Throughout his playing with Ozzy Osbourne and his own band Badlands, Jake E. Lee created stunning riffs and solos that combined melodic blues-rock licks with fast shredding. But there is one technique that really made him stand out: his fretting hand versatility, which included using his thumb to achieve otherwise impossible stretches with fingers alone.

Using the thumb to play low notes was popularized in the late 1960s by Jimi Hendrix and a decade later by jazzer Pat Metheny, to name two guitar icons. But incorporating the thumb over the fretboard in conjunction with the fretting hand fingers for high strings is a much rarer technique. Using large note intervals and making difficult stretches possible are just two of the applications for this barrier-pushing technique.

The following four examples are inspired by Jake E. Lee’s playing with Ozzy during the mid ’80s. They can be used to increase your fretting hand stretching and stamina, as well as introducing the “thumb over the neck” fretting technique. All are in the key of E minor and make use of the E natural minor scale (E-F#-G-A-B-C-D) with some occasional chromatic passing tones.

These examples should be approached slowly and for short periods at a time. Angle the guitar neck upwards, and place the thumb in line with the second finger. For ideal posture, maintain relaxed and level shoulders to attain these stretches and avoid injury.

MatchMySound: play-along enhancements

For this lesson, we've partnered with MatchMySound, to offer the ability to record yourself and see how close you are. MatchMySound is a great tool to help track your progress.

Click on the word 'options' (lower left, below the tab/notation) to select from 'demo audio track' (just guitar), 'backing track' (just the backing), 'full audio' (backing and real guitar audio) and 'metronome' (just a click to play along to).

Below that, select 'options' for how you can record your performance.

At the upper right, the magnifying glass images let you alter the playback speed for learning and pushing your playing onwards.

Follow the cursor to keep up with the tab/notation accurately on screen.

Lastly, to view the music better by filling your desktop/tablet/phone screen, click on the square brackets at the top right.

The Four Jake E. Lee Examples

Example 1: six-note legato sequence

This starts with a classic six-note legato sequence popular with '80s and '90s shredders. It is phrased in triplets at three notes per click and introduces increasingly larger stretches to avoid a predictable scalar sound and provide a work out for all four fretting hand fingers.

If you are new to this technique, break the exercise down into four separate exercises based on what's played for each bar. After you've built some precision and stamina, aim to double your speed with six notes per click instead of three.

Example 2: two note extended pentatonics

Your second example uses a two note extended pentatonic approach, with stretches that decrease in size and have a distinct feeling of moving inward and relaxing, while also exercising all four fingers.

Pay attention to the notes on the second (B) string as they'e all picked as well as any notes that are played in multiple positions. Also watch where your fretting hand thumb sits on the back of the neck: keep it in line with your second finger for good hand posture.

Example 3: Using the thumb to fret higher strings

Here you are introduced to fretting with the thumb over the neck. Each bar uses a finer rhythmic subdivision so you can become comfortable with the technique. Aim to use the fleshy area adjacent to the outer side of your thumb.

If you've never used this technique before, be mindful that this will be uncomfortable at first as you get used to the posture and develop new thumb calluses. That said, you should notice how easy it is to play stretches over 7 frets (or more!) using this technique. Once you're comfortable with this, experiment with your own ideas.

Example 4: all three techniques used together

To finish, here's a short solo study that utilizes each of the three previous exercises. Choose a combination of techniques and approaches that suits you the best.

Jake E. Lee in action!

Jake's thumb on the fretboard technique

This shows Jake playing the solo for Ozzy's Suicide Solution. Using his thumb on a lower fret, he varies which fingers are used on the higher frets.

Jake uses his thumb here for chordal playing with a clean tone. This demonstrates how versatile (and freeing) thumb fretting can be.

This month in Bought & Sold it is the turn of former Ozzy Osbourne guitarist Jake E Lee to check in and discuss a life in guitars.

Not necessarily the signature guitars that Charvel has dutifully kept in production, but the instruments Lee started on, regretted selling, and bought while half-cut browsing the internet because, like the rest of us, he just can't get enough of this instrument.

What was the first serious guitar that you bought with your own money?

Ah, that’s easy: it was a 1967 SG Standard. Before that, I had a retail-store guitar and a couple of cheap ones, but I wanted an SG, mainly because Tony Iommi played one.

And so I got a newspaper [round] and worked for six months to come up with half the money for the SG, which cost $300; my parents chipped in the other $150. I love SGs. To this day, I have more SGs in my collection than any other guitar.

What was the last guitar you bought and why?

The very last guitar I bought was an Ovation Breadwinner. I remember the ads for them in the 70s and I always thought they looked cool. I always wanted one, and it had to be the white one. One day – because I am a terrible Reverb addict – I had a couple of drinks and started thinking, ‘I wonder if they have an Ovation Breadwinner…’ [Laughs]

I also bought a Yungblud [Epiphone] SG [Junior]. It’s good, but I had it refretted because it had these skinny frets and I like jumbos. I prefer aluminum bridges, too, especially when it’s a one-piece tailpiece like that, because aluminum sings a bit more.

But I can’t swap it with the Yungblud SG because they use a tailpiece that’s slanted and cut specifically to that guitar. But it’s a really good guitar, especially for the price.”

What’s the most incredible find or bargain you’ve ever had when buying guitars?

As far as guitars, there’s no incredible bargains. But amps… I was touring with Ozzy in England, probably for Bark At The Moon. I used to go into every mom-and-pop shop and see what they had. One day, we were in Northern England and I went into this one shop and an older gentleman in his 60s was behind the counter.

I see this old Marshall with the plexiglass logo, covered in dust. I said to the guy, ‘How’s that Marshall? Where is it from?’ He says, ‘I don’t know… it’s been here for the last 20 or 25 years.’ I was like, ‘What? Does it work?’

It was a 45 with the cream back panel and the gold, square plexiglass logo on the front. He picked it up, dusted it off and even though it had been sitting there for years and years, it was brand fucking new. Not a scratch. He said it had been there since maybe ’64 or ’65, and I was like, ‘Are you kidding me?’ He said, ‘No. Why? Do you want it?’ I said, ‘I’ll take the chance if it’s cheap enough,’ and I got it for around £60 [approx. $80].

For that amount of money, even if it didn’t work, I’d have figured it out – but it worked. I went to soundcheck, plugged it in and it wasn’t the kind of sound I was looking for with Ozzy – really creamy and sweet and smooth and compressed, with a little sag. That was my greatest find. But I think it went the way of the first SG in the early 90s… I sold it.

What’s the strongest case of buyer’s remorse you’ve had after buying gear?

About 20 years ago, I was in a local guitar shop, looking to see what they had, and there was nothing new but this ’67 Telecaster. And I don’t like Telecasters. I don’t like the way they sound. I don’t like the way they look. I have no fondness for Telecasters at all.

But I picked this one up anyway and it felt really good, so I plugged it in. It sounded really good and I had a connection with it. But I put it back down and said, ‘I don’t really like Teles… I don’t even know why I picked it up.’

Two days later, I went back in there because I couldn’t quit thinking about it and it just felt right, but they’d sold it already. So that’s a different kind of buyer’s remorse, right? Maybe we’d call that no-buyer’s remorse [laughs]. I still think about that Tele every once in a while… there was just a connection there. I really wish I’d bought it.

Have you ever sold a guitar that you intensely regret letting go?

How long have you got?! I had a ’56 Les Paul Junior and a ’67 ES-335 that I wish I’d held on to. I wish I still had my original SG that I sold in the 90s, too. The list is too long and too sad.

What’s your best buying tip for anyone looking for their ultimate guitar?

Play it, don’t just hope for the best. With older guitars, there are some that are really special and some that are just okay – you have to play those first. But I’ve bought new guitars online, like an Eastwood Messenger like [the Musicraft model] Mark Farner used to play with Grand Funk Railroad. If it’s a new guitar, the quality is gonna be pretty standard.

Going back to that Tele I mentioned before, I never would have thought about buying that guitar – and I should have bought that guitar – if I hadn’t tried it. That’s why you need to try a guitar. Sometimes you get a connection where you just feel it, like it’s the right one. And sometimes you’ll pick up a guitar that you’re sure will be the right one and it’s not there.

If forced to make a choice, would you rather buy a really good guitar and a cheap amp, or a cheap guitar and a top-notch amp?

Oh, no! Not this question. I’d rather have a good amp. The shitty amp will make any guitar sound shitty, but a good amp will make almost any guitar sound good. I have some really cheap guitars that I love, where the action is high and [they’re] kinda funky-sounding. But I don’t have any amps that are shitty. The amp is more important.

If you could only use humbuckers or single coil pickups for the rest of your career, which would it be, and why?

Single coils because that would entail the P-90, which is my favourite pickup. Humbuckers are great, but, to me, the P-90s were always the best of both worlds. They have that articulation, attack and aggressiveness that single coils have, but they’re also kind of smooth and beefy-sounding, like humbuckers.

I’ve always loved P-90s. I couldn’t play them back in the day because they didn’t make humbucking P-90s, so you’d have to deal with all that noise that comes with them, and at the volume I played at, it just was untenable. But these days, I’m actually experimenting with P-90s.

Jake's go-to rig

The amp would be my Friedman JEL-50. Friedman’s are great. They’re the closest thing out there to a good, old Marshall, right? And the Friedman cabinet would be loaded with two 60-watt Creambacks, and I’d have another cabinet with 25-watt Greenbacks. The guitars for live would be what I’m most comfortable with, my Charvel Jake E Lee Pro-Mod [So-Cal Style 1 HSS HT RW] guitar.

For pedals, God, it sounds like I’m saying all Jake E Lee shit, but I’d need my Friedman [IR-J] Jake E Lee boost. I’d want to have an MXR Stereo Chorus, the yellow box – I like that mostly because it has a bass and treble adjustment.

When you hit a chorus pedal, it almost always changes your tone on the bottom- and top-end, but this has adjustments to make sure you keep your core sound and tone, just with chorus. And you can even boost it! For a wah, I’d go with the John Petrucci [Dunlop Crybaby] model, and I’d also have an MXR Carbon Copy, which is standard because it’s simple.

