The Wylde man of guitar is selling VIP packages where you can hang out, grab a photo, an autograph, and get your mitts on a super-aggressive Wylde Audio guitar, too
Zakk Wylde might look like a scary biker who would eat your liver with french fries and a side of garden peas but he’s actually a most congenial fellow, and if you are a Pantera fan with tickets to one of the Texan metal institution’s reunion shows, there are VIP packages available where you can not just meet the big fella but take home one of his stage-played electric guitars.
Wylde is selling a deluxe Stage Played VIP Upgrade package where you can pop along and grab a photo, get your guitar signed, shoot the breeze and ask him just how many pints of engine oil one needs to consume on a daily basis to have such powerful yet unerringly accurate picking technique. And on each night, the price of the upgrade will get you one of his Wylde Audio signature guitars that has just been used to tear through the Pantera back catalog.
These packages are on early bird pricing right now up until noon PST tomorrow (February 10), saving you 250 bucks on asking fee. Right now they are listed at $3,250, which ain’t cheap, but then you do get a guitar – a Wylde Audio Barbarian, to be precise, in a choice of three finishes.
Image 1 of 3
(Image credit: Wylde Audio )
(Image credit: Wylde Audio )
(Image credit: Wylde Audio )
These are a little like the Gibson SG if Les Paul had a background in medieval weaponry. Sharpened and beveled cutaways really do give it an axe quality, even if no-one calls their guitar an axe anymore.
Your finish options comprise Orange Buzzsaw, Genesis Bullseye and our favorite Purple Blizzard, and if these are the same spec as the Barbarians made in South Korea under license by Schecter, then you are in for a serious guitar.
They certainly come fitted with a pair of active EMG 85 and 81 humbuckers at the neck and bridge positions, with individual volume controls and a master tone, a three-way pickup toggle mounted near the bridge for those quick changes.
And they’re built of a solid combo of mahogany bodies and glued-in three-piece maple necks, 14” radius ebony fingerboards with Runes inlays to extend the Viking vibe beyond, y’know, the whole axe shape. All in all, a very respectable metal guitar.
Get The Pick Newsletter
All the latest guitar news, interviews, lessons, reviews, deals and more, direct to your inbox!
You’ll need a ticket for the Pantera US tour first. That picks up in the summer on July 28 when Wylde and co are scheduled to flatten Burgettstown, PA. You can get tickets and your Stage Played VIP Upgrade via Sound Rink.
Jonathan Horsley has been writing about guitars since 2005, playing them since 1990, and regularly contributes to publications including Guitar World, MusicRadar and Total Guitar. He uses Jazz III nylon picks, 10s during the week, 9s at the weekend, and shamefully still struggles with rhythm figure one of Van Halen’s Panama.
