B004FEF6RO EBOK

by Wylde, Zakk

  “That would be great, Zakk. You know what else would be great? Not having your hot breath on the back of my neck or your hand on my ass.”

  “Well, good talkin’ with you, brother. I’ll catch ya in the morning.

  “Yeah, we’ll hit the gym and start drinking early.”

  “Sounds good, buddy. Sweet dreams, pudding—er … I mean… Good night, buddy.”

  “Night, babe.”

  Fortunately for everyone I’m not Philth’s type, because we all know that spooning leads to forking, which actually will feel quite comfortable as you acclimate your gaping asshole to the music business.

  Rule No. 4: Never cross international borders with drugs. I don’t smoke weed, smoke crack cocaine, or sniff glue. But sometimes I think maybe I should. My affinity for a good time has always been satisfied by a cold beer or twelve—cases, that is. But to each their own. And who am I to lock JD out of the pot-cookie jar? Although, in JD’s defense, all of his weed is medically prescribed and cleared. Medically, because he makes all the rest of us sick. That being said, make sure you never cross international borders with any of that shit.

  If you’re headed up through Canada, you’ll want to finish your crack and heroin before you get to the border or get rid of it, because you will get searched. Pills, weed, needles, crack, crack lite for your girlish figure, and anything else that makes you tick—make sure it ain’t on the bus. Always check the bus before you hit the road, because for all you know, the last band on your bus could have been Bob Marley and the Wailers. They didn’t smoke much weed, did they? Go through that motherfucker ahead of time like you’re a goddamn German shepherd drug dog, because if you cross a border and that shit is on your ride, my brother, even if it’s not yours, you are going down. The border patrol does not fuck around.

  Let me tell you about something that happened to a buddy of mine and his band while going into Canada.

  Everybody in the band and crew was given the usual “What-ever you got, get rid of it” General Patton speech before they crossed the border. Later that day my buddy was sitting in the dressing room at the gig, noodling on his fiddle, when in walked his tour manager.

  “Here’s the fucking shopping list I just received from the border patrol,” he said. “Let’s see, Percocet, Vicodin, Xenadrine, Xanax, muscle relaxers, traces of heroin, and marijuana.”

  After he rattled this fucking grocery list off, my buddy told me that every guy in the room looked dumbfounded and couldn’t say anything but, “Oh man, wow. Where did they find all that? I don’t do that anymore. It’s not mine.”

  Now, I don’t dabble in any of that bullshit, but if beer and Crown Royal were on that fucking list, how in the fuck am I gonna go in with a straight face and say, “Wow, how did that booze get in there?” Un-fucking-real.

  As the rest of the story goes, they were about to play some shows in Canada and knew they couldn’t carry their goodies across the border. So they put their little heads together and packed up all the goodies in band merchandise boxes. They also loaded the boxes with grapefruits and oranges to distract any drug dogs from sniffing out their shit.

  It wasn’t long before their tour manager received the wonderful news of the band’s merchandise confiscation. The DEA informed him that they had all of the guys’ party treats. Moral of the story, kids? Don’t try this stupid shit at home. But if you’re bored and have some time on your hands, go down to the DEA and try to collect the drugs they confiscated. Just say, “I’m just here to pick up my stuff, fellas.” See what the fuck happens. You’ll have plenty of time behind bars to try to figure out why the fuck you shouldn’t cross international borders with drugs, you fucking moron.

  My buddy actually saved a copy of the notification of seizure from the police. Good times. That’s why I always prefer when me and the guys get together and fist each other while sampling wines from a variety of California vineyards. It really does take away from the stress of the music business, while still achieving the same gaping-ass results.

  Note from Zakk: Oh, and as a final caution to junkies, make sure you throw your needles in the garbage and don’t get them confused with my steroids. I’m guessing the effect you’re looking for will be completely different, as you tear the door off the bus, flip over some cars, and rampage through the nearest city.

  Rule No. 5: Smell everything before you eat or drink it. Now, this last rule isn’t so much a steadfast law of the road as it is a cautionary guideline. There isn’t really any consequence of wrath for violating it; it’s more like a piece of survival advice—literally.

