Zakk Wylde says he’s using online tutorials to learn guitar parts for Pantera tour

Zakk Wylde has revealed that in preparation for his upcoming tour with Pantera, he’s been using online tutorials to learn the band’s guitar parts.

Wylde, who elsewhere fronts the metal band Black Label Society, was announced as Pantera’s new guitarist back in July. He serves as the replacement for original bandmate Dimebag Darrell, who was killed onstage in 2004. Following the subsequent death of drummer Vinnie Paul in 2018, Pantera went on a four-year hiatus.

In July, Wylde – along with Anthrax drummer Charlie Benante – joined Pantera’s surviving members, Rex Brown and Phil Anselmo, to form a new line-up. In preparation for their comeback tour – which kicks off in Mexico next month – Wylde has admitted to learning some of Dimebag’s guitar sequences by watching online video tutorials.

Appearing in an episode of Ola Englund’s webseries Sunday With Ola, Wylde said that whenever he’s “stumped” on a particular riff, he “would just [search], ‘How to play’, and I’d go on to YouTube and just see all these other amazing players playing the stuff.” Wylde also revealed that Anselmo sent him the tour’s setlist earlier this year, noting that he’s been preparing for the songs on it using guitars gifted to him by Dimebag.

Elsewhere in the interview, Wylde spoke about the specific Pantera songs he’s been preparing for, mentioning titles like ‘Goddamn Electric’, ‘Walk’, ‘Cowboys From Hell’ and ‘A New Level’. Wylde also said that he’d been in talks to join Pantera for years, and agreed to form the band’s touring line-up to “honour Dime”.

Last month, Wylde elaborated on his role in Pantera’s forthcoming tour, revealing in an interview with Guitar World that while he intends to “be as faithful to what Dime did as possible”, audiences shouldn’t expect a carbon copy of the original guitarist’s style. “No matter what I do, it’s going to sound like me”, Wylde said. “I can practice all I want and stay as faithful as I want, but I am never going to escape that.”

Following two shows in Mexico early next month, Pantera will take to Knotfest’s three editions in Columbia, Chile and Brazil, before a string of shows in Germany, Sweden and Norway in June of next year.

In September of this year, Wylde contributed to the Ozzy Osbourne track ‘Nothing Feels Right’, which was lifted from Osbourne’s 2022 album ‘Patient Number 9’ and marked Wylde’s first appearance on an Ozzy record since 2007.