I might also have a Strymon El Capistan reverb and echo, which is basically an Echoplex with added reverb. And the last thing is, I have this Pete Cornish pedal that I love, but it’s too expensive to tour with, so I’d want my DeJayce Ultra Gain for boost and distortion. It’s made by Dannyjoe Carter here in Vegas and it’s one of the best distortion/boost pedals I’ve ever played. When I plugged it into my Pignose amp, it sounded like a Marshall stack!

• This article first appeared in Guitarist. Subscribe and save.

Jake E. Lee’s Charvel signature guitar has been revived, with the Pro-Mod San Dimas Style 1 HSS HT RW taking key inspiration from his infamous Ozzy Osbourne-era electric guitar.

Following the tragic death of Randy Rhoads, Jake E. Lee brought stability to the Prince of Darkness’ band, producing two albums – Bark at the Moon and The Ultimate Sin – during a five-year spell in the group.

Much of that period was defined by his Blue Burst Charvel Superstrat, and after a triumphant return to Ozzy’s side at Back to the Beginning, the guitar has been reprised, colorway and all.

Unsurprisingly, it’s well-spec'd, with an alder body carved in the San Dimas shape that Lee was one of the earliest supporters of. There's also a bolt-on maple neck and 12-16” compound radius rosewood fingerboard, capped with 22 medium jumbo frets and white dot inlays.

There’s an interesting, all-powerful pickup combination: a Seymour Duncan JB bridge humbucker pairs with a DiMarzio SDS-1 middle and neck slanted single-coils for an HSS configuration.

The slanted pups, he says, is a result of Jimi Hendrix, who's leftpaw playing on right-handed guitars meant the pickups were angled in a unique way. So, expect this sleek beast to be capable of “expressive playing” aplenty as it “covers every corner of Jake’s dynamic playing style.”

While whammy bar enthusiasts might decry its Charvel hardtail bridge, it’s in place at Lee’s request to be able to withstand his vibrato style, bolster sustain, and keep its tuning in check.

In a launch video, Lee tells Charvel he’d dreamed of owning a Strat for ages before he had enough dough to buy one. He’d always imagined having one with a whammy before, but after trying eight or nine different models out, he found the hardtail model “sounded better.”

Yet of all the specs, the one that’s perhaps most exciting is the return of the Blue Burst finish that colorized his Ozzy days. As Charvel says, “its return on this signature is a bold, unmistakable nod to the era that defined his legacy.”

In the early ‘80s, after taking his Sunburst Strat to Hollywood, Lee's friend, who worked at Charvel, offered him a respray for his birthday, resulting in what he calls a “lavender sheen”. He played that for much of the Bark at the Moon era, alongside a model originally made for Allan Holdsworth.

As Lee puts, it, “They were sending me leftovers that other people hadn’t picked up. After Ultimate Sin, I felt I should have something a bit more personalized.”

The Blue Burst arrived ahead of The Ultimate Sin tour, and was actually green at first. But he soon realized it looked ugly under stage lights.

“Everything about the Strat is so beautifully designed and perfect,” says Lee. “It is the quintessential electric guitar, and this is my home base.”

The Charvel Jake E. Lee Signature Pro-Mod San Dimas Style 1 HSS HT RW is available now for $1,399.99/£1,399/€1,649.

See Charvel for more.

Meanwhile, Lee has spoken to Guitar World about his battle with Ozzy to make The Ultimate Sin a more eclectic record, and has stood by it, regardless of what the critics may say.

Before he joined Badlands with Jake E. Lee, bassist Greg Chaisson auditioned for Ozzy Osbourne’s band – and it was one of the most gruelling audition processes he'd ever gone through.

Original Ozzy bass guitar player Bob Daisley played on 1980's Blizzard of Ozz, but was replaced in 1981 by Rudy Sarzo, who originally declined the gig. Several years later, the bass position opened up once again as Ozzy set to work on what would be his fourth album. Chaisson threw his hat into the ring for the gig.

“Yes, I auditioned for Ozzy for The Ultimate Sin record,” he tells Bass Player. “Ozzy didn’t think I had the right look for MTV. He was probably correct. I do know he liked my bass playing; he told me I was the best of everyone who auditioned.”

But, as Testament virtuoso Alex Skolnick learned, having the right look for Ozzy's band was a vital prerequisite. It wasn’t about talent alone.

As Chaisson remembers, the auditions took place just outside of Inverness, Scotland, at an old manor that featured “a real recording studio in a building outback.” And it was exhaustive.

“When I got there, we didn’t play any of the existing material from either Sabbath or any of Ozzy’s solo stuff,” Chaisson explains. “They had all the songs written, except Shot in the Dark. [Eventual bass player] Phil Soussan brought that song in with him.

“I was there for 21 days and recorded almost every day or night,” he goes on. “I honestly don’t know if anything I recorded ended up on the record, but I do know they liked the bass lines I came up with.”

Chaisson understands why he didn’t get the gig. But the nature of the rejection still irked him.

“If they said I wasn’t good enough, I could go home, practice, and get better,” he reasons.

“But there’s nothing I could do about my image or lack thereof at the time. It would’ve been a great gig, but it was such a trip just to be up there auditioning. Jake E. Lee and I became really good friends while I was there and have maintained that friendship ever since.”

When Lee's relationship with Ozzy deteriorated, paving the way for Zakk Wylde to enter the fray, Lee and Chaisson joined forces under the Badlands banner.

Guitar World's interview with Greg Chaisson will be published in full in the near future.

When Jake E. Lee was hired by Ozzy and Sharon Osbourne in 1982, he was a young gun with no experience and huge chops. The former led to a lack of songwriting and publishing on his first record with Ozzy, 1983’s Bark at the Moon.

Lee wasn’t happy, and he wasn’t going to allow a sequel to unfold during Ozzy’s next record, 1986’s The Ultimate Sin.

“They realized they got away with something on Bark at the Moon,” Lee says. “They knew it was something that would never happen again.”

At the time, Ozzy was fresh out of rehab, and Lee, who had been waiting in the wings, was in possession of a rippin’ demo that he and bassist Bob Daisley had put together. Ozzy wanted the songs. Lee wanted a fair contract.

“I told him, ‘I’m not doing anything until I get a contract,’ and so, that came pretty quickly,” Lee says.

What didn’t come quickly was a relationship with producer Ron Nevison, who demanded Lee be in the studio early, record in the cold and use monotone guitar sounds. But Lee had a vision and wasn’t going to bend.

“I wanted to hear the guitar like an orchestra,” he says. “Kind of like having violins on top, cellos on bottom and then having moving and melodic parts,” he says. “It was about more than basic chords and one guitar sound. That wasn’t my vision.”

In the end – and with Ozzy and Sharon’s blessing – Lee got to make a record he was proud of. The Ultimate Sin went on to be a hit, though its synth-heavy production alienated diehards and pissed off heavy metal journalists.

By 1987, after the tour for The Ultimate Sin ended, Lee, who had become increasingly independent, bored and free-thinking, was fired by Sharon and Ozzy, putting an end to a tumultuous five-year, two-album tenure. In short, the guitarist couldn’t be tamed.

“I like that viewpoint,” Lee says with a laugh. “Keep going! But I remember we had a big band dinner, and Ozzy raised his glass and said, ‘This is a toast to Jake E. Lee, who practically produced this record and was a very important part of making it.’ Maybe he felt like my part was getting bigger than a band member should be.

“I don’t know; a lot of things came with that. We were writing for the next record; I was pushing boundaries and getting rejected. I was bored with the restrictions. I’m sure Ozzy didn’t like that. But as far as The Ultimate Sin, I stand by it.”

The story goes that while Ozzy was in rehab, you wrote a lot of music that would end up on The Ultimate Sin.

Yeah. While he was in rehab, I had one of those four-track cassette recorders, which were high-tech at the time. [Laughs] I had a Simmons drum machine and a bass that Charvel gave me, and I’d sit there and make my own demos. That’s when I came up with everything that’s on The Ultimate Sin, except for Shot in the Dark.

And then Bob Daisley assisted the with lyrics, right?

Yes. Bob and I got together, and he put his stamp on everything, which means he made everything a little better. [Laughs] He’d add parts or ask, “Why are you doing this part here? You don’t need that,” kind of like an editor – but he would also contribute stuff.

Did Ozzy like what you’d put together?

I gave him the tapes, which were probably 14 or 15 songs, and he liked most of them. There were a few rejects, where I’d tried to push things a little more prog at some points. I was trying to push the envelope and was honestly getting a little bored with having this hard rock, heavy metal limitation.

You weren’t appropriately credited for your songwriting on Bark at the Moon, and it’s known that you refused to move forward with The Ultimate Sin until you were presented with a fair contract. Was that something that lingered over the sessions?

No. It was something that lingered over the Bark at the Moon sessions. When those were done, I became unhappy, so with The Ultimate Sin, before I gave him my demos, I said, “I want a contract that says exactly what I’m gonna get out of this record. I need songwriting credit. I want the publishing I deserve.”

How did Ozzy take that?

Really, that was it. It’s not like I wanted points off the record; I just wanted songwriting and publishing. I said, “Give me a contract that says that, and we can move forward.” There weren’t any problems.

Another layer of confusion came by way of the bass. Bob Daisley assisted with songwriting and the bass parts. But then Greg Chaisson was hired and fired, giving way to Phil Soussan. The belief is that Bob wrote the bass parts and Phil played a version of those, but Greg has claimed otherwise.

Bob and I had demoed the songs, and Bob’s basslines were on there. Greg was only there for maybe two days, and to be honest, I don’t think we auditioned anyone else. And he didn’t hear any of the new material; it was all older Ozzy stuff. You’re not gonna give someone you’re auditioning a copy of a new album. And you’re not gonna say, “You’re not hired, give me the tape back…” [Laughs]

So Greg didn’t write any basslines for The Ultimate Sin. But then Phil got the job, and he basically took Bob’s parts and simplified them. Bob does some really cool stuff on bass, and I would say Soussan simplified them. That would be the nicest way I could say it. He took the basic bass parts from Bob and kept them simple.

