Live-Metal.Net - Interviews:Black Label Society

He has spent more than a decade playing alongside one of his generation’s guitar greats, but Nick Catanese is in no one’s shadow. His journey began with an email to Zakk Wylde in 1996, and he hasn’t looked back since. The man known to Black Label Society fans as the “Evil Twin” has carved out his own niche with a slew of endorsement deals, one of which—Monster Energy—brought him to a handful of Ozzfest 2007 stops to sign autographs. Live-Metal.net’s Greg Maki caught up with Nick at the Tweeter Center in Camden, N.J., to discuss Ozzfest, his fan-friendly nature and what he’s been up to during the Black Label downtime.

Live-Metal: It’s kind of strange to have Ozzfest without Black Label actually playing. Does it feel weird just watching?

Nick Catanese: No, actually not. This is my first summer off in seven years. We had to give someone else a chance. I mean, we’ve done it the last six years. So Zakk doing double duty and everything—it’s just, give him time to do what he needs to do. But I’m enjoying myself, having the time. I’m actually writing for my own band. I’m gonna do Black Label, and then I’m gonna have my own band.

That’s one of the things the Black Label fans are always asking about: When are we are going to hear some of your music?

Very, very soon. Things are happening quicker than I thought.

You know what? Everybody’ll like it. There’s heavier stuff, but there’s stuff like, we wrote a song that sounds like if you put The Beatles and Pink Floyd in a blender, and it came out. It’s me and Mike Stone from Queensryche. He’s playing bass and singing. And a drummer named Mike Froedge. He played for a band called doubleDrive. And it’s just a three-piece, so just me, Mike Stone and Mike Froedge. So we’re just writing away, and that’s pretty much what I’m doing with my off time now.

Yeah, we’re just right now in the midst of copyrighting it. It’ll be out soon. We found out that there’s not one of them out there, so we’re safe. It was crazy. This is a little hint, but we changed it a bit. We were gonna call the band Speed—Speed wasn’t taken—because I’m into NASCAR, I’m into NHRA—anything fast, I love it. And we found out in like 1996 there was a Japanese band called Speed. So anybody that had that name, you know, you get big, they could be jerks and sue you. So we found a way to get around it. So it has “Speed” in it. It’s cool. It’s cool.

I did the NAMM show last year, and that’s where I met Mike Stone. We did the Dimebag Blacktooth Bash, and we jammed, and Monster was hosting it. I met Brent from Monster and worked out a deal and got sponsored by them. It’s cool. Everything just happens, man. I don’t question it.

At things like this, at shows and online, you’ve always interacted with the fans a lot. How important is that to you?

Well, basically, I am a fan. I’m not a rock star. You know what I mean? I’m not the guy that sits in his bus all day and ignores people. I won’t name a name, but we were on tour with him on Ozzfest and it was a co-headliner, and two of my guitar students—we were in Pittsburgh —two of my guitar students were there. And this guy who came walking by, they wanted a picture with him. They’re like 16-, 15-year-old kids, right? And he’s like, “Make it quick,” and he gave this half-assed picture. Then I’m standing there, he walks up to me, and he’s like, “Hey, man, I love Black Label.” I looked at him, I go, “Where’s the fire?” And he goes, “What do you mean?” I go, “You just punked two kids that buy your albums.” I said, “Sorry, I don’t.” I said, “I suggest you go back and take a real picture with these kids because without them, you’re nothing.” I said, “You’re mama’s gonna have to buy a million records if you’re gonna do anything.”

I learned from the best of them. I learned from Dimebag. I mean, Dime would be the first one off the bus, and he’d be the last one on the bus, giving picks to people, signing, talking, giving ‘em drinks, giving whatever. And nobody forgets that. They remember that. The sad thing about the world is—I’m not happy every day, but these people didn’t give you the misery. Something else did. And if you walk out and you’re pissed off about something and someone asks you for something and you dick them off, they remember that. And it doesn’t matter that your dog died. They remember you dicked them off. But if you do good for somebody, full circle. I’ll go hang all the time. I’ll go walk around in a crowd, talk to everybody and I love it.

I saw you come out when people were standing in line before the doors were even open.

You’re in that bus 14 hours a day, man. I mean, I love the guys in my band, but I don’t want to see their face anymore. I want to see someone new, you know? Give me something back, like, “What did you think of the show? What do you think it’s gonna be like? What songs do you want to hear? Did we do it right?” Take constructive criticism, man. People don’t do that anymore. The fans, they’ve got a lot of good ideas. I listen to them. It’s like, “That could be cool.” There was one segue we did—it was a while ago—one segue between songs, and some kid had an idea. I was out signing autographs, and he’s like, “Man, you ought to go into this and do something.” I was like, “That ain’t bad.” So the next day, I was at soundcheck and I was like, “Try this,” and it worked. I wish that dude could’ve heard it, man. It actually worked.

But yeah, man, no job’s perfect. People think that what we do is always a cakewalk and it’s easy and it’s glamorous. I tell you what, man, I just got engaged, and I’ve been in Black Label with Zakk for 11 years. Eleven years. People get out of jail faster than I’ve been in a band. And that’s hard work. You leave the house, when you go to Europe , you ain’t coming home. You can’t catch a Greyhound home. You’re across the sea, dude. You’re gone, and not the same food, people can’t speak your own language. It’s hard. Your only touch of base is talking to my mom and dad and my fiancée and my friends, and then your phone bill runs up to three grand. But it’s worth it. It’s worth that serenity. Touring with seven, eight guys on a bus, I’m a real private person. I like my privacy. I’ll lock myself in a room, and that’s it. But the minute that intro comes on, you know why you’re there. You turn into that other person. I always tell my mom and dad and my girl, I’m like, “Give me 10 minutes before I go on,” because I know, I put that guitar on, there’s all them people watching you and if you make a clown out of yourself, they remember. So you better be on the top of your game, man.

When you when sent that first email to Zakk way back, did you ever dream all of this would happen?

Never. The best way to put it: The click of a mouse, my life changed. It was slow at first, ’96, ’97—’98, Black Label started. But then I never, ever thought I’d have my own signature Washburn, I’d have my own Dean Markley strings, I’d have Monster, I’d have EMG, I’d have Samson. It’s like, Jesus, God, man, what is going on? And even outside of that, being friends with, like, I went to Dale Earnhardt Jr.’s house because he likes music. I’m go-cart racing with Dale Jr. in his backyard with Denny Hamlin, Jamie McMurray—I’m like, “This is awesome!”—all because I play guitar. It doesn’t make sense to me. I’m like Where’s Waldo? It’s like, who am I? It’s great. Every day, I just count my blessings, man, every day.