Bringing Metal To The Children: The Complete Berserker’s Guide to World Tour Domination

Dedication

To God and Jesus Christ for giving me life and for giving creation to the amazing cast of characters that make up the music business. Without them, life wouldn’t be as insane or as much fun as it is. I also should mention Vaseline lubricating jelly—without which my ass would never have healed from the relentless pounding, hammering, fisting, plowing, and gaping joys I received from said cast of characters.

Epigraph

ON THE COVER: The spiked wristband I’m wearing on the cover of this book was a gift for my thirty-ninth birthday from my good friend and Black Label brother Kerry King, a true Berzerker who also calls upon the OdinForce of Valhalla to forge the Metal for his band, Slayer.

Title Page

Dedication

Epigraph

General Black Label Society Warning

Foreword by Chris Jericho

Author’s Note

Preface

Chapter One: The Berzerkers of Asgard

Chapter Two: The Black Vatican

Chapter Three: GIFD

Chapter Four: No Shitting on the Bus

Chapter Five: Perils of Valhalla

Chapter Six: Pssst! Don’t Tell the Warden

Epilogue: One for the Road

Picture Section

Appendix: Bonus Material

From the Desk of John DeServio

Acknowledgments

About the Authors

Credits

Copyright

About the Publisher

NOT A SINGLE SENSICAL WORD EXISTS IN THE CONTEXT OF THIS Volume, Nor were Any Good Judgments or Rational Decisions Executed in Its Production. This Book was Planned, Developed, Produced, and Submitted under the Complete, Utter, and Absolute Idiocy of the Authors. In Fact, This Book is So Completely Horrendous that any Physical Contact with its Pages may cause Vertigo, Memory Loss, Nausea, Vomiting, and Uncontrollable Evacuation of the Bowels. The Authors do not Recommend that you Attempt any of the Stunts in this Book, with the Exception of some of the Really Cool Ones. Lastly, no Animals were Fondled in the Making of this Book. I look forward to Performing my own Prostate Exams each day and I Thoroughly enjoy Fucking Slamming my Meat all by Myself. I don’t need no Stinking Fucking Animals. While this Book Offers Extensive Advice Intended for the Betterment of People’s Lives (Because that’s What I do), By No Means is it a Safe Alternative to Traditional Therapy. This Book will, However, Make your Penis Larger. If You don’t Have a Penis, it Will Still Make it Larger. And if your Wife has a Penis, it will Make hers Larger as Well.

I’VE BEEN IN SHOW BUSINESS FOR OVER TWENTY YEARS AND IN THAT time, between wrestling, music, writing books, and acting, I’ve met a lot of characters: freaks, geeks, sheiks, big jerks, young turks, Captain Kirks, Aussies, Ozzys, Fozzys, chicks, pricks, dicks, dicks with chicks, chicks with dicks, and everything in between. But I’ve never met anyone like Zakk Wylde. In a world infested with obnoxious egomaniacs, backstabbing charlatans, temperamental prima donnas (of which I confess I am one), world-class fakes, and all-around Grade-A Assholes, Zakk Wylde is real.

A real nice guy.

A real family man.

A real fan of music.

A real kick-ass guitar player.

And a real stinky son of a bitch.

Yeah, stinky! You want an example? One afternoon, following one of our notorious all-night drinking binges in New York City, I met up with Zakk and noticed he was wearing the exact same clothes he’d been wearing while throwing back cocktails the night before. His hair was a cross between Bozo the Clown’s and Dee Snider’s circa 1984, and good lord in heaven did he reek of alcohol and odors I’ve never smelled before or since.

“Great Caesar’s ghost, Zakk!” I bellowed in disgust. “Why don’t you take a shower?”

“Vikings didn’t have showers, brutha,” Zakk replied.

“Yeah, and Vikings didn’t travel in their own private tour buses and sleep in the Waldorf hotel either. Take a shower, ya fuckin’ scumbag!”

And therein lies the genius of Zakky. He is a stellar musician and one of the greatest guitar artists of any generation, a man who has written some of the most classic riffs and songs in Heavy Metal history. He is a talented vocalist with a style completely his own and a vastly underrated piano player who can make grown men weep with his emotional ballads. But he is also a guy who considers himself to be some sort of Nordic warrior and has no problem farting in public, bragging about his sexual prowess (but only with his Immortal Beloved, Barbaranne), using more cuss words than a fleet of soused sailors, and washing that confused mess he calls his hair at best once a week, probably much less.

As I said, Zakk is real.

Really funny.

Really genuine.

Really obsessed with James Hellwig.

Really respected by one Chris Jericho.

And now really sober.

