On April 10th, William Morrow - an imprint of HarperCollins Publishers - released the handbook to all things heavy metal: Bringing Metal To The Children: The Complete Berserker’s Guide To World Tour Domination, by BLACK LABEL SOCIETY ZAKK guitar legend Zakk Wylde, with Eric Hendrikx.

John Parks at Legendary Rock Interviews recently caught up with Zakk to discuss the book. An excerpt is available below:

LRI: What prompted you to put all these stories together and collectively drop the world’s jaw?

Zakk: "Just the overall stupidity of the music business in general, the insanity of it all. It reads just like I’m talking to you John, like we’re talking shit, as old friends who’ve known each other for ten years and been through all this shit. I say right in the introduction that I’d like to thank God, Jesus Christ for giving me this life and creating this cast of characters that he’s blessed me with. Really, honestly, my buddies, the people in my career, you couldn’t MAKE these people up, it’s more ridiculous than Seinfeld. My friends will say to me, 'Zakk, these are just stories that actually happened to us and you’re elaborating and detailing the events' and I’m like 'Yeah, I know!!' (laughs)."

"I wish I HAD made some of these things up. Sometimes my mind is blown by the shit my friends will be like 'and then remember that time we were out and there was that hooker' and I’m like 'Woah, what?….you’re kidding me' and they’re like 'No dude, that actually happened to Joe one night when we were all out drinking at the Irish pub in Jersey.' It was after a few hundred exchanges of 'No, I’m not joking' that I decided we had to put it all down in a book.

It really is all the truth and everybody I talk to whether it’s my brother in-law or my manager or anyone, they all have these stories and most of them are mind-blowing. I say in the book that the one thing about the music business is that there is no rulebook. It’s not like the NFL or something where there’s four downs to get ten yards or baseball where it’s three strikes and you’re out. There are rules. There are no rules in the entertainment business."

LRI: Were you surprised at what you found in the business after you made it?

Zakk: "Of course. It’s like what you or I thought of this business or these stars, it is all your vision of the Emerald City. It’s like the Wizard of Oz, you’re hoping and dreaming to make it to Oz and you find out it’s just a little guy behind a curtain. It’s unbelievable. The whole time you’re scared and on pins and needles and you see this big face on the screen and think he has all these powers from beyond and then discover it’s all just a trick. It’s like 'Oh, that’s how he does it' (laughs). Each day you’re debunking another myth. I know you know what I mean from talking to all these people. When you’re 14 or 15 years old dreaming about this business you have no idea of the realities."

Go to this location for the in-depth interview.

In Bringing Metal To The Children, Zakk Wylde, the man who turned heavy metal touring into a journey of fantastical excess, shares what really goes on behind tour bus windows and backstage doors. The twenty-five year music veteran of the OZZY OSBOURNE band and Black Label Society details his survival techniques for maintaining a life on the road, managing a band of raging vikings, and somehow making it on stage and blowing the crowd away night after night.

Beginning with Wylde’s “true rocker test” (TRT), the reader answers and self-scores ten questions to determine if he is a true rocker and should continue reading, or if he’s just a complete tool who needs to hand the book to someone more metal. Wylde continues the journey with his epic stories about life on the road, using his Black Label Society (BLS) coaching techniques to instruct the reader on proper touring hygiene, pre-concert preparations, and post-show etiquette. The road stories include wild nights with many of heavy metal’s gods including; Rob Zombie, Eddie Van Halen, Dimebag Darrell, ALICE IN CHAINS’s Mike Inez, SKID ROW’s Snake Sabo, METALLICA’s Lars Ulrich, professional wrestlers Chris Jericho, Bubba Dudley and Stone Cold Steve Austin, UFC Former Light Heavyweight Champion Forrest Griffin and of course the Godfather of heavy metal, Ozzy Osbourne.

Bringing Metal To The Children also features Wylde’s roadmap for success in the music business, tour planning and exclusive tips for the aspiring “metal musician,” as well as the best methods for surviving a mosh pit and plans for how to set up a shooting range on the tour bus.

In the two decades since Ozzy Osbourne hired him away from his job at a New Jersey gas station, Zakk Wylde has established himself as a guitar icon known and revered the world over. Wylde has won nearly every guitar award imaginable, graced countless magazine covers and is a major influence to a new battalion of rock guitarists. Writing and recording with Osbourne led to multi-platinum success, inspiring him to create the now iconic Black Label Society in 1998. In the decade plus since, BLS has turned the notion of what a rock band should be upside down by inspiring legions of fans (known as Berserkers) all over the world to follow the mantra: Strength, Determination, Merciless, Forever (SDMF for short). Wylde and his Berserkers have established a heavy metal institution true to the vision of uncompromising, unfiltered and unrestrained rock ‘n’ roll. To date, Black Label Society has sold more than 3.5 million albums worldwide and continues to be a massive presence on the worldwide touring and merchandising circuits. Black Label Society’s latest album, Order Of The Black, was released in August, 2010 and debuted at #4 on the Billboard Top 200 Album chart.

Writer, photographer, and fellow Berserker Eric Hendrikx is a notable contributor to more than a dozen books including Forrest Griffin’s New York Times bestsellers Got Fight? and Be Ready When the Sh*t Goes Down. A lifelong musician, Hendrikx played guitar in the rock band Snake River Conspiracy and toured with bands including Queensrÿche. He currently lives in Southern California with his son Stone.