Ozzy Osbourne guitarist Zakk Wylde revealed that he sadly had ‘riffs laying around’ after working with Slash and other Guns N’ Roses members in 1995.
Wylde told Revolver, “We had done Ozzmosis with the Boss [Ozzy Osbourne] and then in between I was writing. At night, I go across over to this bar called Bruise that was there in New York City. They had the Stones on the jukebox, Van Morrison, the Band, Eagles, Bad Company, Neil Young. So I’d be jamming to that all night and then I crawl back to my hotel room which was right next to the pub.
Then I’d end up writing tunes. That’s how that Book of Shadows [1996 solo album] thing came about, because it was just writing mellow acoustic stuff. After we did Book of Shadows and I toured I was like, ‘Well, what am I going to do now?’ Because I didn’t think I was ready to be James Taylor yet, you know what I mean? Sitting on an acoustic for the rest of my days. I still wanted to do the heavy stuff.
In between there as well I was jamming with the GN’R guys and I had these riffs laying around. Nothing was happening with the GN’R thing so I was like, ‘What am I going to do? Well, I’ll just sing on these myself.’ I got in touch with Phil [Ondich, drummer, first two BLS records] and then we went down to Florida and recorded the album. Here we are 20 years later.”
