B004FEF6RO EBOK

by Wylde, Zakk

  If you know what you’re doing, just Get It Fucking Done, right there, the first time.

  How Not to Get It Fucking Done

  BUT BEFORE ENLIGHTENING YOU BASTARDS AS TO HOW TO GET IT FUCKING Done, I want to first tell you How Not to Get it Fucking Done. Believe me, there are more than a few things over the years that didn’t pan out as well as I had hoped. One of those is the idea that making an epic demo and constructing the perfect cover letter, and then shotgun-blasting that package to every A & R rep, record label executive, booking agent, management company, and promoter will do anything more for your band than give you a moment of hope while you sit around waiting for the inevitable rejection letters that you’ll be getting in the mail. I actually still have the letters Warner Bros. and several other major record labels sent in response to the letters that my mother sent out on our behalf. Back then, just the fact that we got a response from a major record company was epic.

  Back when I was a young clueless douche, I jammed in a few different rock bands. I remember it like it was yesterday. We had a fucking blast—learning cover songs from our favorite bands, always listening to music, talking about our musical heroes and how much they rule, and dreaming about being in the same position someday.

  One of those early bands I played in was called Stonehenge. We hadn’t even seen This Is Spinal Tap at that point and our name was Stonehenge. Obviously we had already tapped into Valhalla at an early age. We were a three-piece band. I was the singer and guitar player. Tommy Karrick was the drummer and John Kern played bass. But it seemed like every time we had a gig we’d be in some kind of argument and John wouldn’t play, so our buddy Rich Diaz, who was actually a guitarist, would wind up playing bass at the gigs.

  I had an Electra guitar and a pink Fernandes Stratocaster with Eddie Van Halen stripes. I played through a Yamaha practice amplifier, and later a Marshall combo that I had wired into a self-made cabinet. It was all Sanford and Son rigs back then for sure. For my effects I had a distortion pedal, a chorus pedal, and a wah pedal.

  The best thing about that band was our buddy Mike Kolowicz, who was our manager. He had this briefcase that he carried around with a one-page performance contract that my mother helped him write—you know, in case our gear got smashed or anything like that. Then he had this fuckin’ hatchet he kept in there—a fuckin’ tomahawk—along with a ham sandwich and an apple. Mike was the true Peter Grant of Stonehenge.

  We had jerry-rigged our own light show made from six coffee cans hanging from a stand, something we made in our electrical trades class at school. I actually still have the switchboard we made to control the lights, with switches and all. We had used our light show at a couple of parties before our friend Frank’s dad, an electrician, checked it out and told us how dangerous it was and that someone could get killed just touching it. I guess all the wires were live or something like that. But with how loaded and beyond fucked-up everybody was at these gigs, I doubt anyone would even have felt the electrocution. They were all too busy feeling the electric shock musical therapy that was … STONEHENGE.

  Our first big gig was at Ketchum’s Kitchen, which really meant that we were playing at a keg party in someone’s kitchen with the last name of Ketchum—Kevin Ketchum, to be exact. We asked for forty bucks to play—our big guarantee to play the kitchen gig. When we got there, Mike hit Kevin up for the forty dollars and showed him the contract. He explained to Kevin that if any of the equipment got damaged or ruined, he would be responsible. Kevin signed this thing and then up came the matter of the money, which he didn’t have. He figured he would just toss around a hat during the party and collect the cash. Well, Mike, being the Peter Grant of Stonehenge, was not cool with this idea and told him, “That’s too bad, man, because you know what, Kevin?”

  “What’s that?” Kevin asked.

  “You ain’t got a motherfuckin’ band,” Mike told him, matter-of-fact.

  He took back the contract, tossed it in his briefcase next to the hatchet and ham sandwich, slammed it shut, and walked out the front door.

  We were really bummed out because we wanted to play, and went whining to Mike about it, sounding like a bunch of Kansas City faggots—as Taggart from Blazing Saddles would have put it. He turned to all of us and said, “Listen, motherfuckers, you’re never gonna make any money in this fuckin’ business if you’re acting like that.” Next thing you know, sure as shit, Kevin came running out to the front lawn with the forty bucks, saying, “Mike, I got the cash, bring back the band.”

