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Zakk Wylde: A Look At Ozzy Osbourneโ€™s Most Under-Appreciated Axe-Slinger - December 19, 2022

Updated: Dec 20, 2022

๐™๐€๐Š๐Š ๐–๐˜๐‹๐ƒ๐„: ๐€ ๐‹๐Ž๐Ž๐Š ๐€๐“ ๐Ž๐™๐™๐˜ ๐Ž๐’๐๐Ž๐”๐‘๐๐„โ€˜๐’ ๐Œ๐Ž๐’๐“ ๐”๐๐ƒ๐„๐‘-๐€๐๐๐‘๐„๐‚๐ˆ๐€๐“๐„๐ƒ ๐€๐—๐„-๐’๐‹๐ˆ๐๐†๐„๐‘.

Compiled by E.N. Wells, December 19, 2022.


Zakk Wylde, early sessions for No Rest for the Wicked.

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Like many metal-head teens growing up in the 80โ€™s, I was a huge Ozzy Osbourne fan. I idolized both Randy Rhoads and Jake E. Lee. So, when I heard that Ozzy was replacing Lee with the new young gun Zakk Wylde, I was skeptical to say the least. At the time, many critics were writing the then 19 year old Wylde off as a carbon copy of Randy Rhoads (Osbourne even expressed these were his first thoughts of Zakk). But, when I first heard Miracle Man, it made me a true believer. Sure, Zakk had the long blonde hair, and he played the popular Gibson Les Paul, just like Randy. But, those were the only similarities between Wylde and his predecessor. Zakk had his own signature tone, style of playing, his own personality and his own stage presence. As a matter of fact, Wylde made such a huge impression on me (as a young guitarist myself) that I named my first born son after him. But, that is a story for another time.

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Over the years, Wylde has received much negative criticism over his use of the pentatonic scale, pinch-harmonics, and most recently from a certain armchair critic (who shall not be named), calling him over-rated and claiming that he was hand picked by Sharon, made into a clone of Randy by her, and that he has never lived up to the legacy of Ozzyโ€™s previous guitar legends. He has accused Zakk of changing his look based on trends of certain eraโ€™s, ie; the Glam look of the 80โ€™s and later, the Viking beard and biker look of his BLS years. These accusations include those that Zakk was Sharonโ€™s puppet, controlled by her in every aspect when he first joined Ozzy. While some of this may be true on some level (on Zakkโ€™s early appearance), it does not change the fact that Zakk brought something of himself and injected it into the music of Ozzy.

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This same critic has also claimed that Zakk's musical contributions to โ€œNo Rest for the Wickedโ€ caused the album to be his (Ozzyโ€™s) worst selling album of the 80โ€™s. This person also claimed that this caused Osbourne to bring in outside musicians like Lemmy Kilmister of Motรถrhead to write the follow up album (No More Tears) to save the Ozzman's career (we will talk further about these claims in the next installment).


In this blog, I have compiled excerpts from different interviews and articles about Zakkโ€™s audition, how he was chosen as Ozzyโ€™s then-new guitarist, along with Billboard stats and album certifications for No Rest for the Wicked to dispel much of these claims. โ€” E.N. Wells

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Zakk Wyldeโ€™s Ozzy Audition:

As part of his first group of note, Stonehenge (yes, Stonehenge) the young Zakk Wylde was a regular on the New Jersey ocean-side circuit, performing in such hallowed venues as the Stone Pony in Asbury Park (the scene of Bruce Springsteenโ€™s early triumphs).ย 


Zakk had developed a winning combination of fleet-fingered picking, solid crunch and organic feel.


The real version of how Zakk Wylde got the audition for Ozzy is that in 1987, Wylde was playing shows with his band Zyris when someone in the industry, a guy named Dave Feld approached the then 19-year-old following one of these bar-room shows. Feld was a friend of rock photographer Mark Weiss, and said he had contacts that would enable Zakk to try out for Ozzy Osbourneโ€™s band, who had just parted company with Jake E Lee.ย 

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The story goes that Feld asked him, "You know Jake [E. Lee]'s just left Ozzy's band?" and they continued to talk about how great it'd be to get a tape to Ozzy. "But hey, after that, why not coffee with Jimmy Page and Robert Plant, right? We don't know these fucking people - I've got their posters, not their fucking phone numbers!" โ€” Zakk Wylde


Wyldeโ€™s sister Amy took some photographs of the guitarist on the familyโ€™s porch the following day, and he recorded a cassette of himself playing. Tipped off that Ozzy was actually in New York at the time, Wylde wasnโ€™t going to risk the package going astray or to allow somebody to beat him to the punch, so he drove to there to make a personal delivery.ย 


Not long after, he was pumping gas when he got the phone call to join Ozzy's band. Just weeks later, Wylde played his first show (which was an audition) with Ozzy at Wormwood Scrubs prison.


