by Wylde, Zakk
When the taxicab van finally showed up to take Zakk to the airport, he picked up one of the branches that had come off the apple-blossom tree and stuffed it up on top of the van. It was completely hilarious watching the cab driver freakin’ out and Zakk yelling at him, “Just drive!” as these guys headed down the road with this giant tree branch hanging off the roof of the van. He and Darrell always tore up some stuff, but the way I look at it, you can put that stuff back, but you can never replace the memories. As Darrell would say, “You roll with it or get rolled over.”
During that stay, Zakk went down to the studio with Darrell and recorded the answer-back vocals on the Damageplan song “Soul Bleed.” What jump-started the recording was that we had pulled the cars out of the garage prior to Zakk’s being there and had it set up for a photo shoot that Darrell had been doing for a guitar catalog. Zakk was sitting in a chair in the middle of our garage with an acoustic guitar, playing songs for us. It was so amazing and the acoustics in the garage were incredible. I have at least an hour of video footage of that, where Zakk was like our own personal jukebox, just a wonderful time. In fact, we started calling him the Jukebox, because he can play absolutely any song you want to hear and it always sounds amazing.
Zakk’s many talents always amazed Darrell and me. He started out being known as a guitar player and then let the world hear him sing and then play the piano. A few years ago, I was staying at the Wylde compound during preproduction for the Mafia tour. One particular morning, Barbaranne had taken their daughter Hayley Rae down to Mrs. Rhoads for her piano lessons, and their son Jesse and I were in the kitchen deciding what we were going to do that day. Zakk sat down at his grand piano in the entry room and played “Tiny Dancer.” It sounded so amazing, listening to his performance echo around the house. I know if Darrell had been there, we would have crawled underneath that piano and listened to him play all morning, like we used to lie on the floor and listen to the Jukebox back at our house. It’s mind-blowing what that big, burly, scary-looking guy can play and the feelings that come out in his music—really magical.
Note from Zakk: Thanks, Weety! Awesome times for sure. But let me tell you something that’s truly magickal—Saint Dime’s workout routine.
Now, this is coming from Father Chris Kinsey, who worked security and took care of Dime. Chris is a big boy himself—works out regularly, eats clean, does bodybuilding and power-lifting, which was what me and Chris used to shoot the shit about when we’d all roll together.
When Dime was getting ready to roll on the road with Damageplan, I had been talking to Father Chris, asking how my brother Dime was doing. Chris said, “Actually, Zakk, I got him working out now, getting ready for the tour.”
“No shit,” I said. “Don’t fucking tell me he’s hitting the fucking iron. Like benching, curling, working back and legs, the whole nine yards?”
Chris says, “Wait, slow the fuck down. I’m not entering him into a power-lifting or bench-press competition just yet. I got him doing push-ups, sit-ups, curls with dumbbells. Baby steps for now. And I’m gonna get him to start up some cardio soon as well.”
“Are you showing him what to eat too?” I asked.
“Yeah, I’m trying to clean up his diet.”
I then asked Chris, “Yeah, but he’s still pounding the sauce like it’s nobody’s fucking business, right?”
He says, “Well, some things never change, Zakk. But he is making an effort, though.”
“What do you mean?” I asked.
“Now he’s putting Diet Coke into his Black Tooths instead of normal Coke.”
So I told Chris, “You mean to tell me that crazy motherfucker thinks by still drinking a gallon and a half of Crown Royal a day, but replacing the Coke with Diet Coke, that he’s gonna end up with washboard abs like Bruce fucking Lee?”
“Zakk, I said he’s making an effort.”
We must have been cracking the fuck up for ten minutes over that one. No need for Jack LaLanne when you’ve got guitar legend and fitness guru Dimebag Darrell.
A few years back I got a call from Rich “The Duke” Ward (of Fozzy) inviting me to come down, hang out, and check out the guitar parts for a Kiss tribute album that he was tracking with his singer, and my good buddy, Father Chris Jericho. Bruce Kulick was also in on the project. Bruce was lead guitarist in Kiss from 1984 to 1996 and is a super-cool guy.