  And so it started right there at fifteen years old and it’s never ended—it’s the same exact horseshit game you get all the time from every promoter. Just when I thought I had graduated fuckin’ high school in 1985—yeah, we’ve all gotten older, but it’s the same king-and-queen prom bullshit going on all the time. But I digress. Let’s get back to the legendary performance that forged my career—Madison Square Ketchum’s Kitchen.

  We opened up the gig with “Bark at the Moon” and right away Rich’s bass cabinet blew the fuckin’ window above the kitchen sink right out of the house, as he had his bass cabinet placed up on the kitchen counter. Tommy was wailing away on the fucking drums, his back pinned up against the refrigerator. And I was blasting away through my Marshall combo amplifier, just over near the pantry. They sure did stock some delightful treats in the Ketchum household. Later on in my career this would be known as catering.

  By the end of the gig, doors were kicked in, windows were smashed, cigarettes and booze littered the floor—and no one had been electrocuted, as I could still see Father Mike alive and well, standing behind our light console of doom. It was a golden moment in rock ’n’ roll and a snapshot of what lay ahead for my later years. It was definitely one unruly show, but the most riotous show during Stonehenge’s illustrious and legendary career was when we played at Bobbie Bush’s house—a gig that would be forever forged into history as the Bobbie Bush Demolition Derby.

  Bobbie asked us to play at her house party just after her parents had sold their home. Her family was out in the Pocono Mountains for the weekend or something like that. Since the house was sold already, she had this bright idea that she was gonna invite half of our high school over as a going-away party. It was the perfect situation—the kind of fucking story that they make movies about, where the parents have left town and the entire high school, and God only knows who else, shows up at the front door. The house was clear of any furniture, stocked with ice-cold kegs of beer, blow, weed, speed, and every type of hard liquor imaginable. You know, kind of like every other rock show. And our band was billed as the live entertainment for this exodus of doom.

  The night of the gig it was pissing down rain to the point that if you walked out on the lawn, you’d be sinking into it like it was fucking quicksand. All the gear was set up in the dining room. The house was bilevel, so when you went into the entrance some people would go down stairs, others would go upstairs. From the band’s perspective it felt like we were playing at a fucking coliseum with people in front of us and also watching from up in the top balcony. We were playing songs from Jimi Hendrix, Black Sabbath, Rush, Ozzy, Cream, and a bunch of other cool artists and everybody was having a great time. The damage to this place though—my God. Now, being a parent and the motherfucker that’s got to pay all the bills, if I came home to a disaster like this, I don’t know where I’d fucking start—the mud that got tracked into this place from the rain completely demolished the carpets and made it look like a muddy football field by the time our gig was done. All of the sliding closet doors had been caved in, there were fist holes in the walls, cigarettes stomped out in the carpeting, empty and spilled bottles everywhere, garbage all over the fucking place—the house was completely annihilated. Some asshole had even written STONEHENGE WAS HERE on one of the walls in the living room. At that point, there was nothing living in the fucking living room! Fortunately for the band, none of our gear was damaged, just the venue—I mean, house
—what was left of it.

  After the big gig, we needed to get all the gear out of there and it was still pouring rain. My buddy Tommy brought his truck up on the lawn, so we could come straight out of the house and into the truck and avoid getting all the gear soaked. Tommy had one of those monster trucks with all the lifted shit, and it was a beast getting all the gear in the back. This was back when you had to get out of the truck to engage the four-wheel drive by locking it manually on the wheels. We got this thing into four-wheel drive, and then me and Tommy started throwing all the gear into the back of the truck bed. It had a cab over the bed so everything was protected once inside the truck—speaker cabinets, drums, fuckin’ everything. That’s when we noticed that the wheels were sinking into the front lawn. We ended up spraying mud all over the fucking place and getting nowhere.

