Zakk Wylde: from a New Jersey petrol station to Ozzy’s guitarist | Ultimate Guitarist Reunion

Why fans still care

ZAKK WYLDE was Ozzy Osbourne’s, Who’s Who number 29 in · Highway to Hell (story coming soon) guitarist for most of four decades, on and off, from 1987 to Ozzy’s, Who’s Who number 29 in · Highway to Hell (story coming soon) last show in July 2025. No More Tears and Mama, I’m Coming Home are his records as much as anyone’s.

He also built his own band. Black Label Society has been going since 1998, and he still leads it.

And he’s a fan first. He learned every Randy Rhoads, Who’s Who number 28 solo before he ever got the Ozzy, Who’s Who number 29 in · Highway to Hell (story coming soon) job.

Early life and training

He was born Jeffrey Phillip Wielandt on 14 January 1967 in Bayonne, New Jersey.

At 11 a friend played him Black Sabbath. Later, a friend named Dave Feld, who knew Ozzy’s, Who’s Who number 29 in · Highway to Hell (story coming soon) photographer Mark Weiss, talked him into sending in a tape for an audition.

Career chapters

1. 1987Joins Ozzy’s, Who’s Who number 29 in · Highway to Hell (story coming soon) band, at 20
2. 1988No Rest for the Wicked
3. 1991No More Tears
4. 1998Forms Black Label Society
5. 2009Leaves Ozzy’s, Who’s Who number 29 in · Highway to Hell (story coming soon) band
6. 2016Generation Axe tour
7. 2017Back with Ozzy, Who’s Who number 29 in · Highway to Hell (story coming soon)
8. 2022Joins Pantera on tour
9. 2025Ozzy’s, Who’s Who number 29 in · Highway to Hell (story coming soon) final show
10. 2026Engines of Demolition

With Ozzy 1987 to 1995

In 1987 he took the call to replace Jake E. Lee in Ozzy’s, Who’s Who number 29 in · Highway to Hell (story coming soon) band. By his account he was pumping petrol at the time. His first show with Ozzy, Who’s Who number 29 in · Highway to Hell (story coming soon), he says, was at Wormwood Scrubs prison in London.

He played on No Rest for the Wicked (1988), No More Tears (1991) and Ozzmosis (1995). No More Tears was four times platinum in the US by May 2000, and a live version of I Don’t Want to Change the World won the 1994 Grammy for Best Metal Performance, credited to Ozzy, Who’s Who number 29 in · Highway to Hell (story coming soon).

Black Label Society 1998 to 2009

He formed Black Label Society in 1998 and kept working with Ozzy, Who’s Who number 29 in · Highway to Hell (story coming soon), through to Black Rain in 2007.

In August 2009 he was in hospital with blood clots, and he gave up drinking afterwards. “You just grow up and out of it,” he said. That year Ozzy, Who’s Who number 29 in · Highway to Hell (story coming soon) said he wanted a change, because his music was starting to sound like Black Label Society. Ozzy, Who’s Who number 29 in · Highway to Hell (story coming soon) said there was no falling-out.

Generation Axe and Ozzy again 2016 to 2017

In 2016 he toured Generation Axe, opening in Seattle on 5 April, with Steve Vai, Who’s Who number 30, Yngwie Malmsteen, Nuno Bettencourt and Tosin Abasi. In 2017 he was back with Ozzy, Who’s Who number 29 in · Highway to Hell (story coming soon) for a US tour that opened on 14 July in Oshkosh, Wisconsin.

Pantera, and the last show 2022 to 2026

In July 2022 he and Charlie Benante were confirmed to tour with Pantera’s Phil Anselmo and Rex Brown, with the approval of the estates of Dimebag Darrell and Vinnie Paul. “No one’s replacing anybody,” he said. The same year he played on Ozzy’s, Who’s Who number 29 in · Highway to Hell (story coming soon) Patient Number 9, which won the Grammy for Best Rock Album.

On 5 July 2025 he played guitar in Ozzy’s, Who’s Who number 29 in · Highway to Hell (story coming soon) five-song set at Back to the Beginning, the farewell show in Birmingham. Ozzy, Who’s Who number 29 in · Highway to Hell (story coming soon) died on 22 July; Wylde was on tour with Pantera when he heard. “There was no quit in him,” he said.

In March 2026 Black Label Society released Engines of Demolition, 15 songs including one called Ozzy’s Song, and toured North America with Zakk Sabbath, his Black Sabbath tribute band, as support.

Craft, sound and style

His guitar playing grew out of Randy Rhoads, Who’s Who number 28. He calls him “Saint Rhoads”, and he studied his solos until he could play them all. He started his own guitar company, Wylde Audio, and its first guitars came out through Schecter in 2016.

The SG and the white Les Paul

His first real “quality” guitar was a 1981 Gibson SG Firebrand in Pelham Blue from Red Bank Music in New Jersey, which his teacher Leroy picked up with Wylde’s parents. It’s completely stock, and he sold it and later bought it back. For his school graduation he got a white 1985 Les Paul Custom. It cost $800, and his parents put in about $300. It still has its original pickups.

The Grail

His main guitar with Ozzy was a 1981 Les Paul Custom he calls the Grail. Scott Quinn of Garden State Music traded it to him for a Gibson double neck, and it already had EMGs. He wrote Miracle Man on it, and says most of his Ozzy records feature it. It was plain cream when they made the first album in 1988. He had it refinished so he wouldn’t look like Randy Rhoads, Who’s Who number 28, asked for something like the Vertigo poster, and got the bull’s-eye. Around 2000 it fell off the gear trailer on a highway, and survived in its case. A pawnshop owner found “Z.W.” under a pickup ring. His accounts of how he got it back differ: in 2025 he said the buyer got in touch three years later and sold it back, and in 2026 he said he swapped a signature Bullseye Gibson for it. It’s retired from the road now, and on tour he plays only Wylde Audio guitars, the same as the ones in the shops.

No More Tears

Guitar World published the 1991 No More Tears rig. It was the 1981 Les Paul with an EMG 81 at the bridge and an 85 at the neck, volume and tone on 10, into two late 80s Marshall JCM800 2203 heads in stereo and Marshall 4x12s. On the floor were a Cry Baby wah, a Rotovibe, a Boss SD-1 overdrive and a Boss CH-1 chorus left on the whole time. The wah and Rotovibe weren’t used on the title track, and the delay at the end of the solo went on in the mix. Guitar World contrasts it with the fridge sized racks most players had then. He used GHS Boomers, .010 to .060, and a Dunlop Tortex 1.14 mm pick.

Pinch harmonics and hands

His teacher Leroy Wright showed him how to play La Grange, and he calls Billy Gibbons, Who’s Who number 5 “the godfather of the pinch harmonic”. He says tone is mostly in the hands: Frank Marino, Al Di Meola and John McLaughlin would still sound like themselves on the same guitar and amp. He likes two guitar bands in the Allman Brothers mould, which is why Dario Lorina shares the parts in Black Label Society.

Stories people still tell

1. The petrol station.

   He tells it simply: he was at work, pumping petrol, when the call came to join Ozzy, Who’s Who number 29 in · Highway to Hell (story coming soon).

2. Family.

   Ozzy, Who’s Who number 29 in · Highway to Hell (story coming soon) is godfather to his son Jesse.

3. For Dime.

   “He was proof that God exists,” he said of Pantera’s Dimebag Darrell in 2005.

Legacy

In 2012 he put it plainly: without Randy Rhoads, Who’s Who number 28, there “never would have been a Zakk Wylde”. In the painting they stand side by side.