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Zakk Wylde was one of metal’s great hellraiser. But by 2013, this ‘Viking road hog” had quit the booze on doctor’s orders. As his band, Black Label Society, prepared to released their Unblackened unplugged album and DVD, Metal Hammer found a man who didn’t need alcohol or substances to get his kicks any more.

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“He told me if I carried on at the same pace I’d start bleeding out of my dick, my asshole, my eyes, my nose – fucking everywhere, man. Just bleeding out of every orifice and never stopping.”

It’s 9am on a beautiful early autumn morning in California. The temperature is in the mid-70s, there’s a slight breeze and at home Zakk Wylde is roaring with laughter as he relives the moment he told his doctor about his fondness for beer. He’s recalling the moment that, as he puts it, “the pub doors closed on me forever” not with horror or even nostalgia for his drinking days but with the type of garrulous good humour that has come to define him.

“I’d been put on these blood-thinning tablets for the bloodclots that I had in my leg and which then spread,” he recalls of the time in 2009 when it looked like the big man was going to be felled by illness like a Giant Redwood. “When the doctor found out that I was drinking a case and a half or maybe two cases of beer a day and then going out with the fellas and drinking Crown Royal whisky all night long. He was a little taken aback. He was like, [matter-of-fact voice] ‘Zakk, put it this way, if you keep drinking at that pace on these tablets I hope they have some good-looking women in the pub because they’ll be the last thing you’ll ever see!’ He gave me two options. I could either stop the booze or I could give him $20,000 and pretend he was my rehab guy. So I saved the money and stopped drinking. The fellas were very understanding: they lost a drinking buddy but they gained a designated driver.”

Zakk’s life-threatening health scares have been well documented but far from finding a more reflective and earnest man repeating 12-step programme mantras about ‘giving oneself over to a higher power and making amends for past errors’ this morning we find… well, pretty much exactly the same Zakk Wylde we’ve always known and loved. The Viking road hog of modern metal whose presence, back catalogue, bear hugs, big fuck-off signature metal chain and entire life is larger and louder than most is unchanged by sobriety. There are no pious revelations about past sins, just the same straight-talking guy with a hard-on for living.

After years of mayhem – and for a man rumoured to having been ousted from Ozzy Osbourne’s band for being a little out there (more of which in a moment), the stories surrounding Zakk’s drinking antics are legendary – there was no moment of clarity and no hitting rock bottom. No waking-up-in-a-gay-porno-theatre-with-your-pants-down epiphany. Just the very real threat of bleeding to death from his bell-end.

“People say to me, ‘Oh dude, every day without drinking is a struggle!’” he laughs again. “And I say ‘I don’t know what the fuck you are talking about!’ Man, I’ve got so much shit going on in my life that it really doesn’t bother me. I can’t complain anyway. I had a really good run at drinking, and when I drank I made sure I always had a good time, wherever I was. I could just sit quietly in a bar and talk to anyone about sports, politics, religion, music, anything and that was fun for me. It didn’t have to be chaotic. But drinking never affected my writing or recording anyway. People sometimes ask me now if I want to go and talk to groups about the dangers of drinking and I have to say no because my advice would always be ‘Dude, have a fucking blast while you can!’ I mean, just imagine the type of advice we’d dish out at Black Label Rehab: ‘Dude, chill out on the cocaine and booze – that’s it. Fucking simple!’”

Perhaps the only major difference to Zakk’s life today is having to keep taking the same blood-thinning tablets and, 10 years after the release of arguably their career creative high, The Blessed Hellride, finally feeling comfortable enough for Black Label Society to release a live acoustic album and DVD, Unblackened.

“We’d done the Boozed, Broozed And Broken Boned and The European Invasion – Doom Troopin’ Live films but I felt like a lot of our more mellow tunes never see the light of day,” says Zakk. “Or there might be a glimpse of them during a live show but then it’s game on again. So now felt like the perfect opportunity to show the side of Black Label that people don’t always see. I mean, as much as I love listening to Led Zeppelin doing Black Dog I love hearing them play Going To California too. I listen to everything anyway – from Sabbath and Dimebag to Ministry and Meshuggah, but then also Sarah McLachlan and Neil Young or Albert Lee and John McLaughlin. We’ve always had the mellow side to our music and now that people are getting a chance to see it, it opens new opportunities.”

