Alex Biese of NJ.com reports:
Ozzy Osbourne had Zakk Wylde at his side all the way to the last show.
Wylde, the guitarist who grew up in Jackson, first joined forces with the Prince of Darkness in 1987, and he spent much of the next 40 years as his his musical muscle. Osbourne went out swinging with his final concert, Back to the Beginning on July 5th in his native Birmingham, England — and Wylde was there with the six-string fireworks, dutifully shredding for his boss one last time…
…“Just the fact that he willed himself to do that thing,” Wylde said. “Whatever things that we’ve run into, any obstacles or whatever, it’s always just a speed bump and we’ll get through it. So I wasn’t thinking, ‘Oh, this is the last time I’m going to see Oz.’ I just figured we’ll do the gig, and then who knows? You always stay positive on all this stuff…
…“I wasn’t thinking when we were doing the show that this was the last time I’m going to be doingMama, I’m Coming Home with the boss or this is the last time I’m going to play Crazy Train with him or anything like that,” Wylde said. “I was just going, ‘Let’s do this and let’s have a good time,’ like always.”
Wylde said Osbourne even had ideas for a new album in mind, one that would hearken back to their work together in the early 1990s.
“He was texting me, ‘Zakk, let’s do another record. Because I really loved it when you were going through your Allman Brothers, Skynyrd phase when we did No More Tears’ it’s heavy but it’s more melodic, it’s not pummeling heavy,’” Wylde said. “So I said, ‘Alright Oz, whatever you want…’”
…Wylde will continue to honor Osbourne’s musical legacy via his Black Sabbath tribute band, Zakk Sabbath, whose winter tour will bring them to Caesars Atlantic City on Nov. 29th. Black Label Society, his other band, is mixing its newest album. The Jackson native is also serving as the guitarist for the reconstituted iteration of Pantera, which will tour Europe in support of Metallica next summer.
Asked what he learned from Osbourne over the years together, Wylde was quick to answer.
“Do what you love, and Ozzy’s resilience, and obviously he had a whole lot of gall,” Wylde said. “So basically all three of those, those are just three awesome traits you could ask for in anybody, he had them all.”
Read more at NJ.com.