30 YEARS OF NO MORE TEARS
I N ADDITION TO 2021 being the year Black Label Society are releasing their 11th album and getting back onstage, it also marks the 30th anniversary of the release of No More Tears, Wylde’s biggest album with “the boss,” Ozzy Osbourne. It was something we couldn’t ignore!
What do you recall most about the experience of recording No More Tears? ZAKK WYLDE Well, obviously [1988’s] No Rest for the Wicked was my first record with the boss. And I was like, “Wow, I can’t believe I’m gonna contribute to the sound and the direction of Ozzy’s music!” Being such a huge Randy [Rhoads] fan and Jake [E. Lee] fan and Sabbath fan, that was a big thing — I remember it like it was yesterday. So we had an ass-kicking time making that record, and then after the craziness of that tour, No More Tears was more of a relaxed kind of atmosphere. We just had more experience, which led to bringing in songs like “Road to Nowhere” and “Mama, I’m Coming Home.”
How did the title track come together? WYLDE I remember with “No More Tears,” Mikey [Mike Inez] started jamming that out on the bass. And then Randy [Castillo] started in on drums, and John [Sinclair] started playing that keyboard thing. I had a slide laying around because of my love for the Allmans and Skynyrd and everything, and I started doing that line, the major-key, Skynyrd-y Allmans thing. Then we stopped, and Mike was still playing the bass and Randy was playing the drums and we did like the whole “War Pigs,” “Black Dog” thing, where Ozzy sings and then we play the riff. That was how that happened. The song almost wrote itself. But overall we had a blast making that record. And the tour was frickin’ hilarious, too. It was just a lot of fun times, man. Dario, you were just a few years old when No More Tears was released. But was it a big record for you when you first started playing guitar?
DARIO LORINA Oh, yeah. Especially that song and that solo, for sure. But I loved all the classic Ozzy stuff. And I loved everything Zakk started to do with Black Label after it. Zakk was a guy I was always into.