Some people would find the idea of metal’s steak-sizzling, iron-driving ,alpha male ‘going acoustic’ a little… er… how do we put this? Oh yeah. Soft.

“Ah but it doesn’t matter what band it is, you can always do an acoustic version, whether it’s black metal, death metal, classic rock or whatever,” he says. “And you can retain the heaviness – or if not heaviness then there can still be power there. Neil Young’s Unplugged is amazing, obviously The Allman Brothers too. Or hearing Elton John with a string section behind him. That can be powerful. If the music has depth then it will stand up. Some pop music just doesn’t have that depth but am I going to get worked up about Justin Bieber or Lady Gaga? Fuck no. It’s a generational thing and whatever happens in pop music there’s always great fucking music being made. I have pals, grown fucking men, who get all bent out of shape about Justin Bieber. Who gives a fuck?! All the ass-kicking music I like still exists. I couldn’t name you one single Justin Bieber song. Take That? I don’t give a fuck, don’t know anything about them except perhaps that I’d like to be a smidgen of success on their fucking assholes. That’s what I aspire to, man.”

Still living in the same ranch house-cum-compound in the mountainous area of Castaic Lake that he and his wife, four kids and seven dogs have lived in for years – and which also houses his home studio the Black Vatican – Zakk is a man at ease with his status as the rock star favoured by barflies and bikers, wrestlers and wranglers, metallers and meth-heads. As we speak it is almost 25 years to the day since the release of No Rest For The Wicked, his debut recording as Ozzy’s guitarist and wingman and the album that marked the beginning of this strange, wonderful journey.

“Wow,” says Zakk after a rare moment of silence. “Wow. Really? I know for a fact I would not be talking to you today without that album. I guess all I can compare that time to is someone like David Beckham growing up being a Manchester United fan and then finding himself playing for them. I mean, I loved Sabbath and then Randy Rhoads, then I was in the stands and then suddenly I’m in the studio wearing the fucking uniform, the team strip. It’s still mindblowing. I’m beyond blessed.”

Zakk’s playing debut with the Double-O had come the previous year when he was famously thrown in at the deep end with a show at notorious West London prison, Wormwood Scrubs. He laughs, recalling: “There was a bunch of lifers in there who were never getting out and I was the closest thing to Farrah Fawcett or Pamela Anderson that these fellas were going to be seeing any time soon. Pretty intense.”

More recently – as seen on Black Label’s new DVD – there’s footage of Zakk returning to a prison to visit inmates.

“I have a buddy who’s a prison guard so he got me in there to jam with some of the guys in there who were close to being released,” he explains. “A bunch of them were Ozzy fans and it was cool to shoot the shit with guys who are trying to turn their lives around.”

For all of BLS’s successes – 2010 album Order Of The Black was their first to go Top 5 in the US – Zakk’s name is still (and perhaps always will be) invariably preceded by the epithet “Ozzy’s guitarist”, despite having been given his P45 and carriage clock back in 2009 when he was replaced by Gus G. Rumours abounded at the time about behind the scenes dissatisfactions – about Ozzy claiming that BLS now sounded too much like him, Sharon trying to persuade Zakk to enter rehab and the man himself confused as to whether he was still in Ozzy’s band. But if there is any lingering rancour then Zakk does not show it. 

“I loved every second of playing with Oz and I thank the lord for everything I’ve got as a result – in the middle of the day and before I go to bed, too,” he says. “I love Oz, man. Regardless of the music, he’s godfather to my son so we’re in each other’s lives and we recently saw Oz and Mom [Sharon Osbourne] in New York City. I caught a couple of the Sabbath shows too and they sound fucking amazing. They changed the game. Our relationship is still good.”

With Zakk rejoining The Boss alongside the likes of Slash and Gus G for the Ozzy and Friends Tour of summer 2012, organised in place of cancelled Black Sabbath shows, you suspect that this longstanding creative partnership may not be over yet. Mainly though Zakk is “writing, writing, writing – all day” for a new BLS album and working on a few new culinary ventures (coffee and hot sauce, anyone?). What, we wonder, is the strangest thing he’s heard about himself over the years?

“That I didn’t play on any of the Ozzy records. And also that I’m not actually in BLS,” he laughs. “Have you seen they’ve started making holograms of dead pop stars? I like that idea. I could be on tour Japan now and still at home talking to you.”

When was the last time he got in a fistfight?

