Back in 1987, Zakk Wylde had yet to record with Ozzy Osbourne and Sebastian Bach hadn’t even met the guys in Skid Row. What did they have in common? Sky-high blond manes and a friend named Mark Weiss.
Which is how 19-year-old Bach, who had been singing for Detroit glam-metallers Madam X, and 20-year-old Wylde (then still going by Jeffrey Wielandt) both ended up putting on their Sunday best and attending Weiss’ wedding at the Molly Pitcher Inn in Red Bank, New Jersey on June 14, 1987.
Weiss was already a big-name photographer, having shot the album covers for Twisted Sister’s Stay Hungry and Bon Jovi’s Slippery When Wet (Jon Bon Jovi’s parents were at the wedding, too), as well as taken iconic shots of Van Halen, Ozzy Osbourne, Metallica, Motley Crue, Quiet Riot and many other hard rock and metal bands. You can see these and more in his recently released book, The Decade That Rocked.
Soon enough, Weiss would be instrumental in hooking up Wylde with Ozzy and Bach with Skid Row. But for one day only, the two became members of his wedding band.
Together, they played covers of Led Zeppelin’s Rock and Roll and Whole Lotta Love, as well as Quiet Riot’s Metal Health (Bang Your Head), with another wedding attendee, Quiet Riot vocalist Kevin DuBrow, joining in somewhat reluctantly on vocals.
“Kevin had said something to Sebastian like, “No matter what, do not ask me to come up onstage. I don’t feel like it,’ ” Weiss recalls. “And so of course Sebastian gets up there and the first thing he says into the mic is, ‘Kevin DuBrow, come on up!’ ”
Weiss recently premiered this wedding footage during a virtual pay-per-view event, Welcome to My Exhibition, that raised funds for New Jersey’s Monmouth Museum, which hosted an exhibition of Weiss’ photography this year. Guests during the broadcast included Wylde, Yngwie Malmsteen, Twisted Sister’s Dee Snider, Ratt’s Stephen Pearcy and others.
But this is the first time he has shown the Metal Health performance, which in addition to Bach and DuBrow on vocals features Madam X drummer Mark “Bam Bam” McConnell and bassist Chris Doliber, as well as an insanely shreddy solo from Wylde on a Fender Telecaster.
Additionally, Weiss has contributed photos of DuBrow, who passed away in 2007, to author Missy Whitney’s new book, Keep On Rollin’, which chronicles her time running the Quiet Riot Squad Fan Club during the band’s heyday in the early 1980s.
Whitney is currently running a preorder for the book on Indiegogo, which is available here.
You can check out Guitar World's premiere of Metal Health, with a new intro from Zakk Wylde, above.
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