B004FEF6RO EBOK Read online

  Going “berserk” back then usually happened during the heat of battle, but the condition could also kick in during heavy labor. Men, who were chosen by the OdinForce to become berserk, were capable of crazy, superhuman feats. The condition would begin with tremors, chattering of the teeth, and finally, a deep chill would set in; then their faces would swell up and turn red with fury. These symptoms of mightiness developed into an all-encompassing rage, under which the Berzerkers would howl like wild animals, bite the edges of their shields, and cut down everything and everyone in their paths with their mighty blades, and without discriminating between friend and foe. It took up to several days for Berzerkers to come down from the adrenaline. These warriors were so infamous that many of the Viking kings chose to use Berzerkers as their personal bodyguards. They were so ferocious and uncontrollable that they were even afraid of themselves. And I’m positive that’s why Barb married me. She thinks I’m her personal Viking bodyguard, with some extra benefits, one being my Crotchal Mjöllnir, and she has given it many endearing nicknames—bather of conquest, hole puncher, rod god, labia stretcher … you get the idea.

  To get ready for battle, the Berzerkers would lose their fucking minds by powering down fistfuls of hallucinogenic mushrooms and buckets of booze spiked with a spice called bog myrtle. This battle brew was known to maximize aggressive behavior but left them with massive hangovers. The Berzerkers also drank wolf’s blood, believing that it helped to really kick in the frenzy.

  Raging, alcohol-fueled warriors with relentless determination, battling in the name of the Metal god Odin—yeah, that was something our boozed-up, pilled-up brothers and sisters heading out to their children’s school PTA meetings could get behind. The Berzerker moniker fuels our pursuit of wreaking havoc across the globe, tearing new assholes, stealing farmers’ daughters, and drinking all the towns’ whiskey—just to live up to our merciless Viking namesakes.

  Note from Zakk: Listen, don’t literally go around wreaking havoc, tearing new assholes—as opposed to old assholes—stealing farmers’ daughters, or whatever other goofy-ass shit Father Eric is talking about here that might get your ass kicked, killed, or put in jail. Don’t listen to Father Eric here. Eric is a fucking idiot, okay? We love him. But he’s an idiot nonetheless. Trust me, he has never done any of the ridiculous bullshit he’s talking about here—maybe with his GI Joe doll collection, but that’s about it. Why do you think he doesn’t have a girlfriend? What chick in her right mind is ever gonna hook up with a guy talking stupid shit like this with a GI Joe doll hanging out of his back pocket? Don’t be like Eric. Which literally means: Don’t be a fucking idiot.

  P.S. Love you, buddy! :)

  Bleeding Black Label

  JAPAN, 1991: I WAS WITH OZZY FOR THE NO MORE TEARS TOUR. ONE insane night, while firing off some really heavy riffs next to the Boss, I swear Odin came straight down from Valhalla and shot a fucking lightning bolt right up my ass. It was either that or I got shocked by my own gear, and since this is my book I’m going with the Viking story. I mean really, for all you know I could have been zapped backstage in the dressing room while plugging in my makeup kit to apply some rouge before the show. Just pay attention, I’m only five sentences into my book and we’re all over the fuckin’ map with it already.

  There I was onstage, pummeling through these heavy fucking jams with Oz and the guys, getting zapped in the rectum, and then the vision came to me. All of a sudden I saw the crowd not as what they were but as what they would become—a legion of Berzerkers, or as my manager would prefer to call them, “cash crops with legs.” And as Ozzy and I continued blasting out songs from No Rest for the Wicked, No More Tears, and some of the works of genius that Lord Iommi, Saint Rhoads, and Father Lee blessed us with, I could not stop these electrified visions. And neither could my manager, as he was already making phone calls to place a down payment on a new mansion in Malibu. One second I was looking at a row of cheerful fans, singing along to these musical masterpieces of doom and head-banging to the complete Armageddon of Metal, the next second I was looking on as my manager placed his order for a new Maserati, loaded to the hilt with all the options. The audience looked like a horde of battle-ready Vikings awaiting the command to attack. As I was cranking the shit out of my Marshall wall of doom I could see on the horizon the day of the Berzerker Nation. That was the first night I was drawn into the OdinForce and the first night my manager was drawn into the nearest Prudential real estate brokerage. It also dawned on me during this pinnacle moment of genius that not only do cowboys like Jon Bon Jovi come from New Jersey, but Vikings are from New Jersey as well—along with a high teen pregnancy rate and an even higher involvement with alcohol and getting high by inhaling Freon.