“When I was drinking – it was with myself. Who knows how it happened but it was like something out of Fight Club. It was messy. I beat the shit out myself. I got pretty lumped up, too. But then I made up, we had a drink and I threw my arm around my shoulder and whispered sweet nothings into my own ear for the rest of the night.”

And finally – the true test of any man is asking him when was the last time he cried. When did you last cry Zakk Wylde?

“Last night,” he reveals. “It was when I stubbed my toe while getting a glass of warm milk for my tum-tum. I winced.” 

He hesitates, then beams another big smile.

“I winced but like a man!” 

Originally published in Metal Hammer issue 251, November 2013

Noel Gallagher was dead against releasing Cigarettes & Alcohol as a single, but Oasis’ guitarist and chief songwriter has never regretted caving in to label pressure to put it out. The classic Oasis anthem came out 30 years ago this week, the fourth single from their era-defining debut Definitely Maybe and, in the eyes of Noel, it was one song too far to be lifted from the same album for a standalone release.

“We got a little leant on to put a fourth single,” Noel said in an interview conducted for the group’s 2006 compilation Stop The Clocks. “I wasn’t into the idea at all. I was like, ‘Fourth single? Fucking hell, I don’t know about that…’.”

But Gallagher recalled the moment he realised the single was pushing Oasis’s fast-blossoming success into another realm. “We were in Detroit and we got the phone call that not only had it got in the charts but it was the biggest selling single we’d ever had. I remember putting the phone done,” he remembered, re-enacting rubbing hands together, “and going, ‘Now we’re talking, this is going to get fucking stupid’.” It was like, ‘There’s no going back from this now, this is gonna be sensational’.”

Fame and fortune felt a long way off when Noel first wrote it in his flat in Manchester, he said. “Two guys used to live above me and in those days, the geezer that I was, I used to write on the electric guitar with my amp in the room in a block of flats,” he stated. “One of the guys might have worked at the Hacienda as a local crew guy or something and I remember him passing me on the stairs going, ‘You’re not gonna write a song with that riff are you? That’s fucking rubbish’. I was going, ‘Listen fat arse, it’s gonna be amazing when it comes out’. I remember going down to the rehearsal room with this song and Bonehead used to always be the tut-tutter. I went ‘I’ve got this tune called Cigarettes & Alcohol’ and he does his tut-tut and then I did the riff and he went ‘Whoa, you can’t do that, that’s T.Rex’ and I was like, ‘I don’t give a shit who it is, no-one’s gonna hear it anyway’.”

Talking about the track again a few years later, Noel said it never lost its impact at the band’s shows. “It became a proper youth anthem. That song, right up until the end at the last gigs, that’s when people go fucking apeshit. It mentions drugs and shagging birds and social comment and boozing and drinking and listening to tunes, what more do you want?’.”

It will sure to be amongst the numerous euphoric singalongs at the band’s reunion shows next year. This week, Oasis announced extra shows in the US and South America to cater for demand. See the details here.

Niall Doherty is a writer and editor whose work can be found in Classic Rock, The Guardian, Music Week, FourFourTwo, on Apple Music and more. Formerly the Deputy Editor of Q magazine, he co-runs the music Substack letter The New Cue with fellow former Q colleagues Ted Kessler and Chris Catchpole. He is also Reviews Editor at Record Collector. Over the years, he’s interviewed some of the world’s biggest stars, including Elton John, Coldplay, Arctic Monkeys, Muse, Pearl Jam, Radiohead, Depeche Mode, Robert Plant and more. Radiohead was only for eight minutes but he still counts it.

Pye Hastings has never been a peripatetic musician. He’s spent his entire career with just one band, Caravan. But in 2017 – at the youthful age of 70 – he branched out and released his debut solo album From The Half House, leading Prog to wonder if it was the start of a new phase of the Canterbury veteran’s career.

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When did you decide to do a solo album?

I first thought about it in the 1970s when Caravan were going through a period of change, with people leaving to further their own careers. I had already written all the tracks for the 1973 album For Girls Who Grow Plump In The Night and was intending to record it under my own name. However, our management convinced me that if it was released under Caravan’s name it would reach a much wider audience.

Back to the present time, and I had an opportunity to go down this road once more when Geoffrey Richardson – Caravan’s longest-surviving member bar myself – accepted an invitation to rejoin Renaud, a French superstar, for a year‑long stadium tour. There were a few Caravan gigs lined up during this period, which I was determined to honour, so I had the chance to work with some different musicians; namely John Etheridge of Soft Machine and Jimmy Hastings, my brother. I was really worried initially, but our agent wisely said, “The fans will come to see the band, not any individuals.” He was dead right.

