OZZY GUITARIST UPDATE: WYLDE’S HEALTH PROBLEMS CONTINUE, AND IOMMI GETS FANS EXCITED OVER NUTHIN’
I made a joke earlier this week about Zakk Wylde taking the news of Ozzy’s new guitarist so hard that he wound up in the hospital for blood clots – but this has turned into some apparently serious shit. Not only has Wylde and Black Label Society been forced to drop off the Pedal to the Metal tour with Mudvayne, Suicide Silence, and some band where the dude has a stupid hair cut and is married to an ex-porn star, but he has to visit the hospital every 48 hours. A statement from Zakk (by way of the always helpful Blabbermouth):
“To all our BLACK LABEL family worldwide, thanks for all the ‘get-wells. Every 48 hours [I have to get myself to] the [hospital] ER [emergency room] to check my blood. Had a CT scan [a painless, sophisticated x-ray procedure which obtains images of parts of the body that cannot be seen on a standard x-ray — Ed.] today and have blood clots in each of my lungs as well as my leg. [I] can’t sing because pushing can cause an embolism.”
Despite my mother’s wishes, I’m obviously not a doctor, so I don’t know how serious this – but it certainly sounds serious. Serious enough that I’m not gonna make any jokes about how Zakk is just using this as an excuse not to have to do the Pedal to the Metal tour anymore. Serious enough that I won’t make any cracks about how Zakk brought this on himself through years of partying. Serious enough that I won’t make any glib remarks about how Zakk might be the second guitarist Ozzy outlives.
I know we give Zakk a lot of shit here, but the guy falls distinctly in the “Heroes that Have Failed Us” category, not the “Fuck You, You Untalented Cocksucker” category. In other words: even though I haven’t enjoyed Zakk’s work in quite some time, I don’t actually wish him any harm. I hope the dude is okay and he comes out of this with a newfound vigor that leads him to start making kick-ass music again. Because that would really be the best revenge against Ozzy: to make a record which blows Mr. Osbourne’s right the fuck out of the water.
Speaking of Ozzy guitarists and revenge – there’s been some hoopla over this recent quote from Tony Iommi:
“We love ‘War Pigs’ and ‘Iron Man’ and ‘Paranoid’ but we’ve played those for 40 years so it’s been a nice change… Maybe next year [Heaven & Hell will] do some of the old stuff.”
I’ve gotten some e-mails about this, and people seem excited at the prospect of H&H (the band, not the bagelry) doing Ozzy-era material. And that would be a giant middle-finger to Ozzy, especially considering he’s in the process of suing Iommi. But I think the key word here is “maybe” – Iommi said “Maybe we’ll do some of the old stuff.” So let’s not turn this into a case of “Oh, Don Piano!” people. I’d actually be surprised if they got Dio to sing Ozzy’s shit at this point in history.
-AR