  The further we got into our show, the more I could see the Berzerker Metal madness grow, as well as the sheer enlightenment and joy on my accountant and manager’s faces, not so much over the mountains of Valhalla, but over the mountains of potential earnings and 401(k) contributions, as they envisioned paychecks that dwarfed anything they had conceived of. The thought of the piles upon piles of dollars upon dollars set their eyes gleaming like the stars on Orion’s Belt. I was literally blinded by their money-grubbing glares, and the audience was illuminated by the intensity. Each and every fan had an inner warrior, armed and ready to explode into a frenzy of rock ’n’ roll–infused destruction and debauchery. Wait … Is this a rock show I’m talking about or the Festivus miracle going on inside my wife Barbaranne’s baby-maker? It wasn’t about me, it was about bringing all Metal fans into one family, one horde, one society, and one womb. All of us joining forces against the world in hopes of keeping JD out of the unemployment line—a line in which he has spent most of his adult life.

  And so began the almighty Black Label Society.

  And much like Jimmy Page was called upon by the spirit of the dark poet Aleister Crowley to lead mass services in the name of Rock, I was called upon by my boss, the produce manager of Fine Fair, to restock the Granny Smith apples before I clocked out for my ten-minute break. Jimmy is a living god, and much more than just a guitar player. He conjured his art on the guitar, but he also took the lead as a songwriter, producer, mixing engineer, and art director—his band was his baby, his calling. Playing in the Yardbirds put him on the map, but it didn’t sum him up as an artist. Jimmy wandered deep into the forest of dark souls to master his craft and create the heart that would one day beat in the name of Led Zeppelin. His journey was otherworldly. Unlike my journey, from the stockroom to the produce aisles. From Pope Page’s conversations with Crowley in the netherworld, he gathered the ingredients he needed to brew the mind-altering compositions that live on today. And from my direct order from the produce manager, I gathered the freshest and greenest Granny Smith apples I could obtain from the produce gods in the back of the store.

  Note from Zakk: Again … “Forest of dark souls”? “Netherworld”? I have no fuckin’ idea what the fuck Eric is writing about here. Gimme a fucking break—the guy just loved music. We’ll let Father Eric run with his illustrious bullshit though, since he is a Black Label brother—and I use the term brother in the loosest way. I do, however, still enjoy a fine Granny Smith apple from time to time. Try them with caramel, kids, and if you want to really live on the edge, combine it with peanuts—its netherworldly.

  Page formed his band, a concept far greater than himself, and they circled the earth, converting ordinary masses to his rock ’n’ roll religion. And let me tell you, it’s quite the religion—what the fuck this religion advocates is completely wacked. I’ll just say this—morals and overall cleanliness don’t rank too high in this religion. Anyway, moving on… So this is what the Nordic gods intended for the Berzerkers and what one cattle-prodding deity beckoned for me to create … one global nation of merciless motherfuckers intact with all the insanity and comedy one could possibly hope for.

  The Berzerker Empire was founded upon the most important elements of life: God, family, music, and fearless drinking—u
nlike my manager, whose foundation is Satan, selfishness, dead silence, number crunching, and the utter fear of ending up spiritually broken and penniless. Hold on a second, my manager has no fucking spirit. In fact, he’s completely soulless when it comes to pillaging the pockets, wallets, and purses of anyone he comes in contact with. And that, kids, is exactly why I hired him. It didn’t take long for the concept to progress, for the good word to spread, and for people to gather. Although the foundations of Black Label are expressed in the music, the message is much deeper than drinking and listening to epic tunes. It is greater than the band and the show. It is a family, a brotherhood, a unity, a mind-set, and a way of life. And as long as the money keeps rolling in, management, record companies, and whoever else is on the Black Label pay-roll will let me believe whatever bullshit BLS represents to me in all that is sacred and holy.