I’ve never been blessed or cursed by large amounts of self-esteem. I worried whether doing a solo project was the right thing, so I asked friends and family. They all said, “Everyone else in the band has released a solo album – why not you?”

How long did it take to write the songs?

When I moved to Scotland 10 years ago I bought myself an iMac, the Logic recording program and a keyboard, with the intention of doing some home recording. A whole new world was about to open up for me. My son Julian – a recording engineer and producer – got me going initially. Eventually, with his persuasion, I started to get the hang of it. The first tune I wrote was an embryonic version of Away, which is the final instrumental track on the album. Then I discovered how to work with loops and wrote the basis of I’ll Be The Judge and When You’re On Your Own, all on keyboards and both on the album.

Are the songs very personal to you on a lyrical level?

I like to think that I’m an observational writer; so, no, not personal on this occasion, in that they don’t refer to anyone I know. I don’t find it easy to write lyrics, but once I get started, I realise there are so many reference points in one’s memory that it inevitably starts to unravel. For instance, my wife, being a criminal defence lawyer, has a wealth of stories relating to her time in court, and she’s spoken about some of the more memorable cases. No names have ever been mentioned, but subconsciously I’ve taken a lot of this in, and when it came to writing I’ll Be The Judge, I had it all there already.

How tough was it to make this album, compared to working with Caravan?

A bit tricky initially, because I’ve written exclusively for Caravan since 1968. I started from the premise of producing 10 songs that would not intentionally be in the Caravan style. What would be the point of producing something that was exactly like Caravan without having the rest of the guys there?

At the end of the first day, it was clear that it was going to be nowhere near as daunting as I’d first thought

How did you decide which musicians to involve?

I’m fortunate in having a musician of Jimmy’s calibre to call on. He’s guaranteed to add a certain magic to any recording, and he was naturally my first choice. I knew at some time I’d need some keyboards above and beyond my own efforts, so I called Jan Schelhaas. I would send him the multitrack of a song with a hint of direction and he’d add his bit and then send it back for us to mix.

I mentioned to John Etheridge while he was doing a guest appearance for Caravan in Monaco that I was embarking on my first solo project, and he offered right out of the blue to come up to Scotland to do some soloing for me. Mark Walker also found out about the project and said how much he wanted to be involved.

Why did you decide to keep the production in the family, with your son Julian acting as producer?

At the outset, Julian and I decided that we should start recording at home and see how far we could get using the technology. At the end of the first day, it was clear that it was going to be a lot of fun and nowhere near as daunting as I’d first thought. So we just ploughed on.

Will you do any live solo shows?

At this stage I have no plans, but it’s early days. If there is interest I’d be foolish to ignore any invitations that come my way. What’s more likely is that if I can convince Caravan to do different versions of some of the songs. That would be the best of both worlds.

Malcolm Dome had an illustrious and celebrated career which stretched back to working for Record Mirror magazine in the late 70s and Metal Fury in the early 80s before joining Kerrang! at its launch in 1981. His first book, Encyclopedia Metallica, published in 1981, may have been the inspiration for the name of a certain band formed that same year. Dome is also credited with inventing the term “thrash metal” while writing about the Anthrax song Metal Thrashing Mad in 1984. With the launch of Classic Rock magazine in 1998 he became involved with that title, sister magazine Metal Hammer, and was a contributor to Prog magazine since its inception in 2009. He died in 2021. 

The late, great Gary Moore’s long career stretched from his early days in late 60s Irish blues rockers Skid Row to stints with Thin Lizzy,  jazz-rockers Colosseum and BBM alongside ex-Cream members Jack Bruce and Ginger Baker. Along the way, he crossed paths with everyone from Ozzy Osbourne and Led Zeppelin to members of The Beatles. In 2008, three years before his death, he looked back at some of his more memorable encounters with fellow musicians.

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At the end of our interview, Gary Moore jokes: “There goes my book. I’ve told you everything.” But that’s very unlikely, as his career has spanned almost 40 years since he picking up the guitar while he was still at primary school. During that time Moore has shared stages with such luminaries as Phil Lynott, Jack Bruce, Ozzy Osbourne and… er, Jimmy Nail. He’s certainly got some stories to tell – here are just some of them.

