Ozzy Osbourne guitarist Zakk Wylde recently discussed Axl Rose‘s offer for him to jam with Guns N’ Roses in a new Musicians Institute’s Conversation Series interview. Wylde revealed that Ozzy threatened to replace him when he considered playing with Axl Rose and Guns N’ Roses full time.
“The guys were just talking one day, and Axl [Rose] was telling me — I’d never met Axl before — and Axl was just saying, him and Slash were talking, like, ‘Who else would you wanna get on guitar?'” he continued. “And I guess my name came up. ‘Why don’t we ask Zakk what’s going on?’ And Axl was, like, ‘All right. I’ll call him up.’ So Axl ended up getting my phone number and called me up: ‘Hey, Zakk, man. It’s Axl. I just wondered if you wanted to get together and jam with the guys.’ And I said, ‘Yeah. No problem.’
So we ended up jamming. We were recording [Osbourne’s 1995 album] ‘Ozzmosis’ at the time. And so we were jamming on and off. We were recording the record, we were doing ‘Ozzmosis’, having a blast doing that, and then in between, when I’d come back out to L.A., I’d end up hooking up with the guys and we’d jam down at the rehearsal hall. So it was just ideas floating around. But nothing was happening there with the Guns guys. And then Ozz was going, ‘Zakk, listen, we’re gonna get ready to tour. Are you gonna jam…?’
Ozz was, like, ‘You can do both, but, Zakk, I’ve gotta have an answer, if you’re gonna be jamming with them and me. This ship leaves twelve o’clock Monday. Are you gonna be ready to go or not?’ I couldn’t get an answer from the fellows, and everything was up in the air, and Ozz was, like, ‘I’ve gotta get somebody else in here, man.’ So that was it. So I was just sitting around, going, ‘What am I gonna do? I’ve got all these riffs laying around. I’m not playing with Ozz right now. I’m not doing the GN’R thing. F**k it.’ And then I came up with Black Label Society. So that’s basically how Black Label Society was born right there. I was, like, ‘What am I gonna do?’ ‘Cause I did the ‘Book Of Shadows’ thing, and I was, like, ‘I’m not ready to be a singer-songwriter, James Taylor kind of [artist]. I’m not ready for that yet, as much as I love doing it.’ I was just, like, ‘I still wanna do riffs and I still wanna do heavy stuff, mixed in with the mellow stuff as well, obviously.'”
He also revealed how he met Guns N’ Roses.
“I’d known the guys, on and off, for years when I first came out here [to California] and I started playing with the Boss [Ozzy Osbourne]. So I met Slash and I met Duff [McKagan] and we became friends and everything like that, and that’s when Guns N’ Roses was just starting to blow up. So I’ve known the guys, and, obviously, when I ran into ’em every now and then, when we were all drinking, it’s always good to catch up with the guys and everything like that. And I knew Steven [Adler]. So then, after that, I met Matt [Sorum]; he was playing with The Cult. It’s a small group of people that you end up running into and you just become friends and stuff like that.
Steven Adler has released a new video after his stabbing scare, which led to suicide attempt rumors that he later shot down.
“I’m really sorry about all this media confusion that’s been going on. I’m alive and well. I’m looking forward to seeing everybody on July 12 at the Golden Nugget in [Las] Vegas and July 13 at this motorcycle rally in Oregon, which is gonna be bad to the bone. And I love everybody, and I can’t wait to see and hug everybody. Thank you so much for your love and support.”