  It all came about during one of the most fun tours I’ve ever been on. It was the one to support No More Tears. The lineup was Ozzy, Alice in Chains, and Sepultura. This one was a blast because of the brotherhood all the bands shared on the road. We’d party with each other, hang on each other’s buses, and always stick around to check out everyone else’s sets. It was very cool.

  After one of the shows, all three bands piled into their buses and began the caravan. I jumped on the Alice bus to hang with all the guys. We got wasted and laughed our asses off all night, listening to Fleetwood Mac, Elton John, Neil Young, and a whole bunch of other ass-kicking classic rock. Eventually, the guys started falling off one by one to go pass out for the night since we had a show the next day.

  Mike Starr, who was in Alice at the time, and I were the last two guys standing. The driver for Alice’s bus was named Lupe. He was anal about keeping the bus clean and nice for everyone on board, and so he was up early, as usual, cleaning the entire rig. To make his job easier, he had dumped some ammonia into an empty Corona bottle so he wouldn’t have to carry around a huge bucket of chemicals while doing the job. When Lupe finished cleaning, he put the Corona bottle in a cup holder near the front of the bus and then went in the back to fold blankets or some shit.

  I was the first one up and already had a cold beer in the front lounge when Mikey rolled out of his bunk, still beat the fuck up from the night before. We reminisced a bit about the previous evening’s comedy and what a fucking great time we had. As we continued to shoot the shit, Mike saw me firing back an ice-cold Corona and figured he’d join me, as there was a Corona bottle sitting right next to him in the armrest of his chair. Now, he must have had some bad cottonmouth or something, ’cause as soon as he spied the Corona bottle sitting there in the holder, he grabbed it and pounded the fucking thing. I shit you not, he drank the whole bottle down in one! Only problem was, it was the Corona bottle filled with Lupe’s fucking ammonia!

  Next thing you know we’re bringing Mike down to the hospital to get his stomach pumped. After that they gave him some charcoal-like medication to soak up anything that was still in his system. It’s no mystery that, besides being one of the coolest souls on earth, Mikey had an affinity for pharmaceuticals. He wasn’t shy about asking around for them either. Lupe told me that while he was in the hospital, after getting his fuckin’ stomach pumped, Mike had the balls to ask the doctor, “Hey, doc? I’m in this rock band and we’re always on the road. I have trouble sleeping. Do you happen to have any quaaludes?”

  It was hilarious! The doctor just told him to get the fuck outta there and sent him on his way. None of this surprised me though. Mikey had even asked Ozzy if he could sample some of his medication. Ozzy’s stuff isn’t recreational at all! It totally baffled the Boss; Ozzy would come up to me and say shit like, “Yeah right, Zakk, I’m gonna give him some of my shit. Just my luck the shit that I take would end up fuckin’ killing the motherfucker, and there’s another lawsuit waiting to happen!”

  You know what though, no matter how hard Mike partied, he still made every show and played his ass off. That goes right back to the Black Label spirit: Do what you will, as long as you answer that fuckin’ bell every night, and Mikey did just that, without question. Rest in peace, our brother in musical warfare.

  The Flagship of the Black Label Armada: The Tour Bus

  AS I WAS SAYING EARLIER, GETTING FROM POINT A TO POINT
B IS ALWAYS where shit goes down. You wake up in a hotel (point A) and you hit the stage that night (point B), and everything in between is the gray area that no one wants to hear about. That said, getting to the show can be the most intense part of the day depending on where we are. I’ve been in everything from police escorts through New York City to rolling in a fleet of tour buses to having my wife drop me off at the gig. If you love what you’re doing, it doesn’t matter how you get to the show, just so long as you get there.