Whenever Ozzy first met Wylde he swore that he'd met him before, but it was because Wylde send a Polaroid with his audition tape and that was why he looked familiar according to an interview with 93.3 WMMR. Ozzy asked him to change his pants and make him a ham sandwich during the audition, which Wylde continued to do for him over the years (also confirmed by Wylde).

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In an interview with Guitar World, Ozzy recalled the mountain of demo tapes he received when it was announced that he was searching for a replacement to guitarist Jake E. Lee.ย 


Osbourne recalled: "When Jake E. Lee left, I put the word out that I needed a guitar player. You can imagine how many guitarists sent in their rรฉsumรฉsโ€”it was fucking mind-boggling. So after a while, Sharon started bugging meโ€”โ€œWhen are you gonna listen to these tapes?โ€ I just didnโ€™t want to deal with it. Iโ€™d tell her, โ€œWhatever, whatever.โ€ So one morning I decided, โ€œI gotta do this.โ€ I stuck my hand in a bag and pulled out a tape, and Zakkโ€™s tape was the first and only one I listened to."


According to Wylde, for his audition tape (which over the years has cropped up in various configurations online), Wylde compiled a few original riffs and solos, as well as some acoustic classical performances and his interpretations of Rhoadsโ€™ leads from the Blizzard of Ozz classic Mr. Crowley and Diary of a Madmanโ€™s Flying High Again.


"But then I looked at his picture that came with the tape, and I said, 'Oh... another Randy Rhoads clone,'" Ozzy added.

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Wylde has talked in the past about how he revamped his playing style upon getting the job with Ozzy. But it's still hard for fans nowadays to imagine anyone confusing the burly, bearded Wylde as a Rhoads wannabe.


In those days Wylde was a clean-shaven 20-year-old whose hair was as teased up as any of his contemporaries. While he was still well over 6-feet tall, and stark comparison to the slight-framed Rhoads, Ozzy had no way of knowing that from the photo.ย 


"I guess I looked like some kid who loved Randy Rhoads," Wylde conceded.


"That's what I thought," Ozzy said. "But when I met Zakk in person, he was a lot different than Randy. And then I heard him play, and that was that. He's been with me longer than any other guitar player."


"Heโ€™s a fucking absolutely amazing guitar player,โ€ Osbourne said of Wylde, speaking to Guitar World from his home in Los Angeles. โ€œAnd from the word go, he was great. He donโ€™t fuck around. He hits it right in the fucking gut.โ€

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According to a the Guitar World interview, the quality of the recording, however, did not match that of the playing. โ€œI think I had two boomboxes going,โ€ Wylde recalled. โ€œI recorded myself doing the rhythms on one, then played that back and soloed along with it and recorded that on the other one. It was early multitracking.โ€ But Feld did in fact make good on getting the tape, via Mark Weiss, to Ozzyโ€™s camp. In time, Wylde received a call at his parentsโ€™ house from Osbourneโ€™s wife and manager, Sharon, asking him to come out to L.A. โ€œThe running joke was that it was one of my jackoff friends putting his mom on the phone to fuck with me, but the callโ€™s time-delay convinced me this was for fucking real.โ€ Wylde said, โ€œThen they sent me a plane ticket.โ€


Sharon had invited a bewildered Wylde to fly to the opposite coast for Ozzyโ€™s Los Angeles auditions. Likening the experience to taking a very good laxative, when he got there he wasnโ€™t exactly impressed by the competition.


โ€œIโ€™d have been happy just going home with an autograph,โ€ he recalled fondly. โ€œBut when I got there Ozzy had gone out drinking with Andre The Giant, this five-hundred-pound professional wrestler. โ€œ

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Zakk & Ozzy (left), Andre the Giant (right).

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According to Wylde, his audition also included drummer Randy Castillo and bassist Phil Soussan, both of whom had performed, along with Jake E. Lee, on 1986โ€™s The Ultimate Sin. Among the songs he played were Suicide Solution, Bark at the Moon and Crazy Train. โ€œThe mandatory tunes,โ€ Wylde said. In the end it came down to Wylde and one other candidate, a guitarist named Jimi Bell who had worked previously with Joan Jett (Bell would go on to play with Geezer Butlerโ€™s solo band and, more recently, design the Shredneck guitar practice tool).


