recruiting for the dark lord. I swear to fuck I see a Seinfeld episode in here somewhere.
Back at the Magickal Childe, they had a poster of Aleister Crowley that was actually priced at six dollars and sixty-six cents. I had to ask the guy working there, “Excuse me, how much is that poster there?”
Without cracking a smile the employee said, “That would be six dollars and sixty-six cents.”
I had to buy this thing because of the price alone so I said, “Here’s seven dollars. Keep the fuckin’ change,” and headed out with my new poster.
Over the first few days in the studio I put up a bunch of cool posters on the walls to give the place some character while we were recording. You know, so it would look like my bedroom as a kid. It looked killer when I was done, with posters of Led Zeppelin, Crowley, Hendrix, and stuff like that.
Ozzy came into the studio one day while I was tracking guitars to see how things were going and hear some of the new tracks. He was checking out all the posters, telling me stories about his experiences partying with John Bonham and how he was the nicest, sweetest guy on the planet and loads of fun to be around. Then Ozzy asked, “Hey, Zakk, who’s the bald-headed cunt on the fuckin’ wall?”
And I asked, “What?”
“That fuckin’ bald-headed fuck. Who is it?” he asked me again.
“You don’t know who that is?” I asked him.
“Who the fuck is it?” he asked.
I said, “Oz, you’ve been singing about him for the last twenty years, man.”
Oz gave the man in the poster a long stare and then asked, “Who the fuck is this fuckin’ guy, Zakk?”
“Who else could it be, Oz?” I asked him.
“Who the fuck is this fuckin’ cunt on the fuckin wall?!” His patience was gone.
I said, “Oz, that’s fuckin’ Aleister Crowley, man.”
He looked at him again and then said, “Oh, is that what he fuckin’ looks like?”
We must have been on the fucking floor crying for about twenty minutes after that one—absolutely pure Ozzy pricelessness!
Back in the Sabbath days, it was Geezer Butler who was well-read on religion and the occult. And he had a memory like a fuckin’ library. You could ask Geezer about anything regarding the occult or anything else mysterious and he’d lay it out for you as if he was a history professor.
One day Ozzy took my Satanic Bible and was looking at it. You know, before Barb chucked it out the fucking hotel window. He thumbed through it for a few minutes and then came to me saying, “You know, Zakk, if you’re reading this stuff, you’re practicing it.” So I said, “Really, Oz? Because I saw Geezer thumbing through my Flex magazine the other day, so I take it Geezer’s gonna be taking a shot at the fuckin’ Mr. Olympia competition this year! I guess he’s gonna be benching four hundred and fifty pounds this week after all that practice!”
Oz kept thumbing through the book and then said to Geezer, “Anton LaVey. Now, where do I know that name from?”
Geezer told him, “Remember when we did the record release for the first Sabbath album in San Francisco? Warner Bros. threw a big party for us. It was on California Street. The Church of Satan headed the parade.”
Oz responded, “Oh, so that’s the guy. No wonder the record didn’t do as well as it could have.”
Captain Kirk Visits the Black Vatican
HAVING THE BLACK VATICAN HAS NOT ONLY BEEN PERFECT FOR RECORDING my own music, but it’s also proven itself a noteworthy mecca for other great artists.
Recently, we beamed up Father William Shatner to the Black Vatican to collaborate with me on a version of Black Sabbath’s “Iron Man,” an adaptation we did for Father Shatner’s record Seeking Major Tom. It was an honor having him in the studio. I’ve loved Star Trek since I was a kid—the toys, the whole nine yards. My father even took me to a Star Trek convention once. So to actually have Captain Kirk in the Black Vatican was slightly illogical yet truly amazing.
Note from First Officer Commander Hendrikx: I was at the Black Vatican that day to collect data of this encounter with Captain Kirk and Captain Wylde. (You can find the video from this day on YouTube.) When Captain Kirk and his lovely wife Elizabeth arrived, I asked him how he managed to find the place so effortlessly—it’s not an easy location to find—and he leaned toward me and replied. “Well, son, I just used my Global Positioning System. There was no need for the cloaking device, as Federation law does not allow Klingons anywhere near the Interstate 5 highway.”
Impressed with his strategy, I replied, “Brilliant, sir. Welcome to the Black Vatican, captain. Please follow me up to the studio. Captain Wylde is expecting you.”
We were all settled in the studio except for his officers, Chief Tactical Officer Adam Hamilton and Chief Engineer John Lappen, who were lost somewhere in the dismal abyss that surrounds the almighty Black Vatican Mountain. While on his com-link with Officer Hamilton, Captain Kirk announced that they were somewhere near a cosmic wormhole. “Does anyone know where the black hole is located in this system?” he asked.