  When you first start out you’ll probably end up doing exactly what we did: borrow someone’s parents’ van to get your equipment and the guys to the gig. I revisited the van experience during the Book of Shadows tour in 1996. We had no need for more than an Aerostar minivan. The show was just Nick Catanese and I, playin’ acoustic stuff. There were four of us in the van, Nick, Dave, Chris, and myself, taking turns driving and sleeping, and no joke, we put sixteen thousand miles on this thing in two months of touring. Some nights I was so deliriously exhausted from driving and playing that during the gig, I’d introduce the backdrop pictures of the angel and the devil as members of the band and forget to introduce Nick—the only other live body on the stage. Needless to say, even as packed as that fucking van was, with the guitars, the backdrops, the amps, whatever the fuck else we needed to keep the acoustical armada of doom rolling, and sixteen thousand miles of us sleeping on the floor or in a chair—we still had a fucking blast.

  Out of the Van and into the Bus

  Lug Nut Roulette

  Gambling and betting is a way of life within the Black Label family. We’re always throwing money down on football and baseball games, boxing matches, UFC fights, and pretty much anything else where the outcome is a gamble. To give you an example of this, let me tell you about a game we call Lug Nut Roulette.

  The game starts by counting out however many lug nuts are on the front wheel of the bus. Each guy picks one of the lug nuts, for five bucks or whatever, you know, maybe wife swapping, tea-bagging, or who gets to suck off the radio programmer at the next town we hit so that they can spin our awesome hit singles for the Black Label family to enjoy—all bets are on. Basically, everything and all the money goes into a pot. Then you take a Sharpie and write each guy’s name next to their selected lug nut, and make a mark at the top of the wheel well, dead center at twelve o’clock. Everyone gets on the bus and at the next stop, whether it’s a truck stop or a whorehouse, you get off the bus and check whose name lines up closest to the mark you made on the wheel well, and that person is the winner of the pot. Each stop you can keep throwing into the pot and getting winners. If you’re really lucky you’ll end up in the sack with all the guys’ wives, girlfriends, even JD’s husband. Yeah, I know it sounds pathetic that we’re gambling on the wheel of the bus, but when you’re out there on the road, in the middle of nowhere, it could be one of the most exciting things in your day. JD loves the game so much in fact that many times he busts into that song, “The wheels on the bus go round and round!” It’s like being in a band with a hairy, stinky toddler—who has a husband.

  Clicking the Mic

  Another way we like to have a good time on the road is by doing something that we learned from our bus driver called “clicking the mic.” When we were out near the truck stops, we’d have Dino the truck driver click the mic as we approached one. They call it “fishing.” This is where you click the mic on the radio a few times and wait for someone to click back. That is a signal that they’re looking for a blow job or something in the truck stop bathrooms. Then we’d jump on the line and have some fun with the guy at the other end, usually concluding with them telling us to fuck off, never a “happy ending.” I never asked Dino how he found out about the mic-clicking deal, and I’m not sure I ever want to find out.

  Circle of Life

  The words alpha and beta describe the ranking system within the wild animal kingdom and the pecking order of life. When two dominant alphas collide in God’s great wilderness, a display of aggression occurs as each animal exaggerates its own features and movements in a threatening manner, often followed by a battle to the death. As this is the case in the great outdoors, it is also so within the confines of a tiny fishbowl.

  One time in Wyoming, me, Phil, and Mark rolled into this pet store called All God’s Creatures. We went to look at the dogs, since I was looking to buy a couple of Rottweiler puppies. They didn’t have any puppies, but we saw a huge display of those Siamese fighting fish, you know, the betta fish. Phil had this idea that each of us would pick out his own fish and bowl, and then take it back onto the bus so the event could begin. The guys would wait in the back lounge with their fish until they were called out. We’d place one large bowl on the front lounge table and then the referee would announce the combatants. Each fish would be brought up with the bus lights flickering and its own entrance song blasting (“Hell’s Bells” was a crowd favorite!). Once both fish were brought to the table, the referee would lay out all the rules to ensure a fair fight, all bets were confirmed, and then we would start the match with the traditional “Let’s get it oooooonnnnnnnn!!!!” The two fish would get dumped into the underwater gladiator bowl and the battle would commence until it was determined which fish was more dominant. That was the plan anyway, but it never happened.

