“I wrote the music before Oz passed away… I wrote the lyrics after we laid Ozzy to rest”: How Zakk Wylde wrote his tribute song to Ozzy Osbourne

Zakk Wylde was Ozzy Osbourne‘s right-hand man on-and-off for decades – since 1987, to be exact. After earning his reputation thanks to his guitar work on Ozzy’s 1988 album No Rest for the Wicked, followed by 1991’s No More Tears, and 1995’s Ozzmosis, Wylde and Ozzy developed a sibling-like relationship that continued till the day the Prince of Darkness passed away, on July 22, 2025.

“I don’t think any of us were picturing Oz passing away two weeks after the gig [referring to Back to the Beginning],” he tells Guitar World in an upcoming interview.

“So I just figured… hopefully we’ll make records, and then hopefully, because the festival went so well, Mom [Sharon Osbourne] puts together a Back to the Beginning once a year… we’ll do one in Brazil, do one in Japan. You know that one was in Birmingham, then do another one in the States somewhere.”

He continues, “You could just mix it around every year – one in Germany next year, the next one would be in California, the next one’s in Chicago… That’s the way I was looking at everything.”

As part of his grieving process, Zakk Wylde also wrote a song that pays homage to his brother-in-arms, The Gallows – chock-full of bone-crushing riffs and emotional depth – with his band, Black Label Society.

“I wrote the music before Oz passed away,” he explains. “But after Oz passed away, when we went back to England and we laid Ozzy to rest, when I got right from that, I went straight to Pantera celebrations with Phil [Anselmo], Rex [Brown], and Charlie [Benante]. So I hooked back up with the fellas, and we were back rolling.

“And then when I got done, when we got done with the Pantera celebration run, when I got home, I was just sitting in the house and [this] is when I wrote the lyrics and just sang the song. I was just thinking about Oz, and then I just wrote the lyrics.”

In more recent Zakk Wylde news, the longtime Ozzy guitarist and Black Label Society frontman revealed the three most important guitars in his life, and, spoiler alert, the list includes his now-iconic ‘Grail’ Les Paul.

Guitar World’s exclusive interview with Wylde will be published in the coming weeks.

Janelle is a staff writer at GuitarWorld.com. After a long stint in classical music, Janelle discovered the joys of playing guitar in dingy venues at the age of 13 and has never looked back. Janelle has written extensively about the intersection of music and technology, and how this is shaping the future of the music industry. She also had the pleasure of interviewing Dream Wife, K.Flay, Yīn Yīn, and Black Honey, among others. When she’s not writing, you’ll find her creating layers of delicious audio lasagna with her art-rock/psych-punk band ĠENN.