After they wrapped up their session we started just hanging out and playing songs, something BLS, something Fozzy, a Stuck Mojo song, Ozzy songs, the whole spread. It seemed like we were getting drunker with each song. We kept turning up the volume on the studio speakers. And Bruce was getting nervous, saying shit like, “Guys, you can’t turn the speakers up, it will damage the speakers.” Father Jericho insisted the opposite, explaining to him that we simply had to have it louder. Chris rightfully said rock and Metal should be turned way the fuck up to sound their best. So we cranked that shit louder and louder until the speakers finally did blow and smoke was literally coming out of them.
“Oh my God, the speakers are blown! The speakers are blown!” Bruce was swearing. And we’re singing back at him, “We blew your speakers in the name of rock ’n’ roll!” We continued to play the music through those speakers, regardless of the shitty sound and smoke; yet another fantastic night of debauchery and destruction.
World Tour Survival Technique: Meditation for Tranquility of Mind and Spirit—Serenity Now
WITH ALL THE EXCITEMENT OF GOING INTO THE STUDIO TO MAKE YOUR album, it is a good idea to find a way to keep your mind clear and focused on the task at hand and not let the process get you too stressed out to be creative. Fundamental to making good music is being in the right mental place.
Here is what I want you to do right now:
Imagine, if you will, that you are relaxing in a beautiful mossy meadow. You are listening to a brisk stream as it gurgles and playfully tosses pebbles about in its childlike grasp. A light summer wind bends the branches of willow trees overhead. Their leaves rustle like the sound of angels laughing. You feel the warm sun baking the small of your naked back. Your belly lies flat along the coolness of a large stone that sits adjacent to the giggling brook. You are completely peaceful and at one with nature. Suddenly, you feel your inner guts separating as a large moose crams his dry, leathery cock straight up your ass. Your eyes widen and bulge out of their sockets, your shoulders crumble, and your fingertips bleed as you grate them into the stone before you. It takes only a second to realize what is happening, as your tear-filled eyes spot a massive hoof braced against the stone you are being crushed against, and shadows of the moose’s giant antlers dance on the rock face before you.
If being raped by a gigantic moose doesn’t shock you into focus, I don’t know what the fuck will. Stop being a baby and handle your shit. There’s no fucking meditation in Get It Fucking Done.
Note from Zakk: This meditation is an actual excerpt taken from a romance novel that I found stashed in JD’s bunk after our last tour.
CHAPTER THREE
GIFD
Once the fires of mine forgings were set ablaze and mine halberd shined with edges of sonic cries, the time would near for an assemblage of battle-ready brethren to prepare to lay siege to unsuspecting villages across the land and seas. Our dreams of glory and the Spoils of War shall dance within the heads of the horde, for the weight of the expedition’s success lay firm upon the shoulders of the Berzerkers. Make haste we shall, for there is no time to tarry!
With our force of marauders set to task, we trained in skillship and strategy for war. And on the first eve, as I lay face to the moon, Odin camest to me once more and spoke of faraway lands and of peoples of foreign tongues. And he employed me to command the Berzerkers to take the entirety of the known world, by rugged trail or by treacherous sea, building allies as we could, for soon cometh the winter of discontent. A fleet I assembled, and set charge the armor of the tribe to be fashioned, our crests to be emblazoned upon our shields and upon our banners for al
l to witness, for all in this battalion shall fly these brave colors with honor! Soon our brows shall be bound with victorious wreaths.
And by the end of the cycle of the third moon, they were battle-ready, armed to the teeth, and hungry for the blood of the innocent. All hath been forged in the likeness of mine leadership. And if we fail not in our deep intent, our foes shall be packed posthaste up to the heavens. For we bear the emblem of the Berzerkers, and none shall pass without the judgment of mine battle-axe!