  We live by a creed—Strength, Determination, Merciless, Forever. Our code, honest and meaningful, is rooted more than a thousand years deep. That is, unless you go by my manager’s timeline, because then it goes back to the first time someone discovered that they could pawn some useless horseshit off on some dumb motherfucker and come out on top. Just like the minute the Indians started selling fuckin’ pelts, it was game fuckin’ on. Getting back to our Viking ancestors, among whom physical, mental, and spiritual strength ruled all and each individual was part of an indestructible fortress. We are relentless in our pursuit, merciless in our behavior, eternal in our hearts. And with the gods of Valhalla watching over our Order, and my manager, wife, accountant, and team of lawyers watching over my expenditures, we stride forward on our path of global domination, spreading the word to the masses at our nightly Black Label church services. Our venue is our electrified cathedral, our music is our sermon, and all who attend are our family. And if you happen to spot a truly shady-looking character passing around the collections basket during our Black Label masses, that would be my manager, lining his fucking pockets with silver and gold to keep up his fleet of Mercedes and to complete construction of a fully equipped wet bar near his heated outdoor pool in Malibu.

  SDMF: Strength, Determination, Merciless, Forever

  (UNLIKE JD’S MOTTO: WEAKNESS, AMBITIONLESS, HEARTLESS, SHORT-LIVED.)

  I placed this motto on a crucifix, just like INRI, which is often on crucifixes but means “Jesus of Nazareth, King of the Jews.” And when you see me play, you might notice that I do the sign of the cross twice, once for the Father, Son, and Holy Spirit, and then again for Strength, Determination, Merciless, Forever. While I’m onstage counting my blessings and thanking the good Lord for the strength he gives me and my Black Label family to continue following our passions, my manager is counting his blessings as well—eight homes, sixteen cars, lucrative offshore investments, and a time-share in Aspen, Colorado. God bless him.

  Strength has always been my foundation—physically, mentally, and spiritually—that and the short string of belief that I cling to each day, the hope that my wife and children actually care about me. I began my strength-building routine after the first time my wife beat me up and embarrassed me in front of our children and I finally decided it was time for me to giddyup. Every morning after powering down my Valhalla java I head into my gym, the Doom Crew Iron Dungeon, and throw around some chunks of iron. I even bring a weight set with me when we’re out on deployment so I can get in a good pump each day before we hit the stage. I also like to get in a good pump with my wife, or if she’s not havin’ it, with my right hand.

  Although I do all sorts of exercises in the gym, squats are my favorite. Just that repetitive motion of grinding up and down, lunging and throbbing, sweating and clenching, greasing and buttering, gripping and stretching, gaping and… Oh wait, time out. What the fuck happened? Where am I? Oh yeah, I drifted back into the music business again, where greasing, buttering, ass-gaping, and backstabbing are bodily functions like pissing and shitting.

  Aside from the heavy-hitting squats, I also follow a strong regimented workout that I designed over the years and that works well for me. It’s basically the same as the routine of most power lifters and bodybuilding champions, except for the results. Then I drop in an hour and a half of cardio daily, whether it’s on the treadmill or while blasting through a Black Label set onstage. I also have a high-protein diet, taking in up to three hundred grams of protein a day, depending on how many grams of protein I dumped on the Warden that morning, or again, if she wasn’t havin’ it, how many loads I splattered on the bathroom stall down at the venue. Replenishing my loads of doom is really easy, being that I’m in the music business. There is no shortage of motherfuckers I gotta suck off in order to keep the almighty Black Label Armada rolling. With the amount of music biz cock-gobbling I’ve gotta perform, between my manager, agents, band salaries, per diems, bus drivers, truck drivers, my wife’s personal trainer (who I’m sure she’s been fucking while I’m out here killing myself, bleeding Black fuckin’ Label every waking second … mind you, I couldn’t really give a shit as long as she’s got a smile on her face; you know how it goes—the girls don’t like to be disappointed!), the bright side is that my vocal cords are eternally lubed. Gotta stay positive! Fuck it—Merciless. (What that means, we’ll get to soon enough.)