George Harrison

I went to see The Beatles on my own in Belfast when I was 11. All the girls were screaming, and I was jumping up and down to see because I was so little. I remember watching them on TV on Sunday Night At The London Palladium because I wanted to learn the riff to Help!, but George did it all fucking wrong. Years and years later I moved to Henley-on-Thames. I was at Alvin Lee’s [Ten Years After] house and I met George for the first time. After that I started going to George’s house quite a lot. I was playing on Jimmy Nail’s album, and George invited me back to his to play on a Traveling Wilburys track She’s My Baby. I thought it was a demo, but I went to the States and it was all over the fucking radio.

George loved to wind people up. We were talking about Eric Clapton’s appearance on The South Bank Show, where I thought Eric was putting himself up with Jimi Hendrix and it pissed me off. George said: “Well, he was better than Jimi Hendrix. Jimi was just flash, wasn’t he?” We had a big row. Then we were talking about blues and he said: “BB King isn’t blues, he’s pop.” I said: “I’m fucking going home.” So I jumped in the car. And he came after me and we both said sorry. But he had to have the last word, saying: “Anyway, they’re all shit compared to Ravi Shankar.”

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Phil Lynott

The first time I met Phil he was the singer in Skid Row, he didn’t play bass. The first night I joined he said: “I’ll show you around Dublin tomorrow.” And we had a great day. Then he took me to this restaurant and got me to order something he knew I wouldn’t like. Then he ate all my food and drank all my drinks. I thought, ‘So that’s how it’s going to be’. And that’s how it was from then on [laughs].

The thing I always say is that Phil would have probably been alright if he was around today in that condition, because it’s very trendy to be junkie or whatever – it almost adds to the mystique. In those days you couldn’t even ask for help, because the press would come down on you so hard. After he died they said terrible things about him and it was really sad. If he was here now he’d be down the Priory trying to pull all the models. 

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Albert King

I did a version of Oh Pretty Woman, which was one of his Stax label songs, and he wanted to play with me. I was really worried because there was a word on the song I couldn’t hear – it sounded like ‘She’s the rising sun’ but I knew it wasn’t fucking right – and I had this recurring nightmare that he was going to walk into the studio and spot it straight away. Which he did! 

He walked in and said: “What have you got?” I said: “I’ve got a version of Oh Pretty Woman.” He said: “I wanna hear that!” He was really gruff with me. He had a big white suit on and sat there with his legs splayed apart, completely taking over, showing his authority over me. So we played the tape. And as soon as we got to the line, he jumped up and yelled: “Stop the tape! It’s ‘Sure is the one’.” I said: “I’m really sorry, Albert. I couldn’t hear it properly on the record.” He just turned round, looked at me and said: “But it’s on there.” And now every time we play he always corrects me, like some old headmaster.

One day he was in the studio control room and he was looking for his lighter, and suddenly there was this clattering on the floor. I looked down and there were bullets everywhere. I said: “What the fuck is that, Albert!” And he pulled out a card that said Deputy Sheriff of this county. He’d flown over on Concorde, and they let him on with a gun and bullets in his Flying V guitar case. He said: “If you’re ever down my way and get into trouble, here’s my card.”

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Ozzy Osbourne

I was in New York one night and I bumped into Ozzy in a hotel and he invited me to dinner. So I went out with him, bassist Bob Daisley and Sharon. We’re sitting in this little restaurant, and Ozzy had this canary yellow jumpsuit on. He suddenly said: “Wait till you see this, Gary!” He got a pint glass, put it over his mouth and sucked it until he burst all the blood vessels around his face. Then he got loads of tissue paper and put it in behind his bottom lip and turned into Roddy McDowall’s character from Planet Of The Apes. One of the diners said: “Ozzy, can you sing Over The Mountain for us?” He said: “I’ll do it if you give me a drink.” You could hear him for miles. It’s one of the loudest voices I’ve heard.

When we were walking back to the hotel there were all these people coming out of the Carnegie Hotel. Ozzy lay down on the pavement – and Sharon was about six months pregnant at the time – and he starts pointing at her, screaming: “This fooking woman has given me Aids!” like a child. He just has to go too far.