For your part, a song like Never has some pretty inventive rhythm playing that was unique and less primitive for the time.

Artistically, I felt more orchestral. I approached it by building things with moving parts for the rhythms, rather than just playing power chords. I looked at it more like jazz guitar, with weird shit where I’d play a progression of chords and then look for a melody within them to put on top, bottom, or maybe in the middle of the chord so that it was moving.

The rhythms made your playing unique, but the leads soar, too.

A lot of players didn’t focus on rhythm guitar and would say, “Where’s the lead? Okay, here it is,” and then only shine on the lead. For me, rhythm was always the most important part. But for the solos, I would try to take it somewhere else. You’ve established a verse, bridge and chorus, and I would then like to go somewhere else for the solos.

What was the key to your tone on tracks like Shot in the Dark, The Ultimate Sin and Lightning Strikes?

I did everything on the white Charvel, my main guitar. I’d play all the basic rhythms and solos on that, then I’d double it with the blue burst or the purple burst to give it a different sonic stamp.

For amps, I had a ’69 100-watt Marshall Plexi and an early aluminum-faced one from ’70 or ’71, which was more aggressive than the Plexi. Depending on the song, I’d use either/or. If I doubled something, I’d always use the amp I didn’t use the first time.

Ron Nevison, who had a reputation for being a guitar-forward producer, was behind the glass for The Ultimate Sin. What was it like working with him?

Terrible. [Laughs] It was butting heads from the beginning. Ozzy gave us a list of producers, and it wasn’t my choice per se, but he asked me, and I thought Nevison was a guitar producer since he’d worked with UFO and Led Zeppelin, so he had my vote. I’m not saying that’s why Ozzy picked him, but that’s where my vote went.

What made working with Ron so terrible?

I’m a nighttime guy, right? To me, rock is nighttime music you play in clubs until closing time. It didn’t feel like a daytime thing to me. I recorded at night, and that’s how we did Bark at the Moon. Max Norman, who produced that, was cool with that. Ron Nevison wasn’t. He told Sharon [Osbourne] that he wanted to start no later than noon.

Sharon told me that, and I said, “Noon? I’m not even thinking about waking up then. I won’t start any earlier than 6 p.m.” So right off the bat, we had problems, and Nevison told Sharon, “I know a lot of guitar players… we don’t have to use him. We can use other people to come in and play the parts. I have all the demos.”

How did Sharon react?

It was ridiculous. He obviously had no idea what Ozzy was. He’s not somebody who brings in fucking guitar players. But Sharon told me that, and I said, “Really? And what did you say?” Sharon said, “I told him he was out of his fucking mind. You’re playing the guitar. How about we start at 3?”

That was a good compromise, so I said I’d come in at 3, but I never did. [Laughs] I’d get up, look at the clock and if I saw it was 3, I’d say, “Oh, shit, I better get ready…” But I never showed up earlier than maybe 4. I just hated the idea of forcing myself to wake up and play during the day. It felt wrong to me to make an album that would last forever that way. It irked me.

Once you got that out of the way, were you able to find common ground?

No. [Laughs] When I came into the studio for the first time to record, I always played inside, where my amp was, because I like getting feedback. The headphones have to be really loud, but that’s my problem; I like playing in the room.

But I went into the room, and it was fucking freezing. I was like, “What the hell? Can you warm up the room?” Nevison said, “No. I like my musicians to be awake. The cold keeps them awake and alert.”

I said, “Fuck you. You know what it also does? It makes my fingers fucking slow because they’re frozen. I can’t play like that.” So we argued about the temperature in the room, which I won.

How did you win?

I said, “I’m just not fucking playing when my fingers are fucking cold. Fuck you.” [Laughs] He acquiesced, but then, for every song, I liked to tune my amp depending on what I was doing. I might like it more aggressive for one song, and sweeter for another. So, I went into the room, and he goes, “What are you doing?”

I said, “I’m tuning my amp for the song…” He goes, “What was wrong with the last sound?” I said, “Nothing… for that song…” He said, “I think all the guitars should sound the same,” which was another argument I wouldn’t relent on. I said, “No, I’m not playing the same guitar sound.” My vision for The Ultimate Sin was not a single sound done in one day.

What were your thoughts the first time that you listened back to The Ultimate Sin?

When I heard the first mix, I hated it. [Laughs] It was keyboard-heavy, and I talked to Ozzy on the phone and said, “What do you think?” He said, “Too many fucking keyboards!” I said, “Exactly!” Sharon said, “We’re remixing the whole album.”

She told Nevison, “I want Jake there, and I want Jake to approve of the mix as you’re mixing it,” which Nevison hated. But I made sure the guitars were actually there, though I still think it could have been more guitar-heavy. After that, I gotta admit, I liked it.

The album sold well but was raked over the coals by old-school fans and the press.

It got shit on a lot. A lot of people said, “This is Ozzy’s worst record ever.” Ozzy even said in an interview that he didn’t like it and that it was terrible. By the late ’90s, I thought, “I guess it was a shitty record. I just really sucked on it.” I wouldn’t listen to it.

The general viewpoint on the album has changed over the years. Has yours?

I didn’t listen to it for maybe a dozen years. Then a friend of mine said, “You don’t listen to it? It’s great. What are you talking about?” And then Chris Jericho told me, “The Ultimate Sin is the best” and started pointing out things I did on it, and I was like, “You really like it?”

I went back and listened to it front-to-back, and I thought, “This is actually a pretty good record. Why was this shit on so much? Why did I think it sucked when I worked so hard on it?” Now I think it’s a really good record. I don’t care what anyone says. It’s fantastic. I don’t know why it got shit on. I don’t care.

What did The Ultimate Sin reveal to you about Jake E. Lee?

It’s the first record where I knew who I was and what I wanted to do as far as guitar. Bark at the Moon was me as the new kid thrown in there, and the first time I’d recorded professionally. The Ultimate Sin is where I found my voice and my identity. And with all the guitar parts… I wouldn’t change a thing.

There’s stuff on Bark at the Moon that I would change, but not on The Ultimate Sin. I found my identity, but now I’m thinking, I found my identity, and at the time people thought it sucked. [Laughs] But I stand by it. I played everything the way I felt I should, and I carried that over into Badlands. The Ultimate Sin established who I was as a guitar player.

• This article first appeared in Guitar World. Subscribe and save.

Jake E. Lee has given Yungblud's signature guitar his seal of approval, revealing he's added the affordable Epiphone SG Junior to his collection.

“I bought a Yungblud [Epiphone] SG [Junior],” the former Ozzy Osbourne guitarist reveals in the latest edition of Guitarist. “It’s good, but I had it refretted because it had these skinny frets and I like jumbos.

“I prefer aluminum bridges, too, especially when it’s a one-piece tailpiece like that, because aluminum sings a bit more. But I can’t swap it with the Yungblud SG because they use a tailpiece that’s slanted and cut specifically to that guitar. But it’s a really good guitar, especially for the price.”

Add that to the list of Ozzy connections that now link Lee with the rock 'n' roll torchbearer. Both Lee and Yungblud played at Ozzy's farewell show, Back to the Beginning – an experience that famously highlighted the close bond that Yungblud had with the late Prince of Darkness.

As for Lee's newest guitar, the smartly styled SG Junior – which retails for $599 and is currently sold out on the official Gibson site – takes inspiration from the Grammy-winning artist's original 1964 Gibson model.

It boasts a Classic White colorway, one Dogear Epiphone P-90 Pro – wired to CTS volume and tone potentiometers – and a compensated wraparound Lightning Bar bridge. It's an attractive offering for Yungblud fans and Gibson/Epiphone aficionados alike – and, apparently, Jake E. Lee. Guitar World gave it a tidy four star review.

“Guitars and rock music have always been a fundamental part of my life,” Yungblud said upon the launch. “Literally, my education, I grew up on the counter of a guitar shop, and I’ve been dusting them since I was three years old.

“The reason why I play a White ‘64 SG Junior is because growing up, musicians that were important in my life were Angus Young and Billie Joe Armstrong. This SG Junior is entirely my own, and it already looks fucking iconic,” he concluded.

And, speaking of Yungblud, the British breakout star recently revealed why he will never join a band – despite collaborations with Aerosmith and the Smashing Pumpkins.

For more from Jake E. Lee, plus new interviews with Robben Ford and Kim Gordon, pick up issue 535 of Guitarist from Magazines Direct.

Jake E. Lee has recalled the time he stumbled across the gear bargain of a lifetime while on tour in England with Ozzy Osbourne.

When recently asked by Guitarist if he’s ever picked up an electric guitar bargain, Lee admits he’s not had much luck in that department. But he did once got one hell of an amp steal.

Lee was the Prince of Darkness’ second full-time guitarist, replacing the late Randy Rhoads and playing on two records before Zakk Wylde took over in 1987. Not only did the gig elevate Lee’s career, it also united him with a vintage amp that he managed to pick up for a steal.

“I was touring with Ozzy in England, probably for Bark At The Moon (1983),” he says in the new print issue of Guitarist. “I used to go into every mom-and-pop shop and see what they had. One day, we were in Northern England, and I went into this one shop, and an older gentleman in his 60s was behind the counter.”

Lee was immediately drawn to an old Marshall amp head. It was covered in dust, looking like the kind of ancient relic Indiana Jones would dedicate his life to chasing.

“I said to the guy, ‘How's that Marshall? Where is it from?’” Lee remembers. “He says, ‘I don't know... It's been here for the last 20 or 25 years.’ It was a 45 with a cream back panel and a gold square plexiglass logo on the front.

“He picked it up, dusted it off, and even though it had been sitting there for years and years, it was brand fucking new. Not a scratch. He said it had been there since maybe ‘64 or ‘65, and I was like, ‘Are you kidding me?’

