Just a couple of weeks ago Rob Zombie gave an interview where he expressed displeasure over the way Ozzy Osbourne was stealing band members from him; now he’s quickly denied us of potentially weeks or even months of online shit-talking by releasing a statement which ostensibly absolves Ozzy of all responsibility for Zombie’s anger. From Zombie’s MySpace page:

“I am very happy to put this Zombie vs Ozzy crap to rest. I just got off the phone with Ozzy and all is good with us. I have known Ozzy and Sharon for many years and have never had any problems with them. In fact they have always been very cool and easy to deal with. So, needless to say I found this whole situation very strange and a real bummer. This whole thing was really always between my band and a certain ex-drummer not between me and Ozzy. I wish Ozzy nothing but the best. End of story.”

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The nicest compliment anyone can seem to muster about Scream is that it’s Ozzy’s best album this millenium, which is like saying that the genocide in Rwanda wasn’t the worst human rights atrocity of the twentieth century, because only a million people were massacred. Really, the best thing to come of this album is that it’s bringing Gus G. to the attention of a lot of people who might otherwise never know him. Gus is on the cover of Guitar World now, and that makes me really, really happy.

Of course, there’s always the possibility that the mediocrity of Scream will turn people off to the point where they don’t check out Firewind, or one of the other eight-hundred bands with whom Gus has played. I sincerely hope that doesn’t happen. And it wouldn’t have happened, I think, if Gus has been able to contribute to the writing of Scream. And he tells Metal Insider that, knock on wood, if there’s another Ozzy album and he’s the guitar player to be on it, Ozzy wants him — and the other members of the band — to contribute more:

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Here’s a fun pull-quote from a recent Zakk Wylde interview, regarding the blood clots doctors found in his leg last year:

“The doc was like, ‘You have, what, a drink a day?’ Six? 12? A case?’ I’m like, ‘It’s a liquid diet’… I mean, I’d drink beer while lifting weights. That’s Black Label Society style for you right there. But the doc told me if I kept this up, I’d be dead by the time I was 50. So I stopped drinking. No big deal.”

Wow, dude. You really needed a doctor to tell you you can’t subsist on a liquid diet? When my doctor walks into the room, I can pretty much hit all the high points before he even opens his mouth — lower your cholesterol, exercise more, stop playing with yourself so much, etc. (Oddly enough, my doctor has never ever been expressed concern over my weed intake. Neither has my shrink. Go figure.) Back when my diet consisted of bacon for breakfast, burgers for lunch, and cheese steak for dinner, I was never like, “Mm, this is good health food!” I was 110% aware that I was slowly killing myself with the delicious tastes of clogged arteries.

I’m glad Zakk has sobered up and is gonna live past 50, but… sheesh, dude!

-AR

[via Blabbermouf]

As I got to the end of Axl’s piece yesterday about the latest Ozzy/Zakk shenanigans, I was fully expecting him to post the new Black Label Society song “Parade of the Dead” and proclaim it a respectable return to form for the Zakkman. I was right that he posted the song, but I was wrong about his thoughts on it: “it sounds exactly like every fucking BLS song you’ve ever heard.”

I politely disagree with my fellow MS Mansion inhabitant, and I was happy to see that the majority of commenters disagreed too. Axl’s not wrong that the song isn’t a major departure for Black Label Society; but I think he is wrong for calling Zakk “crazy” for sticking to his sound — I mean, Zakk’s always gonna sound like Zakk fucking Wylde and that’s why we love the guy.

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Ozzy’s injustices against Zakk Wylde are getting to be so heinous that I hear Mel Gibson is planning a revenge movie with himself starring as Zakk. Last July, Ozzy fired Zakk after twenty-one years of loyal service (not counting that brief period of time when Joe Holmes was in the band). And that’s Ozzy prerogative, of course – hell, it might have even been a good idea – except that Ozzy told the press Zakk was done before he told Zakk, and even after Zakk got the news secondhand, Ozzy was too pussy to call him.

Now Ozzy is trying to re-write history. Here’s a recent Ozzy Osbourne quote from an interview with Goldmine (via Blabbermouth):

“I don’t want anyone to think for one minute that I fired [Zakk Wylde]. I never fired him. He never left. There was nothing to leave. Because all he was doing was his gig and mine. It kind of got to us crashing into each other. But I had to let go, because it’s me rather than him.”

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I tried to land an interview with Slash when his solo album came out, but, alas, it was not to be. (Must be ’cause of all the nice things I’ve said about him over the past couple of years.) But one of the things I wanted to ask him about were how involved, or uninvolved, he was with the lyrics on the album. Each song is sung by a different celebrity singer who would be perfectly capable of writing his or her own lyrics, and the few times Slash has tried to lyrics, the results have been pretty disastrous. (Remember “Be the Ball,” the Slash’s Snakepit song about pinball? Yeah, no reason you would, but did I mention it’s about fucking pinball?) But the lyrics to at least one song in particular – the Ozzy-crooned “Crucify the Dead” – seemed so Slash-specific, I thought he might have had a hand in them.