Note from Zakk: “Emblem of the Berzerkers”? It’s quite obvious after you’ve read this garbage that Father Eric bears the emblem of a fucking idiot. Yes, I’ve said this in the last chapter and the chapter before that. But it clearly needs to be told again and again and again and again. “No time to tarry”? WTF does that mean? Whatever it is, ignore it. But do keep this in mind—the farther you get through reading Father Eric’s literary antics, the lower your IQ will actually become, until there’s actually nothing left—just like him.
First … a Few Words About Feelings
AT THIS JUNCTURE OF YOUR QUEST FOR GLORAL DOMINATION I FEEL obligated to take a moment and discuss the importance of feelings. I’m not talking about feeling as in “Man, that guitarist plays with some serious feeling. As in David Gilmour throwing down on the solo in ‘Comfortably Numb.’” What we’re addressing here is feelings, as in, “I didn’t get put on the guest list for the show and it hurt my feelings.” Well, in the immortal words of our fearless tour manager and field general Father Ferguson, “Feelings? I don’t have time for fucking feelings. I’m eyeballs-deep in shit right now. Sort it out your fucking self.”
Next.
The Secret Recipe for Black Label Chinese Chicken Salad
HERE IS WHERE I WILL TELL YOU, THE READER, THE SECRET THAT I AND the rest of the successful music community have kept hidden for so long. I shall impart to you the secret of my Metal-maniacal success, of how I got the gig for Ozzy, why Black Label Society is on a path of global domination, and how I’m able to continue to bathe my Immortal Beloved wife in my conquest on a nightly basis and keep her begging for more. Here is where I will let the pussy out of the knapsack. And since you paid the twenty-some-odd bucks for this book and I truly appreciate the extra dough, with my kids coming up on college and all, I’m gonna spell it out for you right here! But I warn you … this secret is so powerful, so magnificently perfect, that it just may drive you insane. I am putting my life on the line at the risk of offending the Shaolin monks of the Metal World, who may indeed track me down and assassinate me as the Bruce Lee of our times, except that I have none of the skills that Father Lee possessed, and none of the moves. But I have applied Father Lee’s teachings of jeet kune do in the sack with my wife, Barbaranne—she is truly a formidable foe. So for all you have done for me, I am about to pay you back tenfold … and here it is:
WORK YOUR FUCKING ASS OFF, YOU LAZY PIECE OF SHIT!!!
You may be familiar with other similar (but different) phrases: Rust Never Sleeps, I Get Knocked Down and I Get Up Again, Never Surrender, Fight the Good Fight, Persistence and Failure Cannot Occupy the Same Space, If at First You Don’t Succeed Try Try Again, Don’t Be a Quitter ’Til You Hit Her in the Shitter. To tell it true, I’ll quote one of the wisest sages to ever grace God’s green earth—No Rest for the Wicked.
I realize that the concept of hard work is a startling and unforeseen illumination, but I’m not sure you completely get what I’m talking about here. I’m saying that practicing with your band twice a week and playing a local show a month isn’t going to ever cut it. You literally need to bleed for it, pounding the fucking pavement like you’re going to end up in hell itself if you fail. Then again, what the fuck am I talking about? I must have failed because I’m already in hell—I’m stuck with JDesus in my life. Moving on.
Just recently, I ran into some kid with his dad who was out in Los Angeles studying guitar at the Musicians Institute. His father asked me, “Is it a good place for my son to be?” Setting aside the hookers, all the crack cocaine, people dressing up like transves-tites, the medical marijuana, and all the cool bars, I said, “Yeah, your son couldn’t be in a better place as an aspiring musician.”
All joking aside, he said they came from Oklahoma. And while there have been some great Okies who have come along in the music world, such as the amazing picker of doom Steve Gaines of Lynyrd Skynyrd and the one and only Father Cantrell of Alice in Chains, the fact is that being in Los Angeles at MI, not only are you going to run into other great musicians who share the same passion as you do, but you’re right in the heart of the music business. And also, if you’re into transvestites, crack cocaine, booze, strippers, medical marijuana, and having a fruity cocktail at my manager’s Malibu mansion’s wet bar, you couldn’t be in a better place as an aspiring musician.