“He said, ‘No. Why? Do you want it?'’” Lee wasn’t going to turn down the chance to take this amp home. “I said, ‘I'll take the chance if it's cheap enough,’ and I got it for around £60. For that amount of money, even if it didn't work, I'd have figured it out – but it worked.”

In today’s money, £60 roughly equates to around £205, or $273. Typically, 1960s Marshall JTM45 amps sell for up to $10K on the second market in 2026. That's insane.

“I went to soundcheck, plugged it in, and it wasn't the kind of sound I was looking for with Ozzy – really creamy and sweet and smooth and compressed, with a little sag,” Lee continues. “[But] that was my greatest find. I think it went the way of the first SG in the early 90s... I sold it.”

Last year, Jake E. Lee battled health issues to perform alongside his former boss at Back to the Beginning. The pair hadn’t seen one another since Lee’s departure from the band.

The latest issue of Guitarist features a deep dive into the legendary Jim Irsay collection, as well as interviews with Kim Gordon, Robben Ford, and Alter Bridge guitarists' Myles Kennedy and Mark Tremonti.

Head to Magazines Direct to grab a copy.

Ozzy Osbourne’s fourth studio album, 1986’s The Ultimate Sin, was fraught with disagreements between guitarist Jake E. Lee and renowned producer Ron Nevison.

Lee – who had already managed to navigate a contractual dispute regarding publishing and writing rights with Ozzy – was now faced with a producer who was ready to replace him at the drop of a hat.

“I’m a nighttime guy, right?” Lee remembers in the latest issue of Guitar World. “To me, rock is nighttime music you play in clubs until closing time. It didn’t feel like a daytime thing to me. I recorded at night, and that’s how we did Bark at the Moon. Max Norman, who produced that, was cool with that. Ron Nevison wasn’t.

“He told Sharon [Osbourne] that he wanted to start no later than noon. Sharon told me that, and I said, ‘Noon? I’m not even thinking about waking up then. I won’t start any earlier than 6 p.m.’ So right off the bat, we had problems, and Nevison told Sharon, ‘I know a lot of guitar players… we don’t have to use him. We can use other people to come in and play the parts. I have all the demos.’”

So how did Sharon respond? “It was ridiculous,” Lee replies. “He obviously had no idea what Ozzy was. He’s not somebody who brings in fucking guitar players. But Sharon told me that, and I said, ‘Really? And what did you say?’

“Sharon said, ‘I told him he was out of his fucking mind. You’re playing the guitar. How about we start at 3?’” That proved to be a good compromise for Lee – although not one that won him any favors with Nevison.

“I said I’d come in at 3, but I never did,” he quips. “I’d get up, look at the clock, and if I saw it was 3, I’d say, ‘Oh, shit, I better get ready…’ But I never showed up earlier than maybe 4. I just hated the idea of forcing myself to wake up and play during the day. It felt wrong to me to make an album that would last forever that way. It irked me.”

The conflicts didn’t end there, however. The pair also disagreed on their personal preferences for, er, room temperature.

“When I came into the studio for the first time to record, I always played inside, where my amp was, because I like getting feedback,” Lee explains. “The headphones have to be really loud, but that’s my problem; I like playing in the room. But I went into the room, and it was fucking freezing.

“I was like, ‘What the hell? Can you warm up the room?” Nevison said, ‘No. I like my musicians to be awake. The cold keeps them awake and alert.’ I said, ‘Fuck you. You know what it also does? It makes my fingers fucking slow because they’re frozen. I can’t play like that.’ So we argued about the temperature in the room, which I won.”

For more from Jake E. Lee, plus new interviews with Steve Stevens and Steve Vai, pick up issue 601 of Guitar World from Magazines Direct.

If you’ve been following Nuno Bettencourt over the past couple of years, you’ll be no stranger to his domination of all things electric guitar. For new fans, Nuno’s theatrics feel fresh and new, but in reality, the guy is pushing 60 and has been ripping it up since the late ’80s.

But Nuno is doing nothing new; it just feels that way because it felt like he’d been, well, away for a while. That all changed when Nuno’s longtime band, Extreme, dropped Six in 2023.

It was their first album in 15 years, so it’s not difficult to see why a very non-guitar-oriented scene had forgotten about him. But even with all that time passed, it seems ridiculous that people could just forget someone so evergreen.

Nuno’s response? To kick us in the teeth six ways till Sunday – and then do it all over again on Monday. That’s just how it is for a player who has been, is and always will be “out for blood.”

And during Nuno’s latest statement moment – namely his guitar-related ownership of this year’s July 5 Back to the Beginning show in celebration of Black Sabbath and Ozzy Osbourne – Jake E. Lee took notice.

“Jake said to me, ‘You’re one of the most well-rounded players – and what a player should be in a band,’” Bettencourt says. “That was everything I wanted to be. I wasn’t trying to chase anybody. I wanted to be in my own band. I wanted to be well-rounded. I was attracted to the guys who could rip but were in bands, could write songs, lyrics and melodies.”

Dating back to his days as a young gun out of Boston, Bettencourt has done precisely that. With Extreme, a band that by his own admission was always a rock ’n’ roll stepchild, he dropped songs like Mutha (Don’t Wanna Go to School Today), Get the Funk Out and the polarizing yet popular More Than Words.

But, despite the chance to become the next solo guitar legend – and an infamous offer to join Ozzy’s band after Zakk Wylde departed – Bettencourt never deviated from his plan to keep guitar music alive in a band setting.

“I’m really lucky,” he says. “I don’t take shit for granted. I keep it in my head, and I try to retain the feeling because that’s something that no drug, no alcohol can give. Period.”

When it comes to guitar, nothing but the sound of Bettencourt with a six-string in hand can give listeners that feeling either. The world’s shutter-shocked reaction to Six, specifically the solo in Rise.

There are plenty of great guitarists out there, but few dominate like Bettencourt. Few take over. And even fewer do so with humility, all while curb-stomping anyone who dares cross their path. It’s that dichotomy that makes Nuno great, and dare we say, an outright legend.

“People are saying I was the MVP [of Back to the Beginning],” Nuno says. “But really, all I did was go up and be myself. All I did was learn and respect the songs.

“But I feel somewhat like after it happened, it kind of made me go full circle and realize who I am, what I did, why I showed up, why I was there… and maybe why they respected me enough to ask me. And it had nothing to do with guitar players outdoing each other, or being in the same breath as Randy Rhoads, Jake E. Lee, or being in the company of Tony Iommi.”

Nuno might not be the kind of guy who attempts to decide on his own legacy, but what he can – and has – decided on is where he takes his career revival next. To that end, he’s working on “15 or 16 new songs” with Extreme and has launched a new range of instruments, Nuno Guitars.

Two new models, the Dark Horse and the White Stallion, are set to be the brand’s first guitars, and – as the marketing text puts it – the Nuno company will be “continuing the legacy of the N4,” his longstanding signature Washburn instrument. Continuing the equine metaphor, the press release describes the new guitars as “true workhorses built with the same passion I’ve put into every note I’ve ever played. Let’s ride!”

“This has been the culmination of everything I’ve ever learned, studied, done and respected,” he says of the whirlwind of the last two years. “And with Back to the Beginning, I was there to represent that as a guitar player. But I’m more than a guitar player. I’m a songwriter, a musician, a vocalist and an arranger. It was the culmination of all of that.”

You were one of the highlights of Back to the Beginning. Where was your head at after that experience?

I mean, did it actually happen? [Laughs] It was one of those days where you just have to somehow believe the footage and photos and know you were actually there – and that you were invited. It was one of those milestone life and career moments.

But I’ll be completely honest. When I first saw the ad at the beginning of the year, and I saw that it was Black Sabbath, Ozzy’s last show and all these amazing bands, I wasn’t bitter – but I was surprised.

Why was that?

I saw the massive list of individual artists from different bands playing, who I imagine were there for a reason and had a connection, and I wasn’t mentioned. I wasn’t invited. I was like, “Okay…” Not that I felt like I should be, but it was like, “It would have been great to be a part of this.”

Where did your mind go when you started to ruminate on that?

I was asked by Ozzy to join his band in 1995, and I was thinking, “Maybe it’s because I turned it down.” Nobody says no to Ozzy; it’s the guitar gig of a lifetime. But then I was like, “Get over yourself! They just have a lot of people.” But I started going to this place because Extreme has always been on the outside, like the bastard child of rock ’n’ roll.

In the sense that no-one knew what to do with you because of the genre-fluid nature of the band’s music?

Nobody ever knew what to do with us. Between More Than Words and all the funk and horn stuff, they were like, “These guys aren’t rock or metal…” But then I got a call to do the show.

Jake E. Lee has alluded to the fact that your role expanded massively along the way. What was that like?

It was exciting to be included. Tom Morello, who was putting these groups together, which was like wrangling cats, said, “Everybody is coming in, guesting and doing these supergroups. You’d be a part of one supergroup and do a couple of songs.”

Then, three days later, he was like, “Can you do another three songs?” [Laughs] He said, “So and so isn’t coming.” A couple of days later, he said, “Do you want to do another two or three? Wolfgang Van Halen is pulling out. He can’t do it because of scheduling stuff. He has a gig the next day.”

And of course, you were also on tour with Extreme at the time.

I said, “Tough shit. I have a gig the next day, too!” [Laughs] I had to fly from Birmingham and do that thing we’re not allowed to do, which is fly the day of a show. If a flight goes wrong and you’re playing a gig with Def Leppard in Canada on one of the biggest stages, what if you don’t make it?

You ended up doing it anyway. How did you make that work?

My manager initially said, “You’ve got to choose one.” I said, “Hell, no! I want to do the gig with Def Leppard, and I’m not not doing the Sabbath and Ozzy show. I’m doing both. Figure it out. Get backup flights. I’ll take a rowboat across if I have to.” I ended up doing 12 songs. [Laughs]

And you ended up being the proverbial “MVP” of the show!

I said, “Now I gotta get to work. Let me sit down and get this stuff right.” I started playing it, and I was like, “Oh, this is why people pulled out.” [Laughs] Not that it’s technically impossible to play, but you gotta do your work because Randy’s stuff was a little bit of a different language.

