Zakk Wylde * Viking Savior

Once upon a time I was the biggest Ozzy fan on the planet and Randy Rhoads was my guitar idol.  I wanted to be just as good as he was.  I got into arguments daily with kids in school that tried to tell me that Eddie Van Halen was better than Randy Rhoads.  No way, not in my world.  So when I got the news that Randy had died in a plane crash to say I was devastated was an understatement.  For a year straight I wrote RR on my hand with a pen.
The next two records with Jake E Lee were pretty good, nothing like the ones with Randy and I was starting to lose interest in the Ozz.  Then I happened to see the video for Miracle Man and was totally blown away. The song kicked ass, it was heavy and evil sounding and who the fuck was that playing guitar.  He was amazing and when I listened to the cd  and heard the solo for Devil's Daughter I was hooked.  Ozzy was back and Zakk Wylde had brought him back.  I became an instant fanatic for Zakk's guitar playing and followed his career though every side project.  Zakk had brought back the heaviness to Ozzy's music and his solos were legendary, with his patented squeals you could always tell when Zakk was playing.

Looks like Zakk has a little hair spray in there doesn't it?  So I've written about the early Zakk in my next post I will go into the Black Label Society years and transformation Zakk went through to end up looking like this crazy fucking viking.

Until next time my fellow Rivitheads......