In my twenty-five-year career in music I’ve recorded six records with Ozzy, eight Black Label Society records, one Pride & Glory album, an acoustic album called Book of Shadows, and several live-show DVDs. That’s about twenty albums, live recordings, and DVDs in twenty-five years, an atrovious span. Mind you, this alleged word atrovious that I just hit you with, I have no fucking idea what it means. I don’t even think it is a word. [Note from the editor: Not a word as far as I can find.] Father Eric just explained to me that it means “grand” or “spanning great distance.” Kids, I apologize. Father Eric feels the need to put these big words in here so when he’s at a bar picking up a chick, he can really impress her with his vocabulary and his GI Joe doll collection.
My recording routine is to get into the studio for a few weeks, get the record done, and get it out for people to hear. Get It Fucking Done has been our mantra over all the years we’ve been hitting it. Guns N’ Roses is one of my all-time favorite bands, the guys are all good friends, and I even played with the band back in ’95. I love Axl, but I can’t fuckin’ understand how some bands take a dozen fuckin’ years to make an album. The problem is that when you spend fourteen years getting the next Guns N’ Roses record in the stores, all the fans have grown up and you have a completely new generation who don’t know who the fuck you are. I know Axl was being a perfectionist. And in the end, having that much of a perfectionist mentality is also responsible for dozens of amazing hit songs and over a hundred million albums sold worldwide.
For me personally, an album is like a high school yearbook photo—a snapshot in time of where you were and what you were doing. When you look back at the album artwork and listen to the songs you wrote and recorded, you can look back and remember exactly where you were and what was going on at that time in your life. This is aside from the fact that I just like to keep working. I can’t stand sitting at a fucking beach, hanging out exposing my pasty-white Mick-Kraut skin to the scorching sun, with sand finding its way up my asshole, and doing fuck-all. I always find myself telling the Immortal Beloved the same thing: “How the fuck is this having a good time? And how much money is this setting me back? I could have bought another Marshall head or another Les Paul instead of a couple of flights to the Bahamas.” That’s not a vacation to me. That’s a fucking prison sentence.
A vacation to me is doing what I love. And that’s creating. Although a lot of people have asked me to please find something else to create—such as empty garbage cans, which I could place myself inside. I ignore those chuckles and continue on with my annoyance.
I go into the studio most of the time without any songs written. Of course there are ideas. I play guitar and piano every day, so I’m always working on new material. But when I get into recording mode, that’s when the ideas really come together into songs with themes and lyrics.
World Tour Survival Technique: Get It Fucking Done
ONCE YOU GET IN THE STUDIO, YOU JUST HAVE TO GET IT FUCKING Done, knock it out. We don’t demo anything, because I’ve always found that when you demo songs, you end up just chasing the demos. Like when we worked on the No More Tears album, we were so excited when we first recorded
“Mama, I’m Coming Home.” Between Ozzy’s vocal performance and the rest of the band’s excitement, when we did the recording for real, we found ourselves constantly going back and referencing the demo tape, where the performances were amazing, yet the sound quality wasn’t. Once again, it’s kind of like when you get your first blow job. That feeling you get is incredible. And when I gave my first blow job to earn enough money to fuel up the van and get us that extra case of beer, that feeling was incredible as well. Not quite as satisfying as getting one, but incredible nonetheless. And you ask, “Nonetheless?” Well yes, the fact that I was sucking somebody off for beer money was incredible. Though the thought, “Why the fuck am I doing this?” ran rampant through my head—I thought as a lead singer I wouldn’t have to be doing this kind of bullshit. Guitarist? Maybe. But lead singer and lead guitarist? Get the fuck out of here. Today we leave that part of our business to JD. We don’t have him coming out of the PA half the time anyway.
Therein lies the problem with doing a demo. Just go in with good mics and good equipment and record it for real. If you’re getting married, you don’t do a trial run at getting married. You have sex with her first. And then you go, “Okay, now let’s get married for real.” That’s how I did it.