  I had to go back into the house to get the last of the gear while Tommy was digging up mud and shoving planks under the tires to see if he could get his truck out of the mud. When I tried to get back inside, our buddy Big Dave was making out with one of the chicks from the party and holding the door closed, keeping me out in the rain. I was yelling at him to let me in, but he was fucking around and thought it was funny keeping me out in the fucking rain. I could hear that motherfucker laughing with his cock-gobbling whore. So I went around to the back of the house, got inside, grabbed the last of my gear, and loaded it into the truck. A few minutes later, there was another pounding at the front door and Big Dave thought it was me again. He was holding the door shut again and yelling “Fuck off!” But this time it wasn’t me—it was Bobbie’s parents. As soon as I heard them yelling, “Let us in!” I didn’t even want to see the look on their faces, so I ran out the fucking back door and headed straight to Tommy’s truck.

  I tossed my cables in the truck and jumped in. The truck was running and mud was firing all the fuck over the place, spraying back at the house, leaving it looking like King Kong had diarrhea and just shit all over the fucking house. We slid across the front lawn sideways and then literally caught air as we bounced off the sidewalk and ran the SOLD sign right the fuck over and took off. God only knows what Bobbie’s parents said when they saw the straight-up, absolute fucking demolition of atrocity that had been exercised on their beloved home. When they saw the writing on the wall, STONEHENGE WAS HERE, they must have thought, “That’s wonderful. Now go the fuck away and never come back!”

  Pretty much all of the gigs that we did back then was just one fucking roller coaster of comedy. Nothing but good times. Actually, amazing-and-beyond-fucking-hysterical awesome times.

  Looking back on the days when we started getting serious writing original music and had hopes of getting a record deal, we would send out demo tapes and letters to record labels, thinking that we were going to get a deal, with that drop-dead seriousness we had. I mean it’s just fuckin’ crazy to think about now—our music flat-out absolutely sucked. It was some of the worst and cheesiest “music” you’ve ever heard in your life. And remember what I say, because this is the flat-out God’s honest truth: Play what you love and what moves you.

  We were the epitome of the complete opposite of that. And the crazy thing is, I love Black Sabbath, Led Zeppelin, Jimi Hendrix, and Randy Rhoads. Yet our music sounded nothing like that. Our sound was so nutless that it made Bon Jovi sound like the heaviest Black Death Metal band you’ve ever heard in your life! Next to us, you would have thought Bon Jovi was Varg Vikernes—the Black Metal guy who ran around burning down churches! Looking back, I am glad we went through it. It made it clear to me that if I loved all those bands, then my musical styling needed to be at least somewhere in the fuckin’ ballpark. The point is that if you’re diggin’ Metallica and Pantera, then your band should be able to open up for them and not get booed off the fucking goddamn stage.

  Certain things just don’t go out of style. Like with Guns N’ Roses. Sure they were a bunch of nobodies at one point, playing clubs in front of ten people, but it didn’t take long for that ten to become one hundred, two hundred, one thousand, tens of thousands. There was no “Dear Record Label … blah fucking blah … we are so passionate … blah blah” letter necessary for them to make it. They just did their thing and it was incredible. That’s what got them signed. End of story.

  Who the fuck actually sits around listening to shitty demos all day, hoping to discover the next Rolling Stones that no one else has heard about? It doesn’t happen. If there is a band that is amazing and they are out playing shows, the crowds will continue to grow, the word will spread, and then there will be some greedy motherfuckers who will go, “We can make some money off these fucking clowns!” It’s just the God’s honest truth. And there’s nothing wrong with that. If you really look at it, these guys actually believe there is a chance that money can be made off of your fucking band.

  Take my manager, for example; the second he lent his ears to the musical stylings of the almighty Black Label Society, he didn’t see musical notes. He saw dollar signs. And the music he heard? It was the sound of a fleet of Brink’s trucks backing up the driveway of his Malibu mansion. And this is exactly why I hired him: to rape, pillage, violate, and plunder all evils as he strolls through the satanic scumbag underworld known as the music business—a world that is almost as frightening as marriage.