Yeah, you read that right. Sober. Zakk is one of rock ’n’ roll’s last true characters and the tales of his drunkocity will live on in the annals of rock history forever. I should know; I was a part of many of them. But Zakk was getting near the end of his lifetime cocktail punch card, and instead of using it up taking a seat at the bar in God’s tavern with so many of his peers and heroes, Zakk chose to stop. Cold turkey. No therapy, no rehab, no Dr. Drew. He just stopped. And that’s what I respect most about my friend. He recognized the problem and eliminated it. And he’s a funnier, more talented, better man for it. I’m proud of him for that.

Now without the excess booze baggage, Iron Chef Zakk is out there working harder than ever to make those doughnuts. This book explains in every way, shape, and form how he has created those delicious treats for the last twenty-plus years and how he will continue to do so for decades to come. Zakk discusses what it takes to become an SDMF-certified Berzerker and will take you step by step through the mind of a Truuuuu Rockaaaaaa!!

So sit back and enjoy. Pay attention; read slowly and maybe you’ll find out a little of what makes our intrepid protagonist tick. And maybe you’ll understand why he always wanted to be a Solid Gold dancer.

And that’s for real.

Chris Jericho

October 4, 2011

Lady Gaga’s dressing room

Author’s Note

METAL. DID IT COME FROM THE BOWELS OF THE EARTH FULLY FORMED? Or was it a gift from the god Odin, handed down from Valhalla, forged into his son Thor’s mighty hammer, known as the Mjöllnir (a hammer that would one day inspire the title of the telltale book Hammer of the Gods)? Or was Metal birthed across the ocean by Led Zeppelin and Black Sabbath and driven across the world on the iron-horse track they laid for every Metal band to follow?

Because this is my book, I’m going to start where I believe Metal begins in all of us, and that is the exact spot where your stomach ends and your bowels begin. That twenty-eight-some-odd feet of smaller and larger intestines that end at your colon is what I’m referring to here. I’m sure you are familiar with the phrase Metal up your ass. I stand here before you in true testimony—they weren’t kidding.

You go into Metal wanting to be the best musician you can be, practicing until your fingers bleed and grow calluses, studying the masters of your newfound craft. You shell out for the best gear your wallet will allow, and you associate with others in search of that same holy grail. But beyond that, the rest is one unbelievably rude wake-up call. Anything that you actually take seriously, that you hold sacred to your heart, goes straight through your bloated sack and right into the fuckin’ shitter, and your lower intestine actually disembowels itself. That’s when you know you’ve made it in the world of Metal.

But fear not, my fellow Berzerkers and Berzerkerettes, for you shall receive no such colonic intrusions here. Much like Jesus bore the cross so that all of us wouldn’t have to suffer his burden, I’ve already taken it for the team so that none of you have to endure the monstrous ass-reaming of rock ’n’ roll. Well, I haven’t taken all of it—you’ll get your fill of musical cock and balls. And when you get poked and prodded in all the wrong ways, hopefully, after reading this book, it will be more like Jenna Jameson’s pinkie rather than Brock Lesnar’s fist. I’m about to share some of my musical conquests and follies and a few words of advice to help shorten that lengthy path of musical doom you are about to embark upon.

There is one thing I want to mention before you embark upon your quest for the holy grail of Metal. And that is the ongoing theme throughout the pages of this book: the numerous degrading, belittling, and morally unpleasant references to one John DeServio. My comments are obviously not to be taken seriously. JD and I have been best friends since we were kids and I love him like a brother, which is exactly why I like to ridicule him to no end, with as many cheap shots, punches to the rib cage, and insults as I can drop upon his pathetic and fatigued person in my book. And someday when JD gets his own book, which would most likely be titled How to Ruin Everything, I would expect nothing less from him than a full-blown, cover-to-cover literary retaliation. Although I know in my heart that pigs will spread wings on the day that JD actually gets a chance to write a book, and his odds of successfully mocking my greatness are even less.

At this time, you might feel inclined to ask me, “Hey, Zakk, where did you learn to become the mighty Berzerker you are today?” Well, I studied in school just like everybody else did. But instead of Berklee College of Music or MIT, I’m a Delta Tau Chi graduate from the University of Ozzy Osbourne. And now I’m working on my PhD in Black Label Global Domination.

Everybody would like to get signed at eighteen years old, sell twenty million fucking records, and throw down for massive crowds at Donington, but that ain’t the way it works. This is when fantasy ends and the harshness of Metal reality begins. You know that shitty taste of tinny metal you get in your mouth from some piece-of-shit beer can of whatever the hell you’re drinking? That’s where it started for me.