See, “Crucify the Dead” features such lyrics as “Your ego cursed you till you bled,” “Decisions past leave you alone,” “Someday you look back and you wonder why you let it all slip away,” and a reference to – CAPTAIN OBVIOUS ALERT! – “A loaded gun jammed by a rose.” So, y’know. It seemed pretty clear that the song was aimed at one of Slash’s former collaborators. And I don’t mean Rod Jackson.

Well, Ozzy has answered my question – kind of – in a recent interview with VH1 Radio:

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The evidence increasingly suggests that Ozzy’s Scream is not going to be his Endgame, and there’s really nothing more that I’d like right now but for a newly-sober Zakk Wylde to make an incredibly kick-ass record, the quality of which bitch-slaps his former boss for firing him via the internet. That album art for Black Label Society’s upcoming Order of the Black isn’t anything special, but it doesn’t scream “SUCK!” the way the last BLS cover with the nuns playing billiards did.

Of course, chances are that Order isn’t gonna be much fun, either, but a fella can dream, can’t he? Once upon a time, Zakk seemed like the coolest fucking guy in the world.

Such thoughts are probably why I recently found myself revisiting No More Tears again – it’s the same thing that happens with Metallica, where I end up listening to Justice everytime I see some kid wearing a Death Magnetic tour tee. What struck me this time is that the album opener, “Mr. Tinkertrain,” doesn’t just rock – it’s still incredibly creepy nineteen years later. These days, Ozzy would never release a single about being a kiddie rapist; all his singles now are about how old he is. (“Gets Me Through,” “Not Going Away,” “I Don’t Wanna Stop,” and now “Let Me Hear You Scream” are all, lyrically-speaking, stubborn insistences that he won’t retire.) Not super-metal a topic, is it? (And now he’s making a Christmas album. Oy.) I mean maybe if one of the songs was called “Prostate Exams Suck,” I could get behind it… at least that would be br00tal, y’know?

-AR

We’ve been wondering for a long time if Gus G. was actually gonna get to write anything for Ozzy Osbourne’s new offering, Scream, or if he was basically just a session player; we knew he came in fairly late in the process since Zakk Wylde had already done a bunch of recording for the album, but we hoped against hope that Gus would actually get to do something a little more substantial. The problem with the last however many Ozzy albums has been lackluster songwriting, and that hasn’t really been a problem for Firewind; it seemed like Gus could be just the shot of adrenaline Ozzy needed to pull a Megadeth and remind us all why we ever loved him so much in the first place.

But now Blabbermouth is exclusively hosting an EPK (that’s “electronic press kit,” in case ya don’t know) for Scream, and it contains the following quote regarding the song “Soul Sucker” from producer Kevin Churko:

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So unless you managed to stay away from a computer this entire weekend – and good for you if you did – you’ve probably already seen the line-up for Ozzfest 2010, which was unveiled this past Friday evening. While our source was right that this year’s incarnation of the tour would be scaled back – it’s only hitting six cities over the course of about a week and half – a whole lot of the bands we’d heard would be playing the fest aren’t. In fact, if you can’t quite consider it a stellar line-up, that’s probably only because so many great bands were already swept up by other big package tours; maybe I’m being too nice because a large chunk of the second stage consists of bands I really like or at least respect, my feeling is that if this line-up doesn’t send anyone running for tickets, well, it’s not exactly something to be scoffed at, either. My own thoughts on all the bands and artists after the jump… plus dates, natch.

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I’ve always hated top-whatever lists. Best guitarist, best band, best blowjob, best double anal with a horse, whatever. I think that those lists are pretty much all slanted by politics, or bought and paid for. I first got that idea in my head when Titanic won as many Oscars as it did. There were so many movies that year that were far more deserving of the title that my faith in the award system died.

Jump forward about ten years. I just got back in town from the Revolver Golden God Awards. I’ll just say that I’m stoked they exist. Metal needs that in the U.S. I have no issue with their nominees and obviously you can’t pick everyone so this is definitely not directed at them. Again, THIS IS NOT DIRECTED AT REVOLVER MAGAZINE, but the concept of picking “best shredder” or “shredder of the year “is just one of those things you can’t accurately do with the amount of talent that’s out there. You want to nominate Zack Wylde or Dave Mustaine? Okay. That’s cool. Those guys have earned it. But when you leave the circle of greats and legends, how exactly do you pick a BEST shredder? I mean am I alone in thinking that when so many amazing guitarists are overlooked that the award itself loses its meaning? What guitarists am I talking about? Okay… I’ll name a few. In my opinion these guys should be winning all the awards. If I left someone out, it’s because either I haven’t heard of them, I’ve heard them and I don’t think they’re among the very best, I forgot to mention them, or I’ve heard them and I know for a fact that what you think is shredding is just studio trickery.