How so?

I hadn’t played that stuff since I was a teenager. Back then, I believed I was playing it correctly, but I wasn’t even close. It wasn’t just the solos; it was the fingering. It’s this classically driven, melodic, beautiful, just great – but fiery as hell – stuff. For some reason, I thought it was just melodic.

But I was like, “No, there’s some fire in here. There’s some crazy shit going on here.” And then after the solos, there’s all these amazing licks in the rhythm playing. You can’t improvise this stuff. You can’t just almost do it, you know? It’s Randy Rhoads – but it’s also Jake E. Lee.

It sounds as if it was a transcendent experience on that stage.

You look over, and you’ve got all these iconic legends. It’s like, “Where am I? What the fuck is happening here?” I definitely tried to not represent just me – I felt like I wasn’t representing me at all – but representing history. I really wanted to do right by Randy, Jake and Tony Iommi.

I felt like I had two versions of me there. One, especially during the photoshoot, where you’re standing shoulder-to-shoulder, touching giants – was the version of me, going, “I belong here, right?” There’s a part of me that’s like, in a very dream sequence way, sees an Azorean Portuguese immigrant sitting in his bedroom in Hudson, Massachusetts.

That version of me was standing there going, “You know what, somebody is about to walk in here from security, grab me and go, ‘Hey, kid, get out of here. You don’t belong here.’” I was like, “I’m gonna wake up and just be this 15-year-old kid, going, ‘Fuck, I had this dream…’ and everybody is going to go, ‘Oh, that’s impossible.’”

When Extreme released Six, you came out of nowhere to set the guitar world on fire again. In a lot of ways, what you’re talking about now seems like the culmination of the trip you’ve been on since then, where you talked about a mission statement of helping guitar make a comeback.

I thought about that. It’s like what sort of strange destiny was this for me in that sense? I was going for blood on that album, like I always do, but at a time when guitar-driven albums aren’t around so much. When I was coming up, we were so spoiled because there were albums with great guitar players coming out every month. We were in the company of giants.

From Edward Van Halen and Yngwie Malmsteen and all these great bands that had great guitar players, we were so spoiled. They were everywhere. So I think you’re right. When Six came out, I didn’t realize – until I started reading the comments, and I was like, “Wait – what’s happening?”

After being named guitar’s MVP in 2023, and now being named Back to the Beginning’s MVP, are you able to accept that level of praise?

After seeing the Rise solo being called the “solo of the century” in some magazine [that would be Guitar World’s dearly departed sister mag Total Guitar – Ed], I remember saying to Steve Lukather, “Come on, this is ridiculous.” He said, “Look, we know you’ve always been able to do this stuff, so it wasn’t like we were shocked. But people were starved for guitar playing within a band.” It was just the band like it used to be, going for blood.

There are still great artists out there, but I think it was the new-music thing. It was like, “Let’s try and bury what we did. Let me up myself and what I did in the past.” It was that feeling of like we were back in the day, where when you looked at Edward, or any guitar player you admired, you said, “What are they going to come up with next? What are they going to do to blow your mind?”

Returning to Back to the Beginning, it seems an interesting relationship was formed between you and Jake E. Lee. You didn’t know each other before July 5, but it seemed like the vibe between you two was very natural.

I was talking to Jake constantly, having to smack him in the head. Every once in a while, I’d go, “Stop walking around here so fucking damn humble.” [Laughs] I told him, “You’re fucking Jake E. Lee!” Not only did he replace Randy, but he took Ozzy to another place.

Is it true that you made sure that Jake had his moment onstage without another player, kind of like the old days?

At one point, Tom Morello said, “Jake said, ‘I know Nuno has a lot on his plate, but could he maybe take the Ultimate Sin solo?’” We all know that, as legendary as Jake is, he’s struggling a little bit, as we all do as we get older and don’t know what’s going to happen to our hands and bodies.

But I told Tom, “Give me his phone number right now.” I texted Jake and told him, “You are fucking Jake E. Lee. There’s no way in hell I’m taking that solo. You’re going to play that solo. And not only that, I’ll double it with you, and we’ll do it together. Whatever happens, it’s going to be fucking incredible,” and that’s what we did.

And I was supposed to play on Shot in the Dark. I didn’t tell anybody I was doing it – but I just walked off the stage. [Laughs] I wanted Jake to have his moment without another guitar player stealing his thunder. We all came from one-guitar bands. We didn’t want rhythm guitarists. I wanted Jake to have his one moment up there by himself, so I just left. And Jake nailed it.

Is Extreme working on a follow-up to Six?

The fans made me realize, “Don’t wait too long to do another album. You’re lucky to have these fans. You’re lucky to have this opportunity of being asked to do this stuff.” And all of this stuff is happening to me at age 58. Nobody gets a second bite at the apple like that. Not with a new album, not with this kind of restart, right?

And I’m thinking to myself, “Don’t fuck this up, man. You’re lucky. You’re lucky at this age to be doing this.” I turned 59 on September 20. I’m lucky to have this opportunity. I started saying to myself, “Fuck that album [Six]. I want to up that.” That’s what we used to do. That was the game.

The only difference is that Extreme was taken for granted back then, but now you’re one of the hottest guitar tickets in the game.

The game was, “Don’t sit there and let people say they love what you did and repeat it.” It was, “You’ve gotta raise the bar for yourself every time.” Whether you do it or not doesn’t matter. But the excitement of raising the bar and being creative is what it was all about.

What does being creative mean to you?

It’s not only being creative with lead guitar, but with rhythm guitar, songwriting, melodies, harmonies, production – all of it. We have just about 15 or 16 songs already. If touring wasn’t enough to kick you in the ass, and being among all these legends and heroes doesn’t inspire you for your next album, I don’t know what does.

Is there any gear you can’t live without?

I’m going to say it’s my hands. We know amps are important, and I’ve been playing this DSL live that I think I’ve finally locked into. But for anybody who’s chasing gear to make themselves sound better, that’s never going to happen.

You need to find pieces of gear that allow your hand to allow you to express yourself in the best way. It’s like finding a head that doesn’t tamper too much with what your hands are saying and doing and – tonally – finding pedals that don’t get in the way of that, like to where they process so much that it’s not you anymore.

The key is to find a pick that’s the right gauge and the right strings. I’ve been using GHS Boomers for, I can’t remember, like my whole life. Every time another company comes to me and says, “Do you want to do an endorsement? We can send you a bunch of strings,” I give it a shot, and I can’t even bend them correctly. They bend too far or they sound too bright or just different.

Find a string, a pedal, a pick, an amp and a speaker that best interprets you and doesn’t get in the way of the power, expression and voice that your hands have. That’s your secret weapon. The only true pedals, speakers and amps you need are your hands.

What’s the key to making a rig that feels wrong or “off” work?

You should be able to plug into a small, shitty amp or anything somebody gives you. Your hands should, at the very least, be 70 to 80 percent of who you are. Even if the amp sucks, you should still make it talk. I’ve been there. Don’t get it twisted; there are bands that know you’re coming to their gig, and they have a “second rig” for that person.

A second rig? Is that pretty standard?

It’s not the same rig as they’re playing through. I’ll tell you that right now. [Laughs] I’ve dubbed it the “punishment rig.” The one where you’re going to show up, and it’s not going to have that much distortion or sustain; the guitar has action three miles off the neck and there are no special pedals, no special sauce.

But you’re gonna have to get up there and battle it out with whatever it is. You’re gonna have to show the fuck up, no excuses. That’s when you separate the men between the boys – on the punishment rig. [Laughs]

Do you feel it took some years before people got hip to what Extreme was doing?

We had our fans, but in terms of the mainstream, we were the band that had More Than Words. We were the band that had a guitar player, but there was always something that was a little disconnected. We never had proper respect. A lot of people are saying that it wasn’t until Six that – as a band – we’re finally being respected as a rock band with a guitar player who legitimately had a great album.

Do you agree with that?

I think they’re correct because I don’t think we were ever in the conversation until that album, which is really odd to say because we had three or four rock albums already. But our songwriting, melodies, harmonies and lyrics were a lot of beautiful stuff. We always had a Queen element; that’s part of our DNA, and that almost got in the way sometimes of our rock ’n’ roll.

None of that would have happened if you had chosen a different path with Ozzy.

I think you’re right. Instinctively, inside, I knew I probably didn’t belong in Ozzy’s history. Those other guys had already carved it for themselves – and that’s a big-ass responsibility. I didn’t do it out of fear of stepping into someone else’s shoes, like coming in after Zakk Wylde. I would have been honored to do that. I just felt like I was always supposed to carve my own path.

You seem like you have a handle on who you are as a player, which surely will help you as you move forward and continue to champion guitar-driven music.

Back to the Beginning was the culmination of all of this. All these people who were in bands, and hanging with them, that’s where my place was. My place wasn’t just to show up and shred and do whatever.

My place was to go up and show respect. And if I got credit for people saying I was the MVP, I hope they believe it’s because I wasn’t trying to sit there, hang and be a better guitar player than any of these guys, stuff that I was playing.

I was just saying, “You know what? If I’ve got something to say here, it’s that I can walk onto this fucking stage with all the work I’ve done for my whole life because I’ve respected every element of the band.” To me, that’s my only superpower.

To be able to have the balls and the confidence to walk in – and it’s not ego, or thinking I’m the shit – and just go, “You’ve been working your whole life, respecting the music so that I can be in the company of giants, and I can fucking hang with you guys for this day.”

• Rise is out now via earMUSIC.
• This article first appeared in Guitar World. Subscribe and save

Deep breath, everyone. We made it. 2025 is drawing to a close, and what a wild ride it’s been. It seems like only yesterday we were knee-deep in the annual NAMM gear avalanche, but a lot has happened since then – and it seems high time to sit back and take a look at what made ’25 such a great year for guitar.

