As Black Label Society release their 12th studio album, Engines of Demolition, that means that frontman Zakk Wylde — also known for his work with Pantera and, of course, as the long-running guitarist for Ozzy Osbourne — is heading back on the road. But his wife, Barbaranne Wylde, is used to that life. In fact, after more than 33 years of marriage (and more than 40 years as a couple!), she actually knows no other life.
“I would not know what to do with a husband that came home every night at 6 o’clock!” she admits, sitting with fellow rock wife Daniella Clarke during a live taping of their Honest AF podcast at Studio City’s Licorice Pizza Records. “That would be really hard for me.”
The Wyldes’ odds-defying rock ‘n’ roll love story actually has surprisingly simple and suburban origins, when two “grew up together as kids” in Bayonne, New Jersey. “We were babies when we got together,” Barbaranne says. “We did really meet when I was 12. Zakk’s a year older than me. Sixth grade! And then later on in eighth grade, Zakk had asked me out on a date, and he took me to see the Urban Cowboy movie. He tried to go up my shirt and I wouldn’t let him, so he broke up with me the following Monday! I always thought he was an asshole for that.”
By the time they got to high school, however, 17-year-old Zakk had matured a bit, and he and 16-year-old Barbaranne had become platonic pals. “I don’t remember exactly how we worked our way back to each other, but we became total best friends, and he was dating my sister and I was dating the bass player in his band,” Barbaranne reveals.
But Zakk didn’t want to stay in the friendzone forever.
“Zakk told the bass player, ‘You’re not going to be with Barbaranne anymore, because I’m going to marry her.’ And then he came over to the house and he’s like, ‘Do you like Donnie a lot?’ And I go, ‘Well, he’s all right. Why?’ And he’s like, ‘Because I just broke up with him for you. Because if you guys started to further your relationship, then I couldn’t marry you. And I’m planning on marrying you.’
“And I’m like, ‘Marrying you? I don’t even like you! And… could you stop kissing my sister first?’” Barbaranne recalls, laughing.
HAPPY B-DAY To My SUPAH AWESOME GIRLFRIEND!My Parents were worried why I spent so much time in the bathroom & why we were constantly running out of Kleenex Tissue!!! THANKS to YOU There’s plenty of Kleenex!!!HAPPY SUPAH B-DAY! I SUPAH LOVE YOU BARBARANNE!!! pic.twitter.com/J45HwhxOeX
— Zakk Wylde (@ZakkWyldeBLS) November 9, 2018
Zakk and Barbaranne were a couple from that point on, and on Dec. 14. 1992, right after Ozzy’s two-year No More Tears tour ended, the two tied the knot in Bora Bora. It was during their honeymoon that Barbaranne amusingly realized that as the official Mrs. Wylde, she’d never escape the rock life, not even in the remote South Pacific.
“We’re thinking that we’re going to be by ourselves… but in the middle of the Pacific Ocean, I kid you not, we’re on a boat doing our thing, and I’m hearing, ‘Zakk, dude, Zakk!’ And I’m like, ‘No way is this happening…’” she laughs.
And then, right in the middle of the newlyweds’ private, skinny-dipping honeymoon moment in a Bora Bora lagoon, up cruised a party boat with Ugly Kid Joe singer Whitfield Crane on board.
“Zakk’s naked with just a T-shirt over him, and I am completely topless. I have nothing on but a bikini bottom,” Barbaranne chuckles. “Thank God I had sunglasses on — I pretended to be sleeping. And [Crane] is like, ‘Dude! Come hang out with us! Come jump in our boat!’ And Zakk’s like, “Um, I’m on my honeymoon. I’m good.’”
While Barbaranne still enjoys the rock ‘n’ roll lifestyle after all these years, the Wyldes’ home life actually isn’t very wild at all.
“I definitely think my husband is a completely different person at home than when he’s in front of an audience,” Barbaranne reveals. “When he’s home, people are shocked when they’re at the house. He’s super-quiet! He retreats into his own little area. He’s writing; he’s in his own head. When he’s in front of a camera and people, he is on; when he’s home, he is not at all. And that’s surprising to people. … When he’s home and he just wants to hang out with the kids and the dogs and do those regular things, it’s really pleasant, because we don’t get to do it all the time.”
However, Barbaranne, who sometimes joins her husband on the road, believes that the unpredictability of touring life, along with a bit of naughty bedroom cosplay (“I have a lot of different wigs. I have lots of different outfits. I can be Business Barbie, Secretary Barbie, Porn Star Barbie…”), helps keep their marriage spicy.
“A change of environment… being in hotels and different locales and places, it completely changes the dynamic sometimes,” she says. “And I like the fact that my life is never boring and never routine.”
Below, watch Barbaranne Wylde and Daniella Clarke’s full ‘Honest AF’ podcast taping at Licorice Pizza Records, during which they share more rock ‘n’ roll marriage tips and secrets:
