Altsounds.Com recently conducted an interview with Zakk Wylde (BLACK LABEL SOCIETY, OZZY OSBOURNE). A couple of excerpts from the chat follow below.

Altsounds.com: [The new BLACK LABEL SOCIETY record] "Order Of The Black" is your first "sober" album, right? The first since you quit drinking?

Zakk: Well, yeah, but you know, when people say, "Oh, you're sober now," I mean, when we made all the other records we were drinking, we were having a good time, but we were not wasted while making records. Put it this way, I never made those albums and then not even remember making them. Ozzy used to say at first he was so loaded all the time that the BLACK SABBATH records that he doesn't even remember making them. I never got that hammered. I've never been so hammered not to remember things, or when a fight broke out, you know, when someone says to you, "Do you remember doing this last night?" and you don't know what they're talking about; I never had that happening. Yeah, there have been times after gigs all going out at bars and getting hammered, going back to the hotel bar, and the day after going like, "Dude, I don't remember getting to the room from the bar, I ended up in my room but I don't remember how," stuff like that; but not to the point where we robbed somebody's house and then going like, "What, I don't remember doing any of this!" Never blacked out like that. And I wasn't wasted when I wrote the songs anyway. Normally I'd be playing the piano in the morning with a cup of coffee, or going to the studio we'd discuss a sample or hear something on the radio. But if we were getting loaded it would be at the end of the night, not during the recordings. I've never been drinking throughout the day, 'cause you've gotta do the singing, and then, you wanna make sure to make some cash, you know what I mean? I've got recordings where I was actually hammered and you can hear some of the funniest shit that you're ever gonna hear, but you would listen back to it the next day sober, some of it we were just on the floor laughing and it's horrendous; we just couldn't believe how wasted and pathetic we were!

Altsounds.com: I found the album very diverse…

Zakk: Like all the BLACK LABEL albums, you get the heavy stuff then you get the mellow stuff. We can't be personal all the time, but then again, all I'm saying is, I'm married I have three kids and I am catholic: yeah, I am pissed off! As much as I love listening to SABBATH and the heavy stuff, I also love listening to NEIL YOUNG, ELTON JOHN and THE EAGLES, stuff like that. Once we're done with the heavy stuff in the studio and get bored with that, I just sit around the piano, play some guitar, and then once we get bored with that we get back to the heavy stuff. It just gives you a break as well, after a while when you do heavy stuff it can start sounding all the same riff-wise, and you just have to get away for a little while, start doing some mellow stuff that has got nothing to do with riffs.

Rob Zombie has spent the last few months touring in support of his latest album, "Hellbilly Deluxe 2", and when his drummer, Tommy Clufetos, left to join Ozzy Osbourne's band, SLIPKNOT's Joey Jordison jumped in. Jordison took time away from his sleaze-punk band MURDERDOLLS to play with Zombie who was in a lurch left by Clufetos' departure.

This isn't the first time Ozzy has hired one of Rob's bandmates — in 2006, Ozzy lured Zombie bassist Rob "Blasko" Nicholson away to join Osbourne's band.

The Artisan News Service asked Zombie backstage at the Rockstar Energy Drink Mayhem Festival what he thought of Ozzy poaching important members of Rob's band.

"I think there's ways to do things and I think there's ways to not do things and I think the way they've chosen to do things is not how I would do things; I think it's kind of rude," Rob replied. "I mean, if my guys that I have wanna go play with other people, that's fine; I don't own them. But I think there's ways to do things in a respectful way and there's ways to just be shitty, and I feel that the way things have gone down lately has been pretty shitty. But whatever... What comes around goes around. But I'm just happy because every time I've lost somebody, I've gotten somebody ten times better, so I'm thankful for that. So if somebody's band wants to be made up of my cast-offs, enjoy."

Zombie told the Artisan News Service that it wasn't the first time he's said it, but he feels that the band he currently has is the closest one he's been in.

"That's totally true," Rob said. "I mean, I love these guys. I thought the drummer I had before [Tommy Clufetos] was a good guy, but you find out some people are just phony. But the greatest thing that ever happened was him hitting the road and Joey coming in and replacing him, 'cause it's always great to replace somebody with a better drummer. But it's not just that — it's just the vibe and the person and everything about, really... I don't know. It's hard to explain. It was the perfect personality to come in and make the four of us work."

Video footage of Rob Zombie making the above-mentione remarks to the Artisan News Service can be viewed above