Black Label Society, the heavy metal band behind Zakk Wylde's guitar, John DeServio's bass, and Jeff Fabb's drums

Black Label Society is the Los Angeles band Zakk Wylde built in 1998 out of two dead-end opportunities happening at once. Wylde's run in Ozzy Osbourne's band had gone quiet after 1995, and a tryout jamming with Axl Rose in Guns N' Roses never turned into a real offer. Left with a pile of unused riffs, Wylde recruited drummer Phil Ondich and recorded the album that became Sonic Brew, deciding partway through that it should be a real band rather than another solo record like 1996's Book of Shadows.

Twenty-eight years and twelve studio albums later, Black Label Society is still Wylde's main vehicle, distinct from his Ozzy work and his 2022-present run playing guitar for the Pantera reunion. The current lineup, bassist John "JD" DeServio, guitarist Dario Lorina, and drummer Jeff Fabb, has held since 2014, the most stable lineup in the band's history.

This page is the band-level reference: formation, the catalog, and each documented member's gear, cross-linked to CYS's fuller profiles.

Wylde had been Ozzy Osbourne's guitarist since 1987, but Osbourne took a break after 1995's Ozzmosis, and that same year Wylde got a call to jam with Guns N' Roses' Axl Rose. "I started to jam out ideas with Axl, and things seemed to be going well," Wylde told Metal Hammer in an interview later republished by Louder. Then Osbourne, fresh off a 1997 Black Sabbath reunion tour, called about touring again, and the two opportunities collided badly. "It was crazy, man. I got a letter from Ozzy telling me that my services weren't needed, and Axl had also gotten rid of me," Wylde said. "So, I had all these riffs and song ideas, and I had nowhere to go with them."

Drummer Phil Ondich, who'd emailed Wylde during his Ozzy years offering to play on any solo record, got the call. The two met up, jammed on a song called "Beneath the Tree," and headed to Miami in May 1998 to record what became Sonic Brew with co-producers Ron and Howard Albert. Wylde played every instrument on the record except drums, and the Southern-rock streak running through it still echoed Pride & Glory, Wylde's short-lived early-1990s band with original bassist John DeServio.

The whisky connection nearly backfired twice. Wylde's first design for the Sonic Brew cover art borrowed the actual Johnnie Walker Black Label design, and rather than the free liquor Wylde was hoping for, Johnnie Walker's lawyers sent a cease-and-desist. The band scrapped that cover for the motorcycle-club-style logo still associated with Black Label Society today. Sonic Brew came out in Japan in October 1998; label delays held the worldwide release until May 1999.

John "JD" DeServio has been Black Label Society's bassist since 2005, with an earlier stint as an original member touring behind 1998's Sonic Brew. He'd briefly played bass with Wylde in Pride & Glory in December 1994, per Hartke's own artist bio, before Black Label Society existed.

Dario Lorina joined as Black Label Society's second guitarist in January 2014, replacing longtime member Nick Catanese, and made his live debut with the band that April in Seattle. Onstage with Black Label Society he plays Wylde's EMG-loaded Wylde Audio guitars. Lorina also fronts a side project called Dark Chapel, whose debut album Spirit in the Glass arrived in early 2025 built around his father's vintage Les Paul; Guitar Player's March 2025 coverage of that record still calls Wylde "his BLS bandmate," present tense, from Lorina's side of the story, the same kind of side-project arrangement Wylde himself runs with Wylde Audio and his Pantera reunion dates.

Jeff Fabb became Black Label Society's full-time drummer in 2014 after filling in during 2012 and 2013, and is the longest-tenured drummer in the band's history. Before Black Label Society he was the original drummer of In This Moment and later played with Sixx:A.M. and Filter. "It was like going home," Fabb told Live Metal in 2024 about joining the band full time. "They're my bros, and it's very much a family kind of vibe over there."

Engines of Demolition, Black Label Society's twelfth studio album, came out worldwide on March 27, 2026, the band's first full-length since 2021's Doom Crew Inc. Per the band's own site, Wylde wrote it in the years after 2022 while also juggling the Pantera reunion and his Zakk Sabbath side project, and the record leans into "grief, brotherhood, power, and catharsis." Track titles include "Name in Blood," "Broken and Blind," "The Gallows," "Lord Humungus," and "Ozzy's Song."

The album debuted at No. 31 on the Billboard 200 and charted internationally: No. 11 in Austria, No. 10 in Germany, No. 14 in Switzerland, and No. 61 in both Australia and the UK. Black Label Society backed the release with a 2026 touring cycle covering North America, Mexico, the UK, and Europe, including dates under an "American Crusade" banner and a February-announced slot at Louisville's Louder Than Life festival that September, on a bill with Iron Maiden, My Chemical Romance, Tool, Danzig, and Megadeth.