So here it is. My personal list of whom I think should be winning all the metal guitar awards. Am I biased? Maybe. But I’d like to also think that considering what I do for a living that I’m a good judge of competency in the field. This is in no particular order. These guys all rule for different reasons. (DISCLAIMER: Sorry that there aren’t videos for every dude I mention, but sometimes finding quality footage is tough.)

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Our Faith Bro Mores at Metal Injection weren’t the only ones doing hilarious black carpet interviews at the Golden Gods Awards last weekend; Dave Mustaine and Ozzy Osbourne provided some pretty hilarious material of their own accord during Revolver TV interviews with host (and SiriusXM metal DJ) Jose Mangin.

After winning an award for Best Guitarist, Zakk Wylde comes off stage to do an interview with Jose. Before it can even get started, Ozzy, who happened to be nearby, bombs Zakk’s interview and stands in the way of the camera while Zakk jokes about being dismissed from Ozzy’s band:

Zakk, for a change — perhaps inspired by his recent medical problems — was the sober one. Dave Mustaine, on the other hand, was visibly drunk, stoned (we know he’s a fan of the leaf) or both:

Check out a few more entertaining post-award Golden Gods moments at Metal Injection, including clips with Dave Grohl, Lemmy, Dio and Corey Taylor.

-VN

The best reason to watch Saturday Night Live this past weekend was Tina Fey’s cleavage. Even my favorite sitcom star couldn’t save the show from its terrible writing, but her recent attempts to sexify herself in order to sell her latest, Date Night, made it all worth it.

Slightly less worth it: finally getting to see what this Justin Bieber chick is all about. I’ve been hearing so much about her, but didn’t actually know any of her music before now. Shock of shocks, it’s not for me. Still, I couldn’t help but notice that one of the guitar players in her back-up band was using a Gibson Custom Shop Zakk Wylde Bullseye Les Paul. I even heard a slight guitar squeal at the 1:27 mark! Poor bastard, probably has dreams of getting the call from Sharon’s lawyers telling him he’s secretly stealing Zakk’s job. Then Gus G. had to go and take that dream away from him, and now he’s playing guitar for Linda Hunt. Oy vey!

Here’s a clip from the show. For some reason the image has been flipped (e.g., the guitar players were most certainly not left-handed), but at least I don’t hafta link to Hulu this time.

-AR

“Bark at the Moon” is to Shadows Fall as “Holy Diver” is to Killswitch Engage. They’re both covers of classic solo tracks by former Sabbath vocalists, and both songs were released in their original incarnation in 1983. (The connection between the two songs gets even weirder if you consider that Vinny Appice played drums on “Diver,” while his brother, Carmine, appears in the original “Moon” video even though he didn’t play on the recording.) And just as I imagine that it’ll be some time before KSE ever play another set without doing “Diver,” so it seems that “Moon” is now a staple of the Shads’ live show.

The band recently played the song in Toronto, with a special guest appearance from Alex Skolnick on guitars. The influence of Testament on Shadows Fall has always seemed pretty clear, so it’s cool to watch them get to jam with one of their heroes. Bonus: you can imagine an alternate world where Skolnick left Testament in 1992 and became Ozzy’s guitar player. It would have been post-No More Tears, the last truly worthwhile Ozzy album; Skolnick might have saved us from another seventeen years of sub-par material and guitar squeals!

-AR

[via Metal Insider]

Axl and I have seen Ozzy a bunch of times together, but with Zakk Wylde’s departure dismissal from the band last year the chances that we’ll ever see the Ozzman perform “No More Tears” — the most epic of all Ozzy songs — live in its entirety are dwindling. Not that Ozzy shows are that exciting these days anyway unless you consider a hobbled frog stomp, a fire house and reading from a teleprompter “exciting,” but that time Ozzy played the 2nd stage at Ozzfest in New York was really, really fucking cool.

Not that we think Zakk’s dismissal was a bad thing. I think we both agree that Ozzy badly needed some fresh songwriting and guitar blood. But two dudes who listened to No More Tears ad nauseam in their adolescence (and fuck it, still do) can dream, can’t they?

Thanks to Noisecreep for posting this 2002 live video of “No More Tears” at the Budokan in Japan that I didn’t even know existed. It’s way better than that nearly unwatchable version filmed in the early/mid ’90s that has camera cuts so fast they make me fucking dizzy.