“I know exactly where it is. Tell them to stay calm. I can be there in a matter of nanoseconds once I reach light speed,” I said.
“Remain at your current location!” the captain commanded his officers. “Do not enter the wormhole! Help is on the way!”
The captain then turned his attention back to me. “Commander Hendrikx, make haste! They are stranded on the cusp of space and time. If they enter the wormhole, we may never find them!”
“I’m on my way, captain!” I said as I raced to my craft and took flight toward the supergalactic phenomenon.
As I closed in on the gigantic wormhole, I detected their spaceship parked near its perimeter. I pulled up next to their vessel and asked, “Do I have permission to board?”
“Yes!” they exclaimed. “But before you do, I noticed that there’s an It’s a Grind coffeehouse in this supergalactic parking lot. Would you mind if we paused for a cappuccino?” I quickly boarded and reset their coordinates for the Black Vatican.
“Cool, follow me,” I said, and off we went. Had I shown up a moment later, the two officers and their ship would have been reduced to subatomic particles and slurped into the spiraling wormhole.
After leading them up the Black Vatican Mountain at warp speed, I brought them to the studio, where we landed our fleet in the driveway. I escorted our visitors to the Black Vatican, where I turned to Captain Kirk with pride in my accomplishment and had the opportunity to utter something I’ve always wanted to say: “Captain Kirk … mission accomplished.”
Note from Zakk: Yep, that actually happened. Father Eric was, is, and always will be, a complete douche. No matter what planet, galaxy, or universe, there seems to be no sign of intelligent life anywhere … when Eric is around.
Weapons for War
GUITARS. WHAT MORE CAN I SAY? MORE PROOF GOD EXISTS. ALTHOUGH I’m known as a Les Paul custom guy, I love them all. I haven’t run into a guitar I haven’t liked. If they’re a little banged up, give them a little TLC, and they’ll give you a lifetime of it back. To this day, I’ll look on eBay or go around to music stores while on the road, and if I see a really cool guitar, I’ll bring her home.
I just find them so fascinating. Each one has its own personality and charm. It really is amazing that no two guitars are alike. No doubt the true sound of a guitar player is from his hands, from his soul, and from the good Lord. But what makes a Les Paul unique is its fat, thick tone, and what makes a Strat unique is its liquidy single-coil tones. And what makes me unique is that I’m a warm, fuzzy, swell kind of guy with a fourteen-inch cock—stacked with the fact that my wife is all of five foot two, which makes it look that much bigger as it’s splitting her in half. What makes JD unique? Nothing. He is an utter waste of flesh. Sorry, I take t
hat back. The guys who supply him with his medical marijuana consider him the greatest guy on the planet. Rightfully so; he’s been keeping them in business all of these years.
Long-Distance Drinking
BY RITA HANEY, DIMEBAG’S HAG
MY RELATIONSHIP WITH DARRELL ALLOWED ME TO HAVE SOME OF the most amazing people and friendships in my life, and Zakk is one of those people.
I remember one particular day Zakk and Darrell were on the phone for seven or eight hours. I kept havin’ to bring Darrell a different phone because they kept going dead. These two guys were doing shots all day … long-distance drinking! Zakk was in California in the recording studio, playing songs like “Whiter Shade of Pale” on the piano. Darrell was at our place in Texas, out by the pool. The two of them just spent the whole day drinking together, doing shots, all by phone. I think to myself now, if only Darrell was here today, he would so appreciate Skype and iPhones, and the boys would enjoy things like that.
They both understood what it meant to be that guitar player and have that kind of weight on your shoulders, which nobody else could understand. Those two could always relate on that level. I think that’s one of the reasons why they had such an amazing bond and friendship. And thank God those two didn’t grow up. I love the fact that they were always like kids.
Darrell used it to do odds ’n’ ends around the house. Dave was over at our house one night when our friend Outlaw showed up in this beat-up, mangled old pickup. This truck was so trashed, I didn’t think anyone would pay a hundred dollars for it—but that is exactly how much Darrell paid Outlaw for it! Unfortunately, the truck wasn’t Dave’s for long. He left for tour on Ozzfest that summer and never came back. He passed away from heart disease.
After Dave passed, the truck stayed at our place and Darrell often used it to do odds ’n’ ends around the house. One day, Zakk was in town for another one of their infamous all-nighters, and he and Darrell ended up jumping into the truck and proceeding to create one of the original redneck landscapings in our front yard. They tore all around the studio destroying every plant and tree in sight, and then came back around the front where there used to be this apple-blossom tree. They took a drag strip start at this thing and knocked it clear into the neighbor’s yard. I had to run down and close the gate so they couldn’t leave the property.