Zakk Wylde revisits why his Guns N’ Roses collaboration never became permanent

Zakk Wylde has revisited his brief period working with Guns N’ Roses in the mid-1990s, explaining how the sessions never developed into a permanent role in the band.

Speaking on the Go With Elmo Lovano podcast, Wylde recalled receiving an invitation from Axl Rose after the departure of guitarist Gilby Clarke. He joined the group for rehearsals and worked on musical ideas with its members while he was also involved in the making of Ozzy Osbourne‘s “Ozzmosis”.

We were working on ‘Ozzmosis’ at the time in New York City in Paris, with Ozz. I knew Slash, and I knew Duff and Steven. I had never met Axl. I had never met Izzy. So I didn’t know any of the guys. Axl called me up the one day and it was just, like, ‘Oh, Zakk.’ We were talking about guitar players, ’cause at the time, Gilby — who I’m buddies with now — but Gilby had left, and they were looking for another guitar player. So they were just throwing names out there of guys they know. ‘Bro, do you know Zakk? or whatever. And Slash was, like, ‘Yeah, I’m friends with Zakk,’ or whatever. And Axl was, like, ‘Let me just call Zakk up and see if he wants to come down and jam or whatever.’

So I was, like, ‘Yeah, sure. No problem, man.’ We came down and jammed for a bit, and I think we demoed a couple of ideas over at Duff’s house on his his portable home-studio type thing. And then we all hung out together. And then in the room one day, it was Matt, Slash, Duff, Axl, me, and Dizzy was down there and all the guys. And we were just hanging out, and we had a good time. But nothing was ever materializing out of everything. And then me playing with Ozz. Ozz was, like, ‘Zakk, are you gonna jam with the fellas or are you gonna jam with me?’ I mean, nowadays, you just make it work, ’cause I’m playing with Pantera celebration, you got Black Label [Society], Zakk Sabbath. If I do ‘Experience Hendrix’, I go out and do that.

And ‘Generation Axe’ with Steve Vai and Nuno [Bettencourt] and Yngwie [Malmsteen] and Tosin [Abasi], when we got together and did that. When there’s a gap in time and there you go, ‘Yeah, let’s do it in May or whatever. I’m not doing anything then. We’ll knock it out then.’ But then it was kind of, like, ‘Bro, you gotta do one or the…’ — not ‘one or the other’ kind of thing. But it was just, like, ‘Well, let’s see if we can make this thing work’ or whatever. But Ozz was, like, ‘Zakk, I can’t be waiting around to see what’s gonna happen here. I gotta make a move and I gotta get somebody else.’ So then that’s when Ozz got Joe Holmes in the band. And Joe is amazing, and I’m buddies with Joe. But, yeah, Ozz went and did that. And then so Ozz had Joe. They went out and toured behind the record. Then nothing was happening with the GN’R thing. But I did [the 1996 solo album] ‘Book Of Shadows’ after that, because I was just writing mellow stuff all the time.

‘Cause like after we got done doing the ‘Ozzmosis’ sessions, I’d go over to this place called Brew’s, and in the jukebox they had like old [The Rolling] Stones records, Creedence [Clearwater Revival], Eagles, The Band and just like all this stuff in the jukebox, Elton John — everything like that. I mean, basic classic rock — Bad Company, everything like that. So I would just go there, drinking over there till like 7:00 in the morning every night, after we got done jamming. And that was in New York City. So then I’d go back to the room and start writing songs, Neil Young, whatever. And then I had all those acoustic things, and I ended up recording that ‘Book Of Shadows’ record after that. And then after that, we toured that. Around ’98, I was just, like, ‘Well, I’m not ready to be a singer-songwriter guy and sitting in a chair. I still wanna do some of the heavy stuff.’ So that’s when Black Label was born. So I was, like, ‘All right, well, then I’m gonna do this.’ And then the rest is history. Here we are 30 years later, almost.

Wylde went on to release his solo album “Book Of Shadows” in 1996 and later founded Black Label Society. He has spoken about the Guns N’ Roses sessions before, but the latest interview offers another account of how competing commitments helped shape his career.

Source: Go With Elmo Lovano podcast interview, with remarks transcribed by Blabbermouth.