Because there’s no doubt about it. 2025 was a great year for the guitar. There were some historic shows, a once-in-a-lifetime reunion, the emergence of generational guitar talents, a complete tonal revolution, some watershed gear drops… we won’t spoil it at all here, but a lot has happened.

In a year that wasn’t without its sad moments – we lost many guitar and music greats in 2025 – we head into 2026 off the back of a genuinely inspiring 12 months, which will live long in the memory.

So pull up a pew, grab a brew, and take a jolly through our guide to the 25 reasons why 2025 was a great year for guitars – as assembled by Team GW. Starting with…

1. Ozzy Osbourne went out in style – and made a music event a global phenomenon

In July, Ozzy Osbourne headlined Back to the Beginning, a generational farewell concert featuring, deep breath, Metallica, Pantera, Halestorm, Slayer, Alice in Chains, Jake E. Lee, Nuno Bettencourt… this could take all day. Barely two and a half weeks later, he was gone.

My GW online colleague, EIC Michael Astley-Brown, noted at the time that although it was Ozzy’s chance to say goodbye, the evening was also a tribute to Tony Iommi’s singular impact on guitar music, and I couldn’t agree more.

I’m hardly a Sabbath fanatic, but when I heard Ozzy confidently declare, one last time, “we are Black Sabbath!” as the leviathan opening chords of War Pigs rang out around him, I was shocked by how emotional I became.

Mentally, I found myself in my best friend’s basement at 12 years old, him playing Paranoid on his Epiphone SG, me doing Ozzy, then him showing the riff to me (“look how easy it is!”) The freaks storming the castle. “Back to the Beginning”, huh? – JM

2. Guitar solos are big business in pop again – just ask Olivia Rodrigo

‘Move over Taylor Swift: Olivia Rodrigo is this generation’s Eddie Van Halen – her Glastonbury performance proved it’.

Of all the headlines I expected to write this year, this was not it. But that proves the sheer guitar magnetism of Rodrigo’s set at one of the world’s biggest music festivals: session vet Arianna Powell shredding a Jackson Soloist at every opportunity, extended riff breakdowns, Rodrigo herself busting out a Mustang and duetting with the Cure’s Robert Smith. This was no polished pop performance: this was a legit rock show.

Oh, and before you @ me without reading the article, lemme break down that headline: EVH inspired people to pick up the guitar in the ’80s. Taylor Swift was hailed by The Internet as doing the same in the 2010s. And I think Rodrigo will do that for 2020s kids. She is promoting visibility of the electric guitar and its musical lineage at the highest level – and I think that’s pretty rad. – MAB

3. Amp modelers continued to level up – and 2025 was a watershed moment

Every year, something raises the bar in the amp modeling market. But 2025 felt different. It felt bigger. Part of that was the arrival of Helix 2 – AKA Helix Stadium – which reinvented one of the world’s premier floorboard modelers from the ground up with new tech. Part of it was also down to the various updates introduced by Fender, Neural DSP, and Kemper to their own hardware, and the huge strides made by more affordable companies.

But, if we’re being honest, the biggest wave in the modeler market was caused by John Mayer, who created a rip tide when he partnered with Neural DSP for a signature plugin. It is a watershed moment for the industry. A tube amp loyalist putting his faith in digital modeling? A true sign of the times. Expect even more people to make the switch now. If it’s good enough for Mayer, it’s good enough for anyone. – MO

4. Geese and Y2K nostalgia are keeping the dream of the guitar band alive

If you frequent music TikTok – specifically, #indierocktok – chances are you've probably come across Geese. The Brooklyn-based indie-rock band reached new heights this year, arguably becoming “America's most thrilling young rock band” (according to GQ at least).

The Y2K and indie sleaze nostalgia are rife with Geese – you'd be forgiven for mistaking them for a band billed alongside The Strokes at a festival in the early to mid-aughts.

But the band, led by frontman Cameron Winter, are dominating the algorithm and introducing indie rock to a whole new generation, while also keeping the dream of the guitar band alive. – JB

5. People still want their guitar heroes to be worthy of the term

If the whole sorry saga of Giacomo Turra has taught us anything, it’s that originality and credibility are still qualities that we want from our guitar heroes.

The sad fact is that not every guitarist we encounter is technically gifted, exuberantly creative, and treats others with kindness and respect. But let’s just agree not to accept one out of three, OK? Especially, if you’re going to take to social media and portray yourself as a pastel-clad international playboy.

Social media is a delivery mechanism and, used well, a levelling force in championing new music and musicians. On the other hand, you could also argue it’s an unpoliced hellhole and an ecosystem that encourages profile over providence – that need for a reality check has never been more apparent to players. – MP

6. Bad guitar tone is a thing of the past

2025 was the year bad tone got good, and we have mk.gee to thank. The trailblazing tonesmith is not only a leading gen Z guitar hero, but he’s also Eric Clapton’s favorite new guitar player – and he recorded all his anthems with a Tascam 424 preamp. You know, like in that Portastudio you used to own/read about in history books.

Cue two big-brand reincarnations of the recently reappraised preamp via JHS Pedals and Benson Amps, plus one philosophical John Mayer demo, and suddenly, the guitar world found itself reevaluating its sense of tone. Or, at least, GW staff did.

As I posited in my own thesis, ‘Does ‘bad’ guitar tone even exist anymore?’, you could argue that it’s too easy to get a pro-level guitar tone with plugins and modelers these days. Adopting a traditionally maligned one might be the quickest way to stand out. And that’s A Cool Thing: every tone is valid! – MAB

7. The blues is in remarkably good shape, and was the musical driver of a box office smash

“Yeah, that was Buddy Guy! He’s, like, the last of the original bluesmen. He’s a legend!”

I’m in a bar with my friends after we’ve just seen Sinners, the (literally) barnstorming Ryan Coogler-directed horror smash set in early ‘30s Mississippi. Though it’s primarily a vampire movie, Sinners is true to its setting with a score heavily inspired by the haunting acoustic blues of that era and region – with a joint cameo from Christone “Kingfish” Ingram and Buddy Guy linking two generations of the genre together.

I can’t fully explain his role without revealing too much of the story, but Buddy Guy isn’t just our last living line to the real origins of the blues – he’s a hell of an actor, too!

The highest-grossing fully original film in the United States since 2010 (!), Sinners brought the blues to new audiences far and wide.

“They had me play a little spot in a movie,” Guy told Guitar World earlier this year in reference to Sinners, “and I still get more calls about the movie than I do my records!” – JM

8. The Oasis reunion no one thought would happen actually happened

If you asked the Gallagher brothers three years ago whether there’d ever be a chance we’d see them on stage together again, they’d have called you a naughty word and laughed you out the room. Well, we got the last laugh, because that’s exactly what happened. 2025 will forever be remembered as the year Oasis got back together.

Did it help put the spotlight on guitar music? The instrument was in rude health well before the Oasis reunion, but Liam’s son sure thought so. Whatever the case, the Oasis reunion was a cultural and musical phenomenon like no other.

It was also a goldmine for guitar fans. Noel started playing solos again. He had a mystery Les Paul built for the shows, and it broke the internet when it was released as a signature model. Gem Archer and Bonehead also got signature guitars. The biggest music event of the year – Back to the Beginning aside – had guitars at its heart. That alone makes it worthy of praise. But for fans like me, who never thought we’d see the day, it was a helluva ride. – MO

9. Guitar brands are leveling up their budget guitar game

Buying a budget guitar hasn't meant settling for subpar specs for a while now. But some of this year's standout releases were, in fact, guitars at the lower range of the price spectrum – and, frankly, we're here for it.

The T-style PRS SE NF 53 was perhaps this year’s most impressive release, blowing away our reviews team, who described it as “a workingman’s tool pure and simple: any guitar player could use one, which might well qualify it as the most essential guitar yet of 2025”.

The Cort G200SE, Spira T-450, Sterling By Music Man's Intro Series Cutlass, and Jet Guitars' JT-350 BKM H and JJ-300 P90 SFG are also among 2025's standouts. – JB

10. The year hardcore went mainstream – and embraced guitar solos

Yeah, I hear you, ‘hardcore has been going mainstream’ for about five years now, but 2025 feels like a new zenith.

At the head of the pack, still, are Turnstile who returned with Never Enough (tied with Broncho’s Natural Pleasure for my personal album of the year). It got laden with more glowing reviews than an Amazon drop-shipper; enjoyed a previously unthinkable profile on late-night TV; received five Grammy nominations; they played in front of enormous crowds worldwide – and were even asked to rep Fender’s new American Professional Classic line.

They also made a video with a vocalist on a jet ski, a drummer in the desert, and Pat McCory ripping a whammy-laden guitar solo in an alpine valley. The hardcore tag is now largely irrelevant: Turnstile are now looking like a solid bet to be one of the biggest rock bands in the world.

And Turnstile might have broken the mould but they’re not alone. Look at Drain’s Cody Chavez bringing the thrash riffs and shred solos to their last album …Is Your Friend. Hardcore is a changed beast that’s for sure. And all this from a scene in which the biggest flex used to be what kind of van you had… – MP

11. One of the best – and biggest – indie-guitar albums in years arrived

moisturizer confirmed that tongue-very-much-in-cheek Brit-rockers Wet Leg are one of rock’s most exciting new talents. Their second record is a masterpiece: it has the catchiest guitar hooks of the year and the sharpest indie-pop songwriting, tapping into the sweet spot between Pavement and PJ Harvey I never knew I needed.

It’s subverting the genre’s norms, too: Rhian Teasdale and Hester Chambers have been repping B.C. Rich and Kramer shred sticks onstage – and yes (trigger warning, Kevin Shields acolytes), one of them is being used for shoegaze whammy dives. Myles Kennedy and Steve Stevens told us this was their most-listened to album this year. It was mine, too. – MAB

12. TikTok – still kicking, and bringing new audiences to guitar innovation of days past and present

As the sun rose on 2025, it seemed like TikTok would be banned from the US app market, but after a round of rope-tugging between outgoing US President Joe Biden and incoming President Donald Trump, the app lived to see another year – and now it’s bigger than ever before.

