Black Label Society

Guitarist Zakk Wylde, once a touring musician alongside Ozzy Osbourne, established Black Label Society during the late 1990s as an enduring platform for his aggressive metal style. The group maintains a fluid roster while Wylde handles most instrumentation himself. Blending the hard-drinking ethos of 1970s acts such as Lynyrd Skynyrd with the raw aggression of 1980s speed-metal outfits like Slayer, the ensemble centers its sound on Southern metal traditions.

After parting ways with Osbourne once sessions for the 1995 release Ozzmosis concluded, Wylde launched an independent path via his debut solo effort, Book of Shadows, issued in 1996. Lacking broad commercial traction, the guitarist paused his output for several years before returning in 1999 with both a fresh record and the newly formed Black Label Society, where he assumed vocals, guitar, and bass duties alongside drummer Phil Ondich. Numerous players rotated through the lineup across an extended touring cycle, yet Ondich rejoined in time to record 2000’s Stronger Than Death, the band’s first outing on Spitfire Records. That trek featured a second-stage appearance on Osbourne’s Ozzfest and produced the 2001 live document Alcohol Fueled Brewtality Live!!. The ensemble revisited Ozzfest in 2002, now on the main stage, while promoting the studio album 1919 Eternal. Blessed Hellride arrived the next year, followed in 2004 by Hangover Music, Vol. 6. Spring 2005 brought the seventh full-length, Mafia, and Spitfire issued the Wylde retrospective Kings of Damnation: Era 1998-2004 that October.

Roadrunner became the band’s new home with the 2006 album Shot to Hell, though the association ended the subsequent year. Throughout most of 2007 the members focused on separate endeavors, with Wylde rejoining Osbourne on tour while bassist JD DeServio and guitarist Nick Catanese directed attention to their own projects. A 2009 compilation titled Skullage preceded the next studio effort, Order of the Black—Black Label Society’s eighth album—recorded with Catanese, DeServio, and drummer Will Hunt and released in summer 2010. Another studio set, The Song Remains Not the Same, surfaced the following year. In 2013 the group explored a contrasting dimension of its style on the live album Unblackened, deliberately softening earlier material to highlight underlying blues influences. Wylde and company resumed original work with 2014’s Catacombs of the Black Vatican. October 2017 introduced the single “Room of Nightmares” ahead of the tenth studio album, Grimmest Hits, which appeared in January 2018. The next year yielded a twentieth-anniversary reworking of the 1999 debut under the title Sonic Brew: 20th Anniversary Blend 5.99-5.19. In 2021 the collective delivered its eleventh studio album, Doom Crew Inc.