Given how busy he is with Ozzy Osbourne, Pantera and his Wylde Audio brand, Zakk Wylde must sometimes feel he’s carrying the weight of the six-stringed world on his shoulders.
He flanked the Prince of Darkness at his Rock and Roll Hall of Fame induction last year, and he’ll be on hand to support his old friend at Black Sabbath’s Back to the Beginning show in July.
“We did rehearsals and Oz sang a bunch of songs, and a bunch with Sabbath,” Wylde tells Guitar World. “It went over great and he had a great time. It’s like, ‘I guess we’re gonna do another tour…’”
He knows that’s just wishful thinking, but he can’t help it. “Maybe this thing will be a whole new beginning. If Oz is happy, has a great time and sings great, God bless him. Whatever Oz wants to do, I’ll do it. But all these other bands are gonna be there, so it’s going to be a great day, man.”
Meanwhile, Wylde has been headbanging across the globe with Pantera, slinging his Wylde Audio gear as he goes. “I can’t even say that the sky’s the limit – there is no limit,” he beams. “We’re working on anything, just whatever. Any ideas that we think would be cool, we just do that.”
What’s the story there with the Blood Skull Berzerker?
“I said, ‘I want to make the most awesome jazz guitar I could possibly make!’ That’s all I’m saying! I just thought of Joe Pass, the great Joe Pass, and Pat Martino; I put them into a blender and came up with the Berzerker!”
Do you design the guitars yourself?
“I literally draw them out by hand. I trace other bodies, like an SG when I did the Barbarian. It’s basically an SG that I just put tweaks on – made the horns a little bit different, changed the body contour a bit, made the bottom a little curvier.”
Is that essentially what you did with the Blood Skull?
“Yeah – I did a new tweak on an existing body shape and then some blending of different shapes that we dig, you know? I’m just having a good time with it. I’m looking at all the cool old guitars, all the different brands and everything. When I was 15 I wanted to be one of those guys with a guitar with the horns on top and bottom!”
What other developments are coming from Wylde Audio?
”We’re talking about doing amps and stuff like that now. It’ll be a whole batch of different stuff – heads, cabs, micro-amps, practice amps. Then, obviously, plugins, the Fractal element of things. It’s not just tube amps.
“That’s been in the works for a while; it’s coming to fruition now. And then I’ve got another guitar that we’re going to be doing, called the Wrathmaker. It’s another new body shape. I have the prototype at my house and I’ll be getting the actual guitar soon enough. And we’re doing another IronWorks.”
Like the Barbarian you did with Schecter?
“I think we’re going to do that with the Viking V. I’m working on the design right now. Then we’re doing CarvedWorks as well – instead of IronWorks, which has the metal front with the carvings, CarvedWorks is going to be a wood body. The actual design will be carved into the body. The prototype looks badass!”
Elsewhere, you’re playing huge shows with Pantera.
“We just had a great time doing six weeks out there. That was a blast. The next adventure is we’re going out with Metallica, and then some headline shows.”
I saw somebody wrote, ‘This is nothing but a tribute band,’ and it’s like, ‘Yeah… that’s exactly what it is’
Are you considering recording new Pantera music?
“There were talks about stuff, because Dime recorded tons of unfinished riffs, and there were things he had lying around like incomplete songs or whatever he was jamming on. It was just him putting stuff on a tape recorder.”
Are there plans to do anything with those recordings?
“The way I look at it is, it’s just like if Eric Clapton was playing with Mitch Mitchell and Noel Redding, and honoring Jimi Hendrix, and calling it the Jimi Hendrix Celebration. It’s a if they were like, ‘We have these songs that Jimi never finished; one’s called Purple Haze. It’s just him on a tape recorder, with a rough outline of the song.’
“So it would be like if Eric, Noel, and Mitch recorded Purple Haze because Jimi had demoed it on acoustic guitar. It’s already written – it’s just bringing these hidden gems to life that were never recorded properly.”
Is that to say you’re considering taking Dime’s demos and bringing them to life?
“It’s still songs that Dime and Vinnie Paul had written; it’s just that it was on a tape recorder. Anything like that would still be what it is: a celebration of them and a tribute to them. I saw somebody wrote one day, ‘This is nothing but a tribute band,’ and it’s like, ‘Yeah… that’s exactly what it is.’”
Is there a timeline for these recordings?
“I don’t know – it’s just talks of it, like, if the guys would ever want to do something like that. If the guys want to do new songs and mix it up, we’ll throw some dark horses and hidden gems out there.”
- Head to Schecter Guitars to check out the current Wylde Audio range.
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