Last year, it brought the Darkness’s seminal I Believe In A Thing Called Love, 20 years later, back to the top of the US Rock charts, and this year, it brought a three-decade-old slow-burning Radiohead ballad that nearly broke the band up back, improbably, into the Billboard Hot 100.

It also brought my personal favorite guitar riff of the year – the nasty, nylon-string one that drives Hudson Freeman’s If You Know Me – to the attention of John Mayer. Everyone and their brother has a take on whether TikTok is a force for bad or good, but its power to elevate tunes, riffs, and players into – or back into – the limelight, is indisputable. – JM

13. The metal offset campaign reaches its conclusion

“Are we still talking about metal offsets in 2025?” I hear you ask. Well, yes, we are, because although it’s been a topic of conversation the past few years, the campaign to have them back in the mainstream finally came to a head in 2025.

After spending over a year ogling at Misha Mansoor’s Surfcaster, and drooling over Mike Stringer’s Charvel, our thirst for an accessible offset was quenched when Jackson revived the Surfcaster as an ultra-affordable model at NAMM. Lee Malia was then given a signature version. Aristides also unveiled its STX collection, designed with Stringer.

Sure, some brands have been doing this for a while – Balaguer for one – but before 2025 these things were always a rarity, reserved only for high-end or signature models. The democratization of the metal offset came to the forefront this year. Long may it continue. – MO

14. The notion of the guitar hero is far from dead – it's just being redefined

Who says the concept of the “guitar hero” is dead – or a long-forgotten relic of the past? Like any other notion, it has simply transformed and adapted to the 2020s and the digital age.

Yungblud immediately springs to mind: the Ozzy Osbourne protégé and Aerosmith collaborator has proven he's the embodiment of a 21st-century rockstar. His Back to the Beginning performance was perhaps the most defining “passing of the torch” moment – but rest assured, he's not on his own.

Thomas Raggi, Grace Bowers, Diamond Rowe, Yvette Young, Tim Henson, Christone “Kingfish” Ingram, Sophie Lloyd, Yoyoyoshie, Mateus Asato, Geese's Emily Green and Spiro are just a few of the younger generation of guitarists who are challenging the traditional notion of “guitar hero,” and proving to everyone that, while it may look slightly different, rock ’n’ roll is far from dead. – JB

15. Collaboration not confrontation

It would be a brave writer proclaiming that the guitar industry is not somewhat cutthroat in its business dealings, but it does feel that in the face of adversity in the last 12 months, we’ve seen it pull together in a new way.

NAMM have been directly lobbying Washington over the impact of tariffs, pedal builders (who admittedly have a more fraternal approach among those in the boutique clique) have been highlighting their own plight, and firms of all stripes are realizing they’re in it together when it comes to raising awareness of the cost implications of changing import policies.

On a similar-but-different note, guitar-makers seem to be taking a much more pluralistic approach to their signature deals (Cory Wong’s signature Strat and StingRay, for example) – understanding that it’s better to have the right artist’s name on some of their gear, than force them to commit completely and risk it being on nothing.

I don’t think we’re going to see Gibson and Fender falling out of a bar together anytime soon, but the idea that an iconic guitarist might want to acknowledge that they play both a Strat and a Les Paul no longer seems unthinkable in the eyes of the corporate machine. – MP

16. We got a new contender for Mayer-level feel

Put me in a (gentle, please) headlock, and ask me to name the most lyrical guitar players on the planet, and Mayer and Trucks would be the first names out of my mouth. Buck, if you need a third. But Maya Delilah would be next.

The Fender-backed 25-year-old’s first album on storied jazz label Blue Note dropped this year, and highlights her off-the-charts feel – the dynamic control and soul-searching note choices are pure storytelling. No wonder, given how intertwined she finds lyrics and leads. “If I’ve said exactly what I want to say lyrically, I feel like I need to mirror that with feeling when I play the guitar,” she told us.

It’s not all aching neo-soul solos, though: Delilah does a mean line in sleazy Prince funk and skronky fuzz, too. We can’t wait to see where she goes next. – MAB

17. Jake Kiszka and Chris Turpin conjured old-school guitar magic on Mirador’s debut album

Back in May, Greta Van Fleet’s Jake Kiszka and Ida Mae’s Chris Turpin stopped by Guitar World’s NYC headquarters to discuss their influences and how their six-string chemistry developed, and to play through a selection of the heaviest (and sweetest) tunes featured on the self-titled debut album from their new project, Mirador.

With their partnership hardly public knowledge at that point, I didn’t quite know what to expect when I joined my GW colleagues in the studio for the session. Seeing them plug in and rip from a few feet away, though, showed clear as day the unique wavelength these two found together. Listen to the thundering Mirador standout Fortune's Fate – with its whirlwind Kiszka solo – to hear it for yourself. – JM

18. Jacob Collier’s five-string revolution opened up new ways to think about playing

If 2024 was the year Jacob Collier became known for his guitar chops, 2025 was the year he put in a serious case for being a modern-day guitar hero. He might not be shredding at the speed of light, but he’s doing something even more important: he’s encouraging people to approach the guitar in new ways.

He’s doing that through his five-string guitars, and a symmetrical open tuning that makes playing chords hugely accessible. It also opens up whole new paths for exploring the instrument, and is a reminder that, when we think everything there is to discover has been discovered, there’s still room for so much more.

The proof is in the pudding. Collier’s five-string Strandberg was more popular than the six-string. Players are buying into the five-string. We dare say it could soon be a mainstream option. Viva la revolución. – MO

19. Guitarist biopics are all the rage

2025 has been the year of music – and specifically guitarist – biopics.

The Bob Dylan biopic (and a big shout-out to Joan Baez as well), A Complete Unknown, was released in 2024 but continued buzzing all the way through 2025 with eight Oscar nominations – not too shabby!

Bruce Springsteen’s Deliver Me from Nowhere followed, with high hopes to replicate the success of Dylan’s biopic, albeit to mixed reviews.

Hollywood is also betting big on director Sam Mendes’ four (yes, four) Beatles biopics, while finally shining a long-overdue spotlight on Sister Rosetta Tharpe in an upcoming film starring popstar Lizzo. Oh, and did I mention that the first – and only – authorized biopic of B.B. King was just announced? – JB

20. The redemption of Jake E. Lee

Back to the Beginning was an emotional experience for a lot of reasons, but for me, one of the most compelling parts was the long-overdue redemption of Jake E. Lee in the eyes of Ozzy fans and the wider guitar community.

The man’s main sin of the last 40+ years has essentially been the fact that he was not Randy Rhoads, which is an affliction that I think we can all relate to. But the fact is he was there when he was needed, he did fine work in a tough situation with Bark at the Moon and he – quite literally – did not get the credit he was due.

More miraculously, he mostly refused to badmouth the Ozzy camp, chalking a move that would have destroyed lesser players up to ‘business’.

To see him take to the stage, and to his shock, be greeted by a stadium full of Ozzy fans, led by Nuno Bettencourt, all chanting his name was incredibly moving. – MP

21. It’s easier than ever to practice guitar – and it’s never sounded better

Bit of a personal one, this: I became a dad this year and am therefore legally obliged to tell you about it. My new arrival has made me not only value every spare minute I can find to play guitar, but also realize how fortunate we are to have so many handy practice doodads. I have become reliant on headphones and extremely low-volume mini amps whenever my newborn blesses us with 10 minutes of sleep.

There were some big shifts in that arena this year: Positive Grid brought the price of guitar amp headphones way down with the Spark Neo and Core, and Blackstar and IK Multimedia dropped some serious guitar-jack units that offer proper big-rig tones. It’s devices like this that can keep your skills ticking over when you have to fit the guitar around the people that you love. – MAB

22. Legacy bands gave the people what they want

Each of the last five consecutive decades, guitarist extraordinaire Robert Fripp has completely reinvented the sound and onstage repertoire of his band, King Crimson, and he’s never apologized for it.

With that in mind, one might assume that he’d regard the idea of a group devoted to performing the band’s knotty ‘80s material with disdain. Quite to the contrary, he was delighted by the formation of BEAT – a group comprised of two Crimson alums – vocalist/guitarist Adrian Belew and bass maestro Tony Levin – Tool drummer Danny Carey, and none other than Steve Vai. Fripp even offered some tips to Vai as BEAT worked through their first gigs.

Former frontman John Lydon (Johnny Rotten) has been much less enthusiastic about punk legends the Sex Pistols reuniting with Frank Carter in his place, but the band’s shows have proven to be a rousing success.

Age hasn’t dwindled the audiences for these and countless other legacy acts, and as long as they’re there, many of these bands and artists will be happy to give fans new and old what they crave to hear. – JM

23. Gear nostalgia hit new heights

For every action, there is an equal and opposite reaction. That means, for every step taken in the direction of a futuristic digital utopia, there is also a move to embrace the gear and tones that have come before us.

That force was particularly apparent in 2025, especially through the gear drops that took place and the playing habits of guitarists. JHS Pedals released the Tascam-aping 424 Gain Stage. Gibson and Epiphone launched a Back to the Future ES-345. MXR’s MX100 Rockman repurposed cult classic ’80s tones.

And everyone went nuts for it. Reverb’s end of year stats show the MXR topped its new-to-2025 best-selling pedals. The Epiphone did the same for the guitar list. As companies use cutting edge tech to push the boundaries of guitar gear, it seems an appetite for cult kit of yesteryear is gaining traction. – MO

24. Movie and TV soundtracks are prioritizing guitar

Guitarists have long lent their chops to movie soundtracks. Radiohead's Jonny Greenwood has carved out a niche for himself as a composer, scoring the likes of 2021's The Power of the Dog and 2017's Phantom Thread, while Jimmy Page leveraged his session musician days to write, produce and record an array of instruments for the Death Wish II and III soundtracks.

The tradition continues with each generation of guitarists – in 2025, Yvette Young, Tim Henson, and IDLES played key roles in soundtracks for blockbusters Superman and F1, and Darren Aronofsky’s Caught Stealing, respectively – while shows like Cobra Kai continued to recruit top guitar talent to their musical dojo.