  I don’t do steroids, but I should. Then I’d have an excuse for all the pissy fits, road rages, tantrums, outbursts, yelling at my wife, then forgiveness flowers, screaming at my children, then forgiveness allowances—not to mention all the douchebag lead-singer shit I pull on the guys in the band. That said, I think it’s fucking hilarious when people say that I’m on the juice. They see a picture of me at 249 pounds and a shot of me when I was eighteen years old at 140 pounds, and they assume it all happened overnight after a magical injection straight out of Barry Bonds’s medicine cabinet. But if I did use steroids I wouldn’t need Barry. I’d have my own team of shady gym owners and back-door physicians who would supply me with a black-market Titanic-load of growth hormones, Dianabol and Winstrol—enough to have any pancreas, liver, or pair of kidneys screaming for mercy.

  They don’t think of the twenty-plus years in between 1987 Zakk and 2011 Zakk where I was training all the time and eating healthy (though drinking professionally). The only supplements I take are protein shakes and vitamins. I don’t bother with anything else. With the blood-thinning medication I’m on these days to avoid blood clots, I don’t know how certain supplements will react. I’m no fuckin’ nuclear physicist, but I do play one on television. And what if I do take creatine and it doesn’t mix well with the shit I have to take for my blood, and I fucking croak in my sleep? I’ll tell you what would happen. It would set off a nuclear chain reaction of money-hungry scavengers hoping to squeeze any remaining drops of blood from my deteriorating corpse.

  I can picture it now—Barbaranne, management, and the accountants would all meet at Spago in Beverly Hills for a nice lunch and to begin planning how they are going to repackage all of the Black Label Society catalog and also release every fucking recording I’ve ever made, in a studio or on a cassette tape, and then probably even try to release some shit that I had nothing to do with. Back-alley meetings would take place with a black-market taxidermist to have me stuffed and preserved so that they could prop me up and continue selling meet-and-greet packages to the Black Label family. Barbaranne would sell the compound and run off with a failed NBA player. At seven foot two, with a relentlessly hammering, pounding cock of doom, and the life insurance money, and whatever Black Label shit the wife and management can pawn off, his basketball skills really won’t fucking matter at that juncture, nor what college he claims to have graduated from.

  Next my manager would place an order for his own corporate jet, and it would be one big party for all. I guess everything is fair game once I’m up in God’s tavern with the rest of our fallen saints. But seriously, as I sit here writing, there is a vulture sitting impatiently on the back of my chair staring down at me like I’m a giant fleshy sack of cash, its insatiable drool spilling over
the pages of my manuscript, just waiting to get the proceeds from this book and every other motherfucking thing I’ve ever done. Anyway, about the steroids, fuck all that noise. The last time I checked, I’m doing just fine by lifting weights and eating clean proteins.

  Besides being physically fit, you’ve also got to keep your mind strong. If you don’t believe in what you’re doing, no one else is going to. That’s why I have to believe Barbaranne when she tells me that she’s not cheating on me and that our three children are really ours. Mind you, we didn’t have sex during the two years prior to our youngest being born, but Barb told me that Immaculate Conception is a real and common occurrence. Lucky for her I’m a devout Catholic and not a devout atheist. Otherwise, I’d ask her if she filmed herself fucking the other guy so I can at least jerk off to this shit. Once again—gotta stay positive, kids.

  And having religion won’t hurt either. There are so many choices out there, it can’t hurt to pick one of the nicer ones and run with it. Being a soldier of Christ, I believe in Jesus and everything he represents. Having compassion for others, giving to those who are less fortunate, protecting the innocent, empowering others as opposed to enslaving, making sacrifices for the benefit of others, and bringing someone other than yourself happiness. And through Jesus, the crucifix represents unconquerable and everlasting strength, sacrifice, blood, commitment, and faith in all that is good. Then I just ask the good Lord, why have you put JDesus in my life? Why? Why, beloved Father? Why?