“Black Sabbath are my all-time favorite band, and I’m Ozzy’s biggest fan,” Zakk Wylde related to Guitar World in 1989.
Fairly new to the Osbourne stable at the time, Wylde was, of course, filling in some massive shoes – Jake E. Lee, Randy Rhoads, and Tony Iommi before them.
All too aware and appreciative of that formidable legacy, though, Wylde was nothing but respectful to his predecessors, and his new boss; though that’s not to say that he wasn’t eager to bring his own ideas to the fold on his first album with the Prince of Darkness, 1988’s No Rest for the Wicked.
He quickly developed a smooth musical relationship with Osbourne, learning what the singer expected and needed for his material, and when – and when not to – let it rip on his then-trademark bull’s-eye-decorated Gibson Les Paul.
In the process, Wylde also came across some of Osbourne’s more idiosyncratic guitar guidelines.
For one, Osbourne told Wylde to tamp down his wah pedal usage, saying it reminded him too much of one guitar hero in particular.
“I wanted to play more slide guitar and use the wah pedal more (on No Rest for the Wicked),” Wylde told Guitar World in 1989, “but the minute Ozzy hears a wah-wah, he immediately thinks of Jimi Hendrix.
“I could be playing Mary Had A Little Lamb with a wah-wah, and he’d be going, ‘Hendrix, Hendrix, Hendrix.’”
The restrictions went beyond pedals, too.
Wylde’s bull’s-eye Les Paul was fitted with a pair of formidable EMG pickups, but – at Osbourne’s orders – he used only one on No Rest for the Wicked.
“I only used the (guitar’s) back pickup on the album,” Wylde explained to Guitar World. “Ozzy hates the sound of the front pickup. He calls it the ‘cow tone.’”
Still, this isn’t to say that Osbourne was a dictator during the No Rest for the Wicked sessions.
“The thing is, Ozzy’s been rocking out since before I was born, so I had to respect his opinion as to what would work in the studio,” Wylde told GW.
“He just wanted me to be the best musician possible. When he auditioned guitar players, his big gripe was that most everyone played like Yngwie Malmsteen on acid, and that wasn’t what he wanted.”
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