Above, check out some interesting footage of guitarist Jake E. Lee showing a group of fans the correct way to play "Bark at the Moon," the 1983 Ozzy Osbourne track Lee played on (and, legend has it, co-wrote).
In the footage, which was shot March 13, 2014, in Owasso, Oklahoma, Lee pinpoints the sections of the song that "most people get wrong," starting with the opening riff. Lee also implies that most online tabs of the song are incorrect. "They think it's F# to a D to an E, and it's not!"
Lee, who is playing his signature Charvel model in the video, was on the road at the time with his current band, Red Dragon Cartel, who were touring in support of their self-titled debut album. Late in 2013, Lee chatted with Guitar World about RDC and his days with Ozzy.
"I wouldn’t have missed it for anything," Lee said. "It was very exciting. I went from being just another guitar player in L.A. to playing at the US Festival in front of hundreds of thousands of people and traveling the world. The only thing that would have made it better is if I’d been able to do it all with a group of friends, like everybody else I knew."
We also asked Lee if he clicked with Ozzy on a personal level.
"We definitely were different types of people," he said. "And I’m sure that had a lot to do with it. I mean, I don’t know personally what Ozzy’s relationship with Randy was like, but from the outside it looked like they were brothers. Ozzy and I, we never connected on anything more than, 'Here’s a song, let’s play it.' We never became friends. We never bonded. We worked well together, but I think maybe at some point Ozzy wanted to get a deeper connection with his guitar player. And he obviously got that with Zakk [Wylde], because they spent a lot of years together.
"I was [surprised to be let go]. I didn’t see it coming at all. In fact, it was my roommate, who was my tech at the time, who told me I was out of the band. He came back from the Rainbow one night and he said, 'Everybody’s talking about how you just got fired.' So I called up Sharon [Osbourne], and I was like, 'I just heard the weirdest rumor.' She said, 'Oh, my god. It’s true, it’s true.' I went, 'I’m fired?' And she said, 'Yes.' My whole world got turned upside down."
Lee will be back in action with Red Dragon Cartel soon. Their new album, Patina, is expected to be released in early 2018; it'll be the band's first release with drummer Phil Varone and bassist Anthony Esposito. Darren James Smith is on vocals.
According to Lee, fans can expect to hear some surprises on the new disc.
"I've said this in interviews before and I really look like an asshole," he says. "But my end goal isn't to please people. And I suppose that is what an entertainer is supposed to do—give people what they want. That's not why I do it, that's not why I've ever done it. I do it for me. And it sounds selfish, but I think that's…You have to be true to yourself. I make music that I wanna hear. I just hope other people like it also. If they don't, oh, well."
In the 2017 video above, Lee discusses his "guitarsenal" at the studio in western Pennsylvania where Patina was recorded; in the 2017 clip below, Lee plays a bit of "Painted Heart," a track that will most likely be featured on Patina. Stay tuned for more!