As Young herself told Guitar World earlier this year, in an increasingly oversaturated (and expensive) touring environment, “it's really difficult to figure out how to monetize certain things, especially with streaming being so ass at paying.”

Therefore, soundtracks are proving to be one of the remaining solid avenues where guitarists (and musicians at large) can flex their creativity and still get fairly compensated. – JB

25. AI in music gear = good, AI in music-writing = bad

“Create a statement of 150 words on why AI is good and bad for creativity in 2025.” Oh, hello. My apologies, I was talking to someone else…

AI is now, officially, all-up in just about everything. Gear-wise, it’s gone from ‘press release-worthy’ to ‘accepted norm’ in the space of a year. The debate rumbles on, but I think we can broadly define the conclusion of the musician community thus far as ‘AI in gear = useful’ and ‘AI in writing music = bad’.

The fundamental point of the tech, of course, is to offload all of the boring, repetitive, and fiddly stuff that we don’t want to, or cannot deal with, to leave us free to focus on the things we do want to do. I have a hard time accepting AI will replace musicians, because music is the thing we do for fun, whether listening, or consuming it. It’s, quite frankly, the last thing I’d wish to automate, or direct towards all my copyright material.

The point of music, and any culture, is to express emotions and connect people, to create literal and emotional resonance between humans. I think that process is broken by AI writing or song generation.

On the other hand, browsing and creating patches on a modeler? For me, that often gets in the way of playing, so if I can ask AI to knock a patch together as a starting point, then, I for one, welcome our new robot overlords. – MP

Black Sabbath’s epic farewell show, Back to the Beginning, was a mammoth undertaking for everyone involved. That's especially true for Nuno Bettencourt – the 'MVP' of the event, who ended up playing on 12 songs.

There was one guitar part he drew the line at, though: Jake E. Lee's guitar solo on The Ultimate Sin, which Lee asked him to cover going into the show.

For Back to the Beginning, the Extreme shredder was already pencilled in to play Bark at the Moon, Jake E. Lee’s signature Ozzy tune, which Lee himself couldn't play in light of his health struggles.

But when it was suggested that Nuno could come to his aid one more time, Bettencourt had other ideas.

“At one point, Tom Morello said, ‘Jake said, ‘I know Nuno has a lot on his plate, but could he maybe take the Ultimate Sin solo?’” Bettencourt details in the new issue of Guitar World. “We all know that, as legendary as Jake is, he's struggling a little bit, as we all do as we get older and don't know what's going to happen to our hands and bodies.

“But I told Tom, ‘Give me his phone number right now.’ I texted Jake and told him, ‘You are fucking Jake E. Lee. There's no way in hell I'm taking that solo. You're going to play that solo. And not only that, I'll double it with you, and we'll do it together. Whatever happens, it's going to be fucking incredible,’ and that's what we did.”

The song was intended as Lee’s Plan B. Bettencourt appreciated the situation; Morello, who felt Lee’s presence was integral to the day’s success, was trying to make his life easier.

But Bettencourt felt Lee needed – no, deserved – his time in the spotlight, given the context of the event. So, not only did he refuse to budge on The Ultimate Sin solo, he also walked off stage mid-song during Shot in the Dark, leaving Lee on his own and giving him his time to shine.

“I was supposed to play on Shot in the Dark. I didn't tell anybody I was doing it – but I just walked off the stage,” he laughs.

“I wanted Jake to have his moment without another guitar player stealing his thunder. And Jake nailed it. We all came from one-guitar bands. We didn’t want rhythm guitarists. I wanted Jake to have his one moment up there by himself, so I just left. And Jake nailed it.”

Check out Bettencourt’s new interview in full in the latest issue of Guitar World, which takes an in-depth look at the year in guitar. Grab a copy from Magazines Direct.

Meanwhile, Bettencourt, who recently launched his own guitar brand, has apparently shown off his ice skating skills in a new music video.

Jake E. Lee played some of the biggest stages in the world during his time as Ozzy Osbourne’s lead shredder. And he usually has nerves of steel. But at the Prince of Darkness’s farewell show, the guitarist says the presence of one musician had him sweating.

For Lee, Back to the Beginning was especially poignant. It was the first time he'd seen Ozzy since leaving his band more than three decades ago, having battled health issues and recovered from multiple gunshot wounds to make the gig.

On stage, he nailed his parts, playing The Ultimate Sin and Shot in the Dark, although he had to pivot away from his original song of choice due to difficulties with arthritis. While he was preparing for his big moment in the spotlight, though, one guitarist left him feeling “really nervous.”

“When I got there, I figured I'm still just, ‘Oh yeah, that's Jake. He was in the band once.’ But, at the first rehearsal, I actually got nervous, which I never do,” Lee tells the Talk is Jericho podcast (via Ultimate Guitar).

“It's not in my nature to get nervous,” he adds. “What's going to happen is going to happen. Worrying about it doesn't do anything. But watching Nuno Bettencourt and the musicians rehearsing their songs while I was standing there waiting for my turn, I started to get really nervous, which was weird.”

It’s not unusual to be intimidated by Bettencourt’s flair. He certainly nailed his parts at Villa Park on the day, and has been playing a sensational Ozzy medley with Extreme in the wake of Ozzy’s passing. The man can play. So it took some kind – and quite funny – words of encouragement from a thrash metal bass legend to quell his nerves.

“Frank Bello [of Anthrax] was standing next to me, and he turns to me and he says, ‘I can't wait to watch you,’” Lee recalls. “I'm like, ‘Dude, I'm really nervous.’ And he's like, ‘No, you're Jake E. Lee. You could go up there and fart and we'd applaud.’ That made me feel okay.”

Tom Morello had said the whole show hinged on Lee’s involvement, and backstage at the show, Lee also got the chance to play Kirk Hammett’s famed “Greeny” Les Paul, and immediately fell in love with it.

And though he never got a chance to talk directly with his old boss, a text message he received from Ozzy while waiting for his flight home helped to completely smooth over their once-fractured relationship.

From the moment New York native Anthony Esposito picked up the bass, he knew he was a lifer. “I remember playing and getting calluses, and blood coming off my fingertips,” he says. “But I couldn’t get enough of it.”

That passion led to gigs with George Lynch, Ace Frehley and Jake E. Lee – but Esposito was never just a collaborator; he was a trusted friend, too. “Thank you for acknowledging that,” he says. “But I don’t know why!

“At the beginning of relationships, players like that will ask you questions. Your response will determine whether they can trust you and show if you’re the right fit for the right reasons.”

How did you end up joining Lynch Mob in 1989?

I auditioned for a band on Atlantic Records and lost the gig. But one of the publicists said, “I wanna help you out,” and she got me a bunch of auditions. One was in Arizona with Lynch Mob. I got audition cassettes of them trying out other bass players, so when I showed up they were like, “Do you want us to show you the songs?” I was like, “No, I’m good.”

The first song I played was Wicked Sensation – I knew all the changes and they were shocked! They thought I was this perfect fit, like this freak from another planet who just knew where George was gonna go next!

How did you you get on with George Lynch? He can be pretty quirky.

He’s got a sense of humor that offends a lot of people, but I got along with him great. We spent a lot of time together when we were on tour. I got along with everyone in the band. Mick Brown was dear to my heart.

What was the key to locking in with George?

I didn’t come from a rock background; I came from jazz, punk and upright bass. It was my first real gig and I didn’t really know who George Lynch was. But when I played with him, I understood why he’s so great.

I think not having access to that world showed in my playing. I didn’t sound like every other bass player coming off the Sunset Strip – I wasn’t just playing the straight eighth-note thing that was happening in Dokken. I didn’t look at that gig like I’m sure other guys looked at it.

Did George give a lot of input into your rig?

I’d been turned on to the Kubiki bass. Philip Kubiki, God rest his soul, was a genius. He made this incredible bass which looked a bit high-tech for a rock gig, but I it played so great. That was my cornerstone, and I had an old Fender P-Bass.

But George quickly taught me about endorsements! As soon as I got the gig, I must have called seven bass amp companies and had them send me stuff. I quickly found that Ampegs sat perfectly with what I was trying to do.

After we did Wicked Sensation I was like, “I need a touring rig.” I had them send out stuff for my wall of a backline – but when the tour was over, I sent all the gear back, which shows my ignorance at the time! They were like, “Nobody ever returns anything. You’re like the only guy!”

The original version of Lynch Mob quickly broke down. What happened?

We were on tour with guys like Jeff Tate from Queensrÿche and Tom Kiefer from Cinderella – consummate pros. They don’t miss a note ever, but Oni Logan would take a while to warm up onstage. I don’t think he warmed up before gigs so he struggled for the first couple of songs. George was like, “I’m not waiting until this guy learns how to sing,” and that was that.

You stuck around for another album before departing.

George and I did the lion’s share of interviews when we did press. We’d do like 10 or 12 a day to promote a record. The first question to George was always. “When are you going back to Dokken?” George would say, “No, this is a band. I love being in Lynch Mob.”

But when he fired Oni, and we got Robert Mason to sing on the second record, it was a totally different vibe. George found problems with Robert and wanted to get a third singer. I was like, “If you do a third record with a third singer, it’s gonna look like it’s your solo project until you go back to Dokken.”

I was like, “You have two choices in regards to me. One is to get Oni back, get him vocal lessons, and deal with that. The other is to keep Robert and address the issues that bother you.” I joined because it was a band and an equal split. It wasn’t a hired gun situation, but here he was changing singers like he was changing socks.

But you hooked back up with George in the late ’90s.

That was supposed to be a George Lynch solo album. I was visiting my friend in the A Room of a studio. My friend was like, “You know who is in the D room? George – it’s a solo record. You wanna play on it?” I agreed with it being a George Lynch solo album. Then Robert ends up singing on it and it’s a Lynch Mob album.

I still own a third of the Lynch Mob name because after the issues with Oni were resolved, it went back to a four-way ownership to