The Guitar Plugged · Guitarist Index
Zakk Wylde
Ozzy Osbourne / Black Label Society
1987–present
Metal · Rock · Blues
Southern-fried metal with the most aggressive pinch harmonics in the business.
Main guitar
Gibson Les Paul Custom 'Grail' and the bullseye Rebel
Signature sound
Marshall JCM800 into a chorus-thickened wall, with squeals everywhere
Era
1987–present
Influence
85 / 100
Genre
Metal / Rock / Blues
Why they matter
Southern-fried metal with the most aggressive pinch harmonics in the business.
Wylde joined Ozzy Osbourne's band at 20 and had to follow Randy Rhoads and Jake E. Lee. He solved that by not imitating either: he brought Southern rock and blues phrasing into a metal context, with a right hand aggressive enough to make pinch harmonics a percussion instrument.
His rhythm playing on No Rest for the Wicked and No More Tears is enormous and precise, and Black Label Society then let him build entire albums around the combination of doom-weight riffs and acoustic Southern balladry.
His pentatonic speed runs — played with brutal alternate picking rather than legato — remain one of the most copied lead approaches in modern metal.
The sound
Marshall JCM800 into a chorus-thickened wall, with squeals everywhere
Miracle Man
JCM800 with EQ boost — dry, mid-forward and unforgiving of sloppy muting.
No More Tears
Layered rhythm with chorus width and a solo tone thick enough to sit over an orchestral arrangement.
Stillborn
The Black Label sound: down-tuned, doomy, and drenched in harmonic squeals.
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Style & technique
How you recognise the playing
Squealing pinch harmonics
Used constantly and deliberately, as ornament and as rhythmic accent.
Aggressive pentatonic runs
Blues-box sequences played at speed with heavy alternate picking rather than legato.
Southern rock phrasing
Major-key bends and country-derived double stops inside metal arrangements.
Chorus-thickened rhythm
Heavy chorus on distorted rhythm tracks for width — a signature of his recorded sound.
The rig
Instruments, amplification and effects
- Gibson Les Paul Custom 'The Grail'
- Bullseye Les Paul
- Wylde Audio Odin
- Marshall JCM800 2203
- Wylde Audio Master 100
- MXR ZW-44 Overdrive
- MXR Black Label Chorus
- Dunlop Cry Baby Rotovibe
- MXR EQ
- EMG 81/85
- Wylde Audio pickups
Essential listening
Where to start
- 011988
Miracle Man
Ozzy Osbourne · No Rest for the Wicked
- 021991
No More Tears
Ozzy Osbourne · No More Tears
- 031991
Mama, I'm Coming Home
Ozzy Osbourne · No More Tears
- 042003
Stillborn
Black Label Society · The Blessed Hellride
- 052005
In This River
Black Label Society · Mafia
Career landmarks
The moments that mattered
No More Tears
One of the biggest-selling metal albums of the 1990s, carried by his riffs and solos.
The bullseye Les Paul
A finish so recognisable it became shorthand for the player.
The legacy
Lineage
Influenced by
Influenced
Modern metal lead players
Mark Morton
Andy James
Adjacent players
More from the archive
The player who turned amplifier noise into a musical language.
The virtuoso who rewrote the vocabulary of rock guitar.
Session-hardened producer who built rock guitar as an architecture, not a solo.
The player who translated Chicago blues into British rock volume.
The restless technician who kept reinventing what an electric guitar could be.
The master of the long note — space, sustain and perfect note choice.