Guitar legend Zakk Wylde has named his top five favorite albums of all time and a new episode of AXS TV’s Stranded video series, which challenges artists to pick just a handful of records they would take with them if stranded on a desert island.
The first up from Wylde, who released Doom Crew Inc. with Black Label Society earlier this year, guested on four new Ozzy Osbourne songs and is now part of the new Pantera lineup, is quite the surprise. Or maybe it’s not a surprise at all given the rocker’s penchant for joking around.
Without any explanation, the first record he rattles off is an unspecified yacht rock greatest hits. Yup, probably just kidding on that one! Who knows?
Moving onward, Wylde adopts a more serious tone and names Sabotage, the sixth album from the first Ozzy era of Black Sabbath.
“I love them all, but that’s what I’m feeling today,” he says of the 1975 release, “It’s so funny because Ozz always considers the first couple records up to Sabbath Bloody Sabbath the last classic Sabbath record and he doesn’t put Sabotage in there with that group of records. I always told him I’d put his vocal performance on that record up against any of his peers or anybody for that matter. His performance on that album is absolutely incredible.”
Next is the 1974 Greatest Hits edition from Elton John, which Wylde says he has, “Nothing but great memories associated with that when I was a kid listening to that album all the time.”
He even met the legend one night after he and his wife Barbaranne renewed their wedding vows in Las Vegas. Among the attendees were Ozzy and Sharon Osbourne, who are friends with Elton John, and they all went to watch him play a residency show. “I had my Elton John book from when I was 8 years old — from 1975 — he actually signed that book that my parents got me,” Wylde recalls.
The fourth album on the list is Live, the 1978 record from Frank Marino and Mahogany Rush. The Canadian group has drawn plenty of comparison to Jimi Hendrix, another huge influence on Wylde, and of this record, he says, “The memories I have associated with that album are just a jaw-dropping experience. To this day, it transports me back in time. It’s just timeless, amazing guitar playing.”
Concluding the episode, Wylde rounds things off with Led Zeppelin’s The Song Remains the Same, which helped shape Wylde’s playing from an early age — “When I first started playing guitar, I listened to it all the time. Listening to Jimmy Page’s guitar playing on there is just phenomenal. His guitar solos alone in ‘No Quarter’ and ‘Stairway to Heaven’ —the extended solos that he does are just mindblowing.”
Watch the full episode below.
Other rockers who have previously guested on Stranded include Twisted Sister’s Dee Snider (see his list here) and Papa Roach’s Jacoby Shaddix (see his list here).
Catch Wylde letting it rip with Pantera at their first four comeback shows at select festivals later this year. The lineup also includes classic members Philip Anselmo and Rex Brown as well as Anthrax drummer Charlie Benante.
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