Chad Bowar: How would you compare Mafia soundwise to what you've done before?
Zakk Wylde: The guys did an ass-kicking job on it. I think it came out great. I can't stand it when bands say "it's the greatest thing we've ever done." Yeah, but that's what you said about the last one! It's like with Zeppelin. What's better? Presence or Houses Of The Holy or Zeppelin IV? It depends on what mood you're in. The way I look at it is it's just a new batch of Black Label brutality.
How did you decide on Mafia for the title?
Because with Black Label and all the fans it's just one big family. The whole thing comes from that.
When you go into the studio, do you have everything ready or do you write stuff once you're there?
We had nothing. When we got into the studio we better come up with something. We're paying $1200 a day for the studio, so we better start pulling something out of our ass. (laughs) I like it that way. I can demo a riff, but the way I look at it is that after you write one thing you're onto the next thing anyway. I'm always excited about the fresh stuff. Back when I was jamming with Axl and the guys they had boxes of cassettes with song ideas. How do you know which ones you like now when you have that many ideas. With Sabbath we wrote 8 songs and went into the studio and recorded them. We didn't write 62 songs. By the time you get to the 62nd song you don't even remember the first one.
Why did you decide to do an album of mellow stuff (Hangover Music Vol. VI)?
We just done doing The Blessed Hellride tour and Ozzfest. After bashing my brains out on stage with a wall of Marshalls I wanted to listen to mellow stuff on the bus. Creedence, Eagles, Skynyd, Allman Brothers. I said we should make one of these records. It's like a road trip record. If you're gonna be in the truck for a couple of hours, put on the mellow shit. I didn't want to put out an album that was the same as The Blessed Hellride. What's the point of that? We're Black Label, we can piss wherever we want to.