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Led Zeppelin

When I was 17 we were in Los Angeles and we were staying at this shit hotel. We were playing five nights at the Whiskey, and Led Zeppelin used to come in every night and watch us. We got talking to them and they said: “So where are you guys staying?” I said some shithole out of town. So they got us a big suite at the legendary Hyatt House and paid for everything. They were just the nicest guys and we had such a laugh with them. They had the most beautiful groupies. 

One night we were in Roberts Plant’s room – he had this raised bed on a podium – and our drummer hypnotised him. He said: “You’re going to wake up in half an hour and feel really horny.” Robert crashed out next to this Oriental girl, and when he woke up he just grabbed her and ran into the bathroom with her.

I met Robert and Bonzo in London at The Speakeasy one night. John came home with me and slept on my floor. I had a little bedsit in Belsize Park. I told all my mates: “John Bonham’s fucking sleeping on my floor, go and have a peek.” He disappeared in the morning – the Mothership had taken him away.

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Jack Bruce & Ginger Baker

The media perception at the time [1994] was that they tried to get Cream together but Eric Clapton wouldn’t do it so they got me. That wasn’t the case – I actually formed the band [BBM]. I really enjoyed it.

By the time I worked with Ginger he wasn’t so fiery: he used to smoke spliff all day to keep himself even. He’d have nothing to do with me or Jack Bruce at all. He’d go to his room after the show, while me and Jack would go out and get pissed and have a laugh. Ginger just thought we were idiots.

Jack was great. He was like my big brother. We had fights because everyone in the group had their own bands. That was the problem. 

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Keith Richards

I was at a party and Keith Richards was stood next to me and he gave me a joint. He watched me smoke a bit and then he came back and goes: “Oh yeah, I forgot to tell you, I’ve got leprosy!”  

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Peter Green

Peter Green was very special to me. He replaced Eric Clapton in John Mayall’s Bluesbreakers. I went to see them in Belfast, and I never heard a guitar sound like that in my life.

Later on I was in a band called Skid Row and we were opening for Fleetwood Mac [which Green founded] and Peter asked the promoter to bring me backstage to meet him. I was really shitting myself. And he said: “I really like your playing, man. What are you doing later.” I told him I had to do another show, so I couldn’t even watch him play. In the end I went back to his hotel and we stayed up half the night playing guitar and talking. We became friends, and he gave me and the band our first big break. 

He told everybody I was the most exciting guitarist he’d seen since Hendrix. I was walking on air for weeks.

Years later I’d had his Les Paul for a long time and I did an album of all his music called Blues For Greeny. I had this idea for the cover where I would take the guitar and go and meet him and take a picture where we both have our hands on it. So we met, and he was a bit spaced out, and he picked up the Les Paul and said: “Aw, I sold mine.” I said: “That is yours.” He goes: “No, it’s too old.” I said: “I bought it a long time ago, Peter.” He said: “Yeah, it does look like mine,” and he played a chord and said: “Success!” He had totally forgotten that he had sold it to me.

Rory Gallagher

I met Rory Gallagher when he came to Belfast. I was only 14 and he was a few years older. He kind of took me under his wing. He was a really kind and honest guy.

I met him not long before he died. He was living in the Conrad Hotel at Chelsea Harbour for about a year-and-a-half. I saw him in the bar one night and he was drinking pints of Baileys. I went to his room for drinks and food and he showed me all his guitars. I played him the BBM album with Jack and Ginger and he was saying how he liked it. We had a lovely night. I left him, gave him a big hug and said: “I love you, man.” And that was the last time I ever saw him. It’s really sad. But I was glad I had that bit of time with him.

Originally published in Classic Rock magazine issue 127, December 2008

Pete Makowski joined Sounds music weekly aged 15 as a messenger boy, and was soon reviewing albums. When no-one at the paper wanted to review Deep Purple‘s Made In Japan in December 1972, Makowski did the honours. The following week the phone rang in the Sounds office. It was Purple guitarist Ritchie Blackmore. “Thanks for the review,” said Blackmore. “How would you like to come on tour with us in Europe?” He also wrote for Street Life, New Music News, Kerrang!, Soundcheck, Metal Hammer and This Is Rock, and was a press officer for Black Sabbath, Hawkwind, Motörhead, the New York Dolls and more. Sounds Editor Geoff Barton introduced Makowski to photographer Ross Halfin with the words, “You’ll be bad for each other,” creating a partnership that spanned three decades. Halfin and Makowski worked on dozens of articles for Classic Rock in the 00-10s, bringing back stories that crackled with humour and insight. Pete died in November 2021.