-VN

An impassioned email from a reader reacting to my post about Shadows Fall covering “Bark at the Moon” the other day got me thinking that this would be a fun poll to conduct. The reader, David H., vehemently believes that Jake E. Lee was Ozzy’s best guitarist and thinks everything Zakk Wylde has done has been mediocre at best. If you’re a regular reader of this site you should know how we feel on the matter, but we want to know what YOU feel! So tell us.

For the sake of this poll, only guitarists who actually appeared on Ozzy recordings count. So no Joe Holmes, and sorry, no Gus G. (yet) either.

n

So apparently Ozzfest is coming back this summer, and is coming back as a traveling tour again (as opposed to the one-off fest it was in 2008). And that’s all well and good, only… who’s gonna be on the bill?

Mayhem, which is basically Ozzfest 2.0, has already scooped up a lot of big-name bands for the summer, including many who have played multiple past Ozzfests – namely Korn, Rob Zombie, Lamb of God, Atreyu, Shadows Fall and Hatebreed, the latter of whom I think have been on something like 90% of all Ozzfests ever.

Add to that other Ozzfest alum like Chimaira, In This Moment and Norma Jean, and some bands the kids today all seem to like, such as Winds of Plague and They Who Shall Not Be Named, and, well, that’s a whole bunch of potential mainstage and second stage draws right there.

Then there’s the mini-fests like Summer Slaughter. I can’t tell you which bands we already know are booked for some of these tours without betraying a lot of people’s confidence, but I can tell you that some great bands are now no longer available for Ozzfest.

And, oh yeah, Megadeth, Slayer, and Testament are now doing their American Carnage tour in the summer, so they’re out.

So who’s left? After the jump, I’m going to play my favorite game: it’s called “over-think about something incredibly unimportant.”

Before we proceed, it’s worth noting that I’m going to try and be semi-realistic when moving forward with some barely-educated guesses about who’ll be playing Ozzfest. If a band already has summer tour dates booked, I’m going to assume they’re not avail, although I acknowledge that they could cancel those dates in favor of playing for a bigger crowd. And I’m not even going to bother with bands like Pig Destroyer, Sigh, and Salome – bands that will play Ozzfest right around the time Joey Belladonna’s solo band plays four sold-out headlining shows at Giants Stadium. Also, obviously not all of these bands are gonna end up on the bill – these are just bands I think could end up there.

And so, without further bullshit…

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I didn’t buy Guitar Hero: Van Halen because it was a continuation of VH’s ongoing efforts to try and make people forget that Michael Anthony was ever in the band – never mind that Fatty Ding Dongs Van Halen wasn’t even born yet when the band’s best albums were made. That being said, I think modern Metallica is pretty lame, too, and I enjoyed their edition of GH. And I’d be totally down for a Megadeth version of the game, even if, once again, there would be some question of which ‘Deth line-up was portrayed (I assume it would be the current one… is Mustaine cool enough to let Marty Friedman, Dave Ellefson, Nick Menza, et. al. be unlockables?).

And I may get my wish! Metal Insider reports that Mustaine is now gloating about taking meetings with the makers of GH for a Megadeth-themed version of the game… or possibly something more. Via Megadeth.com:

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Rumor no more. The speculation that E1 Records has signed Black Label Society was put to rest Friday evening by Noisecreep in a post so official that it even has a quote from the label!

As Axl observed last week, E1′s been gobbling up established metal bands like Burger Conquest‘s Rev gobbles up delicious bun-encased meat patties so it seems like a good match on paper. What remains in question is whether Zakk Wylde will continue to shit out stock BLS riffs and repackage them as new albums or whether he’ll actually try something different this time around. If ever there were a time for Wylde to change it up a bit I’d think now would be that time; having recently been shit-canned from Ozzy’s band, Wylde’s gotta have a whole lot of pent up aggression (and riffs) and could be feeling a bit restless, musically speaking.

Though Wylde’s output for both BLS and Ozzy has been shoddy lately, we’re still massive fans of the man and would love to see his incredible talent shine once agan. We’ll find out when the new BLS record drops on E1, tentatively this coming summer.

-VN

It was back in December of ’08 that my man Vince first observed that E1 (then still called Koch) was signing every fucking metal band in the world. At that point, the label had recently made deals with or released albums by In Flames, Hatebreed, High On Fire, Satyricon, Otep, Throwdown and Straight Line Stitch; now there’s a rumor that they’ve added Black Label Society to their roster, too.

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Okay so that’s not really it, but who wants to bet that that’s more or less exactly what it sounds like? I mean, I bet I could have fooled at least half of all BLS fans into thinking that really was the new single, and at least seven-eighths of everyone else.

Anyways, BLS are gonna try and get a new album out by June. So I guess Zakk ignored my advice about taking some time to reflect on Ozzy firing him and then work at a deliberate pace in order to make a kick-ass new record that reminds us why we ever cared.

Swell.

-AR