ZAKK WYLDE FORFEITS THE ABILITY TO EVER TALK SH*T ABOUT ANOTHER MUSICIAN, EVER

I had the displeasure of seeing Dope live once (don’t ask). They were playing at Don Hill’s, a club here in NYC that holds about 300 people, and, to my surprise, they actually managed to pack the place pretty full. So after the band before them concluded their set, Dope kept the crowd waiting for 45 minutes while their roadies set up elaborate stage dressing fit for an arena show: extra platforms and a new PA system and lighting rig (I guess the house systems weren’t good enough for the band) and giant wooden backdrops and a chain link fence (!) and who the fuck knows what else. This kind of shit really isn’t necessary for a small club gig, but it might have been forgivable had the band come out and rocked the kids’ faces off; instead, they came out and played for… 45 minutes. To repeat: the band played for as long as they kept the crowd waiting for them to play. In hindsight, it seems clear that all the rigmarole was really because without the fancy lights and props, the band knew they didn’t have much to offer.

I’m telling you this story because Dope will be opening for Black Label Society and Sevendust on their upcoming tour, which still strikes me as an odd package – that Zakk Wylde, who once proclaimed “Fred Durst can eat a dick” on his band’s DVD, would share a stage with not one but two nu-metal bands just seems weird.

Weirder still: Wylde has now recorded a track with Dope. Let me type that again, lest you think your eyes are failing you: DOPE HAVE A SONG ON THEIR NEW ALBUM WITH ZAKK WYLDE ON GUITAR.

Seriously: Dope. A band whose guitar player, who calls himself “Virus,” wears a shirt onstage with his name on it (I guess in case he forgets?). A band whose lead singer, who has the equally ridiculous moniker of “Edsel Dope,” has apparently burned more bridges than most musicians will ever even build. A band whose biggest claim to fame is that they were once mistaken for being the dudes from Marilyn Manson. Dope.

SO. The song. It’s called “Addiction,”  and it sucks, and sucks hard. Wylde does all his signature squeals and contributes a version of the same guitar solo he’s been playing over and over and over again on every fucking song for the past decade (HOW DID HE BECOME THIS LAZY?!?!). It’s a potent reminder that yet another of our heroes has failed us, but it also means Wylde can really never, ever, under any circumstances criticize “false” metal in the press again (as he’s been prone to do in the past), because, y’know, his last shred of credibility just went out the window.

If you’re a glutton for punishment or wanna know what it would be like if Wylde had taken Wes Borland’s place in Limp Bizkit, the song is currently streaming on the band’s MySpace page, along with two other new tracks, “No Regrets” and “Die Burn Bang Boom Fuck” (Which isn’t actually a new song, just a rehash of their old song “Die Motherfucker Die.” Still, I’d like to suggest to the producers of the James Bond franchise that they name their next adventure Die Burn Bang Boom Fuck. But I digress.).

Dope’s new album, No Regrets, comes out in March. There’s apparently a forthcoming video that was directed by Dale “Rage” Resteghini, who some may remember as the dude who left angry comments on this site after our readers had a negative reaction to a video he directed for Straight Line Stitch.

So at least now we know where he got his nick name from.

-AR