  When we went up to the counter to buy a bunch of these fish and one bowl, the lady at the front said that the fish couldn’t all live in one little bowl, that they each needed their own. Phil explained to her that it wasn’t an issue, and then he filled her in on his idea for the finned gladiators. She became upset and wouldn’t let us buy the fish, saying that they would kill each other if you put them all in one bowl. Phil replied to her, “Look, lady, that’s the circle of life, the big fish eats the little fish.”

  The next thing you know, this lady was screaming at us, “The circle of life? The circle of life? You assholes just circled yourselves right the fuck out of this store!”

  Another time, our fearless leader Mark decided to turn the bus into a sport-fishing boat. He came in one day with a fish tank and a batch of these large feeder goldfish. You know, the ones you buy to feed to your pet eel or lionfish. So we set this tank up in the back of the bus and were casting our lines from the front lounge. We were using your basic tackle, like cheese and salmon eggs, on small treble hooks, and these goldfish were taking the bait. It was hysterical watching the guys reel in their prize fish! Of course, no fish were harmed during these tour bus fishing tournaments—it was all catch and release.

  Bus Driver Pete

  WHEN WE’RE OUT TOURING, WE CROSS THOUSANDS UPON THOUSANDS OF miles in the tour bus. Usually, after the gig, we’ll hang out for a bit, but then it’s back on the road and off to the next city. These drives can be anywhere from six hours to twenty hours, depending on where the next gig is. For different tours we get different drivers; usually they work for the leasing company and come with the bus. Now, it’s common knowledge that in order to become a tour bus driver you have to be legally insane, not possess a full set of teeth, or have some kind of criminal history that finds its way into the whispered rumors heard throughout the tour. But what is not so common is for one man to possess all of these prerequisites. And when such a man shows up for the job, he becomes immortalized by being included in this holy parchment dedicated to all things Metal. And so begins the legacy of Bus Driver Pete.

  Pete was a markedly short and slender old man with unusually large extremities—giant hands, giant feet, and big floppy ears that reached out far beyond the derby he always wore. He told us once, after someone brought up the incredible size of his hands, that he also had a gigantic dick. I never saw it, but Father Ferguson later confirmed that it looked like the trunk of a small elephant. But even with his huge-gantic manhood, Pete was bitter at the world. And as hard as we tried to find out more about him we couldn’t decipher most of his mumbled jargon to save our lives. To make matters worse, he always had a smoking pipe in his mouth, so you couldn’t even try to lip-read what
he was saying—everything came out of his yapper with the same exact shit-eating grin on his face.

  As slow as Pete was to physically move from one place to another, he was the opposite with his driving. Mark had made this itinerary tour book that showed how long our bus rides were going to be into each town. We would look at the book and see a seven-hundred-mile drive that should take about fourteen hours to the next city. I shit you not, we would get there in eight hours. I asked Pete if he was running from the law or something. As it turned out, he was, but that had nothing to do with the fact that he drove like the guys in Cannonball Run.

  One night Pete was driving us over the mountains near Modesto, California, and Mark was up front with him trading stories from the road. I had gone to bed early. Mark remembers seeing the yellow warning signs that Pete did not. Our bus jerked sideways right up on the guardrails, leaning over the mountainside. I could hear Mark screaming, “Pete, there’s another one!” as the bus swerved in the other direction. We were all over the fucking road on this curvy mountain, right next to the cliffs. Then I heard Pete yell, “Wow! That came out of nowhere,” and Mark yell back, “Fucking nowhere? There were fucking signs, man! Can’t you see the fucking signs?”

  I woke up to the sights and sounds of shit falling from everywhere in the back lounge, thinking that our submarine was getting hit by enemy torpedoes. I made my way to the front, buck fucking naked, yelling, “What the fuck is going on?!” There was shit all over the place, a total disaster—coffeemaker, cups, dishes, magazines, cans and boxes of food, whatever was on the tables and in the cabinets was now all over the fucking floor. Luckily, we hadn’t gone over the fucking rails. Pete started telling me about how the turns came out of nowhere. Meanwhile Mark was telling Phil and me, “Man, we are all dead tonight. I’m calling my wife to say good-bye.” We would have been better off taking shifts and driving the bus ourselves because no one slept the rest of the night.