Zakk Wylde Talks About Going Unplugged, Staying Sober in New Interview

In a new interview with Revolvermag.com, Black Label Society mainman Zakk Wylde talks about going unplugged for his newest album, The Song Remains Not The Same, and staying sober.

You can read the full interview here, and check out an excerpt below:

REVOLVER: On your new acoustic album, The Song Remains Not The Same, you re-recorded a couple of tracks from the last BLS album. How do you translate a big, burly BLS song into an acoustic track?

That’s why we named it The Song Remains Not The Same — you know, besides being real into Zeppelin. The only song that’s really an unplugged version of an old track is “Overlord.” With “Parade of the Dead,” the only thing that’s the same is the title and melody. I’m playing it on the fuckin’ piano, and I’m not even playing the riff. It’s me just using them as a working title and lyrics. That’s how I jam. If I’m jamming on an acoustic song, I’ll just start singing “Knocking On Heaven’s Door” over the melody. It’s just something to fucking set it up.

Has sobriety mellowed you out?

Nah. It was never really about that, it just got to the point where it started messing with the shows. When it starts getting in the way of shit, that’s when it just gets stupid. It’s like a football player—you run him into the ground enough, he can’t play anymore. All of a sudden, you start having trouble with getting out of bed and taking a piss, and that’s a problem. But nah, we’re still chilling. The rest of the guys are in the back pounding booze and smoking weed and shit the whole time! We got wide-load trucks unloading cases of hard liquor into the bus!