SHOTS OF CAFFEINE
Keep Black Label Society ready for anything
Traveling straight for 24 hours with four-hour layovers in between doesn’t phase Zakk Wylde. Wylde just passes the time at the bar and takes it all in stride. Recently returning from tours in New Zealand and Australia, Wylde and his band Black Label Society are ready to hit the road again back home. This time with the tour dates leading up to the ultimate show on New Year’s Eve in Las Vegas, Nev.
Luckily Wylde has a cure for jet lag — his own coffee brand Valhalla Java Odinforce Blend, which he created in collaboration with Death Wish Coffee Company.
After tasting some less than savory coffees, Wylde decided to make his own, something that didn’t look like dirty water or taste like “piss water,” he explained.
“It’s killer coffee,” he said. “Just because it just tastes awesome is beside the fact that after you drink about five cups you go back in the house 42 times and, you know, repaint your house all in about half an hour. It’s wonderful.”
Wylde continues to have his hand in many projects. Soon the metal guitar legend will be revealing his new line of guitars, amps and pedals called Wylde Audio. He’s also working on a solo album as a follow up to “Book of Shadows,” which he released about 20 years ago.
“I had a bunch of these mellow things sitting around so I said let’s knock one of these out and go tour and eventually come back to a heavy Black Label album and then go out behind that thing,” he explained.
Wylde said BLS’s touring schedule has a lot to do with how long it takes to record and release albums, including his solo project.
“I don’t know how any of these guys take years to make a record, we’ve taken years between records but that’s because we’re touring the whole time,” he explained. “We’re working; it’s not like I’m sitting around the house working on a record for four years. I don’t even understand how you do that. If you’re writing the whole time and something that you wrote came out really slammin’, you know it might never see the light of day because to you it’s old and you’re done with it.”
The process to make this solo record has been different from previous projects.
“Usually, when we do a record it’s just one concentrated explosion and then it gets finished,” Wylde said. “Get in there, knock it out, you get it down and then you move on. This one is a little bit here, a little bit there, a little bit there just kind of like building (but) instead of building a house in just one shot, it’s like building and then breaking away from it for a little while.”