  Just keep doing what you are doing, which is working your ass off so that you can do what you love full-time. If you ran a hamburger stand, and that was your only source of income, you would put everything you had into it to make it a successful franchise. You start off with a little stand and work your fucking way up until you become McDonald’s. You have to treat your band as your job. And since it’s what you love doing, it never seems like work. In Black Label, before my feet hit the fucking floor in the morning, I look forward to seeing my Black Label Shit To Do list for the day. And when I go to bed each night, right after I thank the good Lord for everything he has given me, I look at my colors and my guitar, thinking about what I can do to push the almighty Black Label Order forward. Actually, I got that from Les Paul, as I read that is exactly how he would go to bed each night, looking at his guitar. It was the last thing he saw before going to sleep and the first thing he saw upon waking up.

  With our shit back then, we actually sent our demos and letters from my parents’ house. I remember we were so excited one day when we actually got a response letter. It said something like, “Dear Douchebags, thank you for submitting your demo tape. We enjoyed listening to it and encourage you to continue in your pursuit and follow your passion. We wish you the best of luck on your way.” We were so excited thinking that people in the record industry acknowledged us and actually knew who we were. The reality of it was that someone probably tossed our garbage demo tape in the trash without listening to it and then sent us the same boilerplate “Thanks, but no thanks” letter that went out to all the other pathetic bands across the country that did the same shit as we did.

  If you’ve ever read any of those over-the-counter piece-of-shit textbooks on how to make it in music, then you’ve probably been injected with the same idea that a demo, along with a proper cover letter, will be the key to getting discovered. I would suggest wiping your ass with this advice, along with the cover letter if you’ve already started writing it. This shit advice is all written by some numb-nutted douche who never made it in music and decided to write a book as if they had been responsible for the Beatles’ White Album. In case you’re not familiar with this poor recommendation, here is an example of the type of letter you would be encouraged to write. I know this to be true, because I routinely receive letters like this asking me to notice a band I’ve never heard of or take someone out on tour with me. And mind you, their band might shake Valhalla itself, but a letter like this probably isn’t going to get their demo a visit into my CD player. Just ask yourself this: As you are busting your fucking balls trying to get out of your shitty job and get your band to the mecca, Madison Square Garden, do you have fucking time to
listen to other people’s shitty demo tapes? No, you don’t. You’re too busy trying to get your own music heard. Making connections is far greater than sending out a stupid fucking demo tape.

  Case in point:

  There I was, Jeffrey Phillip Wielandt, from New Jersey, playing in a shithole in my home state. One night, a guy by the name of Dave “Face” Feld saw me play and asked me after our set, “Did you ever think about auditioning for Ozzy?”

  I kindly asked Dave, “Do you know the guys in Led Zeppelin too?”

  Dave told me, “I’m buddies with Mark Weiss [legendary rock photographer]. He’s actually shooting with Ozzy this weekend. If you get me a tape of you playing, and some Polaroids, I can get it to Mark, who can give it to Sharon. I can’t promise you anything, but I can make sure that Mark will get it to Mrs. Osbourne.”

  Without my walking into the club that night and meeting Father Feld, and us having that conversation, there would have been no Ozzy gig, no Black Label, no Pride & Glory, no Book of Shadows. Who knows? I probably wouldn’t have even changed my fucking name to Zakk Wylde. So yeah, connections, some luck, and people you know definitely help. But then again, I can help you get an opportunity, but you have to be ready. Luck can’t help you if you ain’t ready. That’s just life in fucking general. The sooner you fucking realize that, the sooner you’ll stop having any of that woe-is-me shit.

  Now here’s a typical bullshit letter that a struggling band sends out in desperation and in hopes of getting their band noticed. Don’t embarrass yourself like this:

  DEAR MR. WYLDE,

  I am the vice president of Dipshit Records, a newly formed record label with offices in Milwaukee and Baton Rouge, as well as the manager of the metal band Satan’s Left Ball.