In a new interview with New York’s Q104.3 radio station, Zakk Wylde spoke about what it was like to return to the live stage with BLACK LABEL SOCIETY for his first performances since the start of the pandemic.
“We were gone for 18 months, or whatever, 19 months, from when we did our last show, which was with the Milwaukee chapter over at the Rave — that was the last time we did a BLACK LABEL show,” he said (as transcribed by BLABBERMOUTH.NET). “And I remember we were all just thinking, ‘We’re gonna go home for two weeks, a month.’ This was before everybody knew what was going on. We just figured, ‘Just a precaution-type thing,’ or whatever. And here we are 18 months later, almost two years later. But as soon as we started playing, it felt like everybody went home for, like, two weeks and here we are again.
“I cherished every moment I had home, because I’m always touring,” he continued. “This has gotta be the longest break I’ve taken in 20-plus years. ‘Cause usually when I’m home, I’m home for a little bit. And you’re really not home because you’re working on a record. So you’re in the studio for 14 hours a day. You’ve always got something going on. It was nice. I was telling [my wife], I said, ‘Have you ever slept with a professional dog walker? Well, now’s your chance, woman.’ So I take care of the dogs, and, obviously, bringing [my son] Sabbath to his Jeet Kune Do classes, which you don’t get a chance when you’re on the road all the time. But I love getting up on stage every night and I love playing, and when I’m home, I love being home. I’m truly blessed. But those three shows that we did just recently, we had a blast. It was awesome.”
BLACK LABEL SOCIETY will release its 11th studio album, “Doom Crew Inc.”, on November 26 via MNRK Heavy (formerly eOne Music). The album will be available digitally on CD and vinyl plus a deluxe edition that includes vinyl, CD longbox, cassette and more.
The 12-track album is both a tribute to the band’s “first to bleed, last to leave” road crew and a salute to the legion whose support, stretching back to 1998, rivals that of the KISS Army. The songs are odes to celebration and mourning, the soundtracks to jubilant evenings and bewildering days recorded in Wylde‘s home studio, the Black Vatican. On this album, Zakk trades solos and twin-guitar parts with Dario Lorina, backed by the rumble of longtime bassist John “J.D.” DeServio and powerhouse drummer Jeff Fabb.
BLACK LABEL SOCIETY will hit the road this fall on the “Doom Trooping Over North America” tour starting October 1 in Sacramento at Ace Of Spades with openers OBITUARY and PRONG through November 28 ending in Albuquerque at the Sunshine Theater. The band will then finish up the tour from December 27 to December 31 with PRONG and ARMORED SAINT.
