Guitarist Zakk Wylde (BLACK LABEL SOCIETY, ex-OZZY OSBOURNE), recently sat down with Ultimate Guitar for an in-depth interview. An excerpt is available below.

Q: Back in the day you’d always be working on Black Label and Ozzy records. Now that you just have BLS to think about is it different knowing you can let it all fly without having to hold anything back musically for an Ozzy record down the road?

Wylde: "No, you know why? The only thing that I ever said, 'Well I’ll definitely use this and I’m not gonna bring this to the Boss' was when I was doing the PRIDE & GLORY stuff. You know what I mean? You’re not gonna have banjos and mandolins flyin’ around on an Ozzy record you know what I mean? So it was just like if I had all those P&G; ideas, I would just leave those to themselves. No, whenever I would go in and write an Ozzy record, it was just like I’d write the riffs just like I was gonna write a Black Label album. It’s gotta be a metal or a rock riff, a hard rock riff. I never approach it that way: I’m gonna save this for Black Label. It’s like Jimmy Page if they woulda wrote 'Stairway to Heaven' on the first album, they would have put it on the first album. It’s like, 'Oh, well save this one for down the line.' I mean you know it’s like, 'Dude, you got it now. We might die in a bizarre gardening accident later on today. I mean just friggin’ record the thing.'

Q: How does the songwriting process work for you?

Wylde: "It’s always gotta be the riff, man. I don’t know how you come up with a melody without [a riff.] I mean I could sing a melody off the top of my head. But I’m sure when Paul McCartney wrote 'Yesterday' or 'Long and Winding Road', usually you’re sittin’ because you’re playing behind a piano or something and then the chords will inspire you to sing a melody over it. So usually with me when I’m writin’ on a piano or an acoustic guitar or we’re gonna do somethin’ heavy, the riff will dictate kinda what the melody’s gonna be over it. Whether I’m gonna sing the riff or how Ozz always had his trademark things whether he was gonna sing a riff on certain ones and other ones he’d just do a polyrhythm against the riff or whatever. The sky’s the limit. For me it’s always usually the music first and then a melody and then I’ll start singin’ or somethin’ like that. Or else I’ll see somethin’ like a cool line goin’ to see a movie or I see a title in the newspaper. And I go, 'Man, that would be a great name for a song.' I’ll write it down and then later on down the road it’ll be like, 'Yeah, I wanna use that as a title for a song.' And then that’ll be like a chorus or whatever and I’ll write the song about that.

Q: Do you have any advice for younger players?

Wylde: "I dunno. You could never run out of ideas. All’s ya gotta do is just listen to all the great artists or the bands that you love. I mean whether I’m listening to Zeppelin or … there’s this running joke, we were just laughing the other day. They go, 'Well, Zakk, do you think you’ll ever run out of ideas?' I go, 'Well, it depends: I’m already halfway through the whole Zeppelin catalog and the Sabbath catalog. I’m workin’ my way towards the Eagles and Neil Young and I’ve worked my way through most of Elton John’s stuff.' We were just crackin’ up. I said, 'It’s endless' as far as songs go. You just hear something from another artist and it just inspires you. It’s just like, 'Oh, dude, we oughta do something like that' or whatever, yaddah yaddah yaddah. And then you just twist it, bend it, snap it and turn it into your own thing."

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The tracklisting for Black Label Society's new album, Order Of The Black, is as follows:

'Crazy Horse'

'Overlord'

'Parade Of The Dead'

'Darkest Days'

'Black Sunday'

'Southern Dissolution'

'Time Waits For No One'

'Godspeed Hell Bound'

'War Of Heaven'

'Shallow Grave'

'Chupacabra'

'Riders Of The Damned'

'January'

A limited-edition version of the album featuring the bonus track 'Can't Find My Way Home' will be made available internationally. Order Of The Black will feature four different CD covers; one for each territory: North America, Europe, Australia and South America/Asia.