Welcome to the Wonderful World of Showbiz

MY MOTHER WAS IN SHOW BUSINESS. SHE USED TO DO CASTING CALLS TO place kids in commercials. You know how the BFGoodrich commercials use little babies to show that their tires will keep your kids safe? Stuff like that. She was responsible for many of the Oscar Mayer wiener kids as well. I can still hear the jingle ringing in my head: “Oh I wish I were an Oscar Mayer wiener . . .” Just glad she never placed me as one of the kids desiring to be a wiener—even though since childhood I have thoroughly enjoyed pounding my wiener into submission until I’m legless and in complete vertigo. But she did get me my first gig as a musician.

My cousin Karen, who had been working at the Playboy Mansion in the Pocono Mountains, had brought home this guy named Jerry. I didn’t know much about cocaine at the time, because my buddies and I were just into drinking beers and playing music. A few of them might have smoked weed, and I remember one or two of them snorting Freon or some stupid air-conditioning shit like that. Freon and weed were the only drugs I’d ever seen. Obviously I knew what cocaine was, but I was never interested in that shit and even if I was, none of us ever had the money to afford it. So I had never actually seen the abundance of sweat that pours from the body of a true GAC hound—a bona fide fuckin’ cokehead.

My mother and father came from the Sinatra generation and my dad was a World War II veteran. The only thing they knew about copping a buzz was drinking highballs, and the stories they’d heard about marijuana were from the Vietnam generation. They knew fucking nothing about drugs.

That said, Karen brought home this drug-riddled motherfucker she had met at the Playboy estate. I’ve never seen anyone polish off as much booze as this motherfucker! He literally cleaned out the liquor cabinet that was usually reserved for fifty people coming over for the holidays. Later in life I learned that any of my friends who did do cocaine could fuckin’ drink until the cows came home and never cop a buzz! They could drink all fuckin’ night, drink Jack Daniel out of booze if they had enough cocaine to hold the story—a Titanic full of fuckin’ whiskey—and not even get the least bit sloppy.

So this cat was telling my folks that he was a producer and about how he was making a record at the time. These were big words flyin’ around for my mom, her being in showbiz and having a sixteen-year-old son who played the guitar. Obviously my mom jumped at the opportunity to let him know that her son played the guitar. And he instantly invited me to be on his record.

I had never been in a recording studio before. I had always dreamed about being a professional musician, but I never had a clue how to make that happen. And now my mom had just booked my first gig. I figured this, the recording studio, was where all my dreams were about to come true, where all the “magick” happened, where the Wizard of fuckin’ Oz existed, and this Dorothy was on her way to the Emerald City.

Jerry gave me the address and the date and told me to meet him at this place to record some guitar tracks. So me and Barbaranne, now my wife and mother of our three children, made the excursion up north toward the Poconos and ended up getting to this big-ass mansion-type house. I grabbed my amplifier and guitar, we knocked on the door, and it was opened by this guy with his dick hangin’ down to his fuckin’ knee! He was completely naked, and Barb was standing there staring at this guy’s schlong!

“Do you want some of that?” I asked her.

“Yeah,” she said, “you go play with your guitar and I’ll play with this massive pussy-gaping cock of his.” It’s moments like these that reassured me of my deep penetrating love for Barbaranne. Good times indeed.

Despite Dirk Diggler and his dangling dong show, we still went into the house, not really knowing what to expect. The next thing you know, we saw people fucking everywhere! It was like we had just walked onto the set of Caligula—people were on the floor, on couches, even up on the tables, just fucking everywhere.

We were led into this room where a full-on recording studio had been built. Not only was the studio outfitted with a nice-looking mixing board, but the console came complete with a rock ’n’ roll–sized mountain of cocaine piled up at the end of it. It looked as if Scarface was engineering the damn thing on a porn set.

Once again I found myself staring at this fucking cokehound Jerry, still sweating profusely, like he was in the fuckin’ Sahara desert or something. Mind you, the air-conditioning was blasting, and to me and Barb it felt like we were in a meat locker, but this guy was still sweating his fucking balls off. That’s what happens when you’re gacked to the motherfucking gills.

It turned out that the record was for Ginger Lynn, a famous porn star—she was basically the Jenna Jameson of her time. They were trying to have Ginger cross over from porn into music, you know, and have her become the next Madonna. Well there I was, my first “professional” recording session ever (since I got paid for it), and I was knocking out tracks for a porn star’s album.

We laugh about that now, and the funniest thing is that my mother was the one who sent me, her son, to the gig! I can hear her now, saying shit like, “Oh, my little Jeffrey is making a record! I’m so proud of my Jeffrey . . . ,” as she sent her son out on a quest to the land of cock and balls, and pussy and ass and tits—cum and cocaine everywhere. “That’s my boy!” Mind you, Barb couldn’t walk a straight line for two weeks after that. Once again—good times indeed.

Welcome to the wonderful fucking world of Metal.

Yay, I’m on my way! I’m gonna make it!

Congratulations, asshole,

Zakk

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