And though Wylde says he didnโ€™t have much contact with the other players vying for the spot, he also knew it was his to lose. โ€œI remember when I was out there auditioning, they put everyone up at the Hyatt on Sunset. And some of the guys there were talking about how well the gig pays, this and that."

"They werenโ€™t really Ozzy or Sabbath fans. They could give a shit. The analogy I always use is they just wanted to play for the Yankees, you know? Because thatโ€™s where the money was. Whereas I had every picture of every Yankee up on my wall, and knew everybodyโ€™s batting average. To me, the pinstripes were a sacred fucking thing. So I thought, Fuck these clowns. Iโ€™m gonna get this fucking gig.โ€
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In an interview with Ultimate Guitar, Zakk talked in depth about the details of his audition;

"They flew me out, I met [bassist] Phil Soussan, and [drummer] Randy Castillo. When I walked in the room, the guys were great to me, made me feel super comfortable, and everything like that.
We ended up playing Bark at the Moon, we ended up playing Suicide Solution, and then we just hung out for a while.
They flew me home and then I guess I made the shortlist, and then they flew me back, just to go through with everybody so Ozzy doesn't have to sit in a room. 'Phil, Randy, just whittle it down to the guys that you think are the guys and then I'll come down here and check them out.'
But when I finally went back the second time is when I met Ozzy. The last time I saw Ozzy was when I went to the Bark at the Moon tour and I saw Ozzy with Jake [E. Lee, guitar] and Motley Crue opened up.
Going in there, I was thinking, like, 'Oh my god, it's Ozzy!' But I remember it was so funny because Oz was like, 'Have I met you before?' And I was like - he saw me under the mezzanine, we were the upper deck or whatever.
But the whole thing was funny because Ozzy said, 'Zakk, out of all the boxes and cassettes and pictures of it, your picture was the only one I remember. It was on the kitchen counter, and I looked at it, and I said, 'Oh wow, this kid must really love Randy Rhoads.'
And he goes, 'That's all I thought about. That's where I remember seeing you from, that picture! Alright, you must really love Randy Rhoads,' which I do. And that was it but I remember I crapped my pants.
And Ozzy, he just goes, 'Zakk, just play with your heart and definitely go train your trousers. Then make me a ham sandwich, and go light on the Colman's mustard! Don't let it overpower the taste of the sandwich!'
When I started jamming, I just recall Ozzy looking over at Sharon and giving her the thumbs up.โ€
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Wylde was still wet behind the ears and by no means had secured the job yet, but he was flown to England to see whether he and Ozzy could write together. It soon became apparent that they could; the guitarist would have a hand in all eight of the tracks that appeared on Ozzyโ€™s next record, 1988โ€™s No Rest For The Wicked. Wylde sat around and jammed out riffs, Ozzy picking out whatever had song potential. Gradually Wylde became more comfortable around his hero, and Ozzy realised the full potential of his new protรฉgรฉ.


His baptism of fire finally arrived with a low-key gig for the inmates of Londonโ€™s Wormwood Scrubs prison, a performance that also saw the live debut of bassist Bob Daisley. The setlist has long been lost to the mists of time, but we do know that the set climaxed with an obvious cover: Leiber and Stoller's Jailhouse Rock.ย 


"Iย did it to work on some material with the new guitarist," Ozzy told Hit Parader the following year. "We wantedย Zakkย to fit in with the rest of the band before we went into the studio, but I didn't want the press looking down his ass at every show."ย 

"Someone came up with the idea of doing a prison tour because that would give us the chance to get the feeling for the road without worrying about press reaction. It was a pain to get permission to do it because we had to getย Margaret Thatcher's permission. Can you believe the Prime Minister had to waste time signing papers that allowed us to play those prisons? My only fear was once we got into those places they wouldn't let me out."
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The security fears were probably well-realised. Among the inmates were two men responsible for the deaths of 50 people, mass murderer Dennis Nilsen and nightclub arsonist John Thompson. Also watching was Jeremy Bamber, who'd murdered his entire family in a bid to claim a significant inheritance. And at the end of the show, the stage was apparently invaded by a group of prisoners led by one of the men responsible for killing Metropolitan Police constable Keith Blakelock during the Broadwater Farm riots in 1985. ย 


Supporting Ozzy at the prison were The Scrubs, a NWOBHM band made up of inmates and guards who'd released a single entitled Battle in 1986 and another, Time For You, the year of the show. Ozzy has claimed at times โ€“ almost certainly apocryphally โ€“ that Nilsen and Thompson were members the band, and that he was served tea at the show by an inmate imprisoned for poisoning eight victims.


"The whole thing was bizarro land; we performed in front of these fuckin 'lifers," Zakk told Metal Hammer. "All I could think was, 'I hope I pass this fucking audition. I'm the closest thing toย Pamela Andersonย these motherfuckers are going to see for the rest of their lives!"ย 

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As for Zakk, he half-jokes that he was so keen to join Ozzy that they couldโ€™ve paid him with six-packs of beer. When the appointment was finally confirmed, it was laced with good, fatherly advice;ย 

โ€œOzzyโ€™s first words to me were just to play with my heart,โ€ he says. โ€œHe told me never to let the music business come between me and my guitar. I could be Peter Grant [famed Led Zeppelin manager] or John Bohnam [Zep drummer], but not both.โ€
"So I've been making ham sandwiches and going light on the Colman's for over 30 years now."
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Ozzy is also how he got the name "Zakk Wylde" after he joined the band.


In an interview for MetalCastle.net, Zakk was asked when his original name Jeffrey Phillip Wielandt became his stage name Zakk Wylde. He remembered Osbourneโ€˜s request to change his name and dubbing him Zakk Wylde.

โ€œWell, originally my name was Farrah Fawcett but apparently that one was taken. Ozzy said, โ€˜Weโ€™re gonna have to change your nameโ€™ and I figured we could go with โ€˜Paper Assholeโ€™ or โ€˜Shitbag McGeeโ€™, but Ozzy didnโ€™t like that either. He was like, โ€˜Weโ€™ll call you Zakk Wyldeโ€™ and I was like, โ€˜Hey, it works!โ€™โ€
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About No Rest for the Wicked:

No Rest for The Wicked, 1988.

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Released on September 28, 1988, No Rest For The Wicked is the fifth solo studio album released by Ozzy Osbourne. It was the first album to feature guitarist Zakk Wylde, keyboardist John Sinclair and the first to feature bassist Bob Daisley since Bark at the Moon.


Bassist/lyricist Bob Daisley made his return to Osbourne's band after the two had a falling out in 1985. Once the album's recording was complete, Daisley was once again out, replaced by Osbourne's former Black Sabbath bandmate Geezer Butler for subsequent promotional tours.

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Miracle Man single, released October 1988

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Miracle Man, Crazy Babies, and Breakin' All the Rules were released as singles with accompanying music videos. The song Hero was an unlisted hidden bonus track on the original 1988 CD and cassette releases. The song Miracle Man was a pointed barb aimed at disgraced televangelist Jimmy Swaggart. Swaggart had long been critical of Osbourne's music and live performances, before he himself was involved in a 1988 prostitution scandal.

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Crazy Babies single, 1988

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Creative Director John Carver was hired by Sharon Osbourne to conceptualize and art direct the album sleeve for No Rest For The Wicked. John's concept was to position and portray Ozzy as Jesus Christ. John commissioned legendary photographer Bob Carlos Clarke to photograph the sleeve. John's image of Ozzy has achieved legendary status and has appeared in various "best album sleeve..." books.

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Breakin' All the Rules CD single/promo.

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The album was certified gold in December 1988 and has since been certified double platinum by the Recording Industry Association of America for selling more than 2 million copies.


The album peaked at No. 13 on the Billboard 200.


No Rest For The Wicked is tied with The Ultimate Sin at double platinum status for selling 2 million copies. And, while The Ultimate Sin did rank higher on the Billboard 200 at No. 6, No Rest for the Wicked topped out at No. 13, where Bark at the Moon topped out at No. 19.


While the Blizzard of Ozz has sold more, being certified 5 X platinum, it initially topped out at No. 21 on the Billboard 200.


Compared to No Rest For The Wicked, Diary of a Madman has sold 1 million more copies, but where NRFTW peaked at No. 13 on the Billboard 200, Diary peaked at No. 16.


In comparison, I would say that this proves that No Rest For The Wicked was in no way a failure! On the contrary, I would say that it lies somewhere in the middle. Iโ€™ll let you be the judge. โ€” E.N. Wells


Next time, we will dive into No More Tears. So, stay tuned.

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