BLACK LABEL SOCIETY's ZAKK WYLDE: 'Every Album Is Like A Snapshot In Time'

Brian Giffin of Australia's Loud magazine recently conducted an interview with Zakk Wylde (BLACK LABEL SOCIETY, OZZY OSBOURNE). A couple of excerpts from the chat follow below.

On the upcoming BLACK LABEL SOCIETY "Unblackened" DVD:

"We're gonna put together an acoustic thing. But you know, the solos will still be electric, so kinda similar to 'The Song Remains Not The Same'. There'll be strings, pedal steel guitar, electric piano, maybe a Hammond up there and maybe some guests. We're talking about doing a complete acoustic show. . . Me and Nick [Catanese, guitar] did, you know, on the 'Book Of Shadows' record, me and Nick went out and supported that, and we [also] did one show with the strings. I mean, it definitely sounds killer. It's a whole different thing. But the way we're playing it there'll still be some electric as well. Even with the acoustics, it's gonna be a combination of everything."

On last year's "The Song Remains Not The Same" effort, which contained unplugged versions of material from BLACK LABEL SOCIETY's latest album, "Order Of The Black", as well as additional material recorded during the "Order Of The Black" sessions:

"The thing is with BLACK LABEL, once we're done doing... blasting away through a wall of Marshalls, usually at the end of the night [we're] sitting around on the piano or whatever and I'll just start doin' mellow versions of the heavier songs, whether it's 'Parade Of The Dead' or whatever, and I just thought, you know, why don't we just record these songs? You got the heavy record when you're goin' out on a Saturday night and then Sunday morning when you wake up you just put the mellow stuff on. . . It's like if you wanna go to sleep at the end of the night, just put the headphones on and listen to the mellow stuff and pass out, man. Because like me, when I'm on the road I'm choosing to put the mellow stuff on. Whether it's BECK or SEACHANGE or SARAH MCLACHLAN or whatever, man. So that's why we put that together. It's an end-of-the-nighter."

On BLACK LABEL SOCIETY's musical progression:

"Every album we do, we go in with the intention of doing the best record we can. Depends on which side of the bed you woke up on that day, you know what I mean? Every album is like a snapshot in time. Jimmy Page, Robert Plant and John Paul Jones, when they look back on their LED ZEPPELIN catalogue, they can look back and remember exactly where they were and what was goin' on when they did each one of those records. To me, that's an awesome thing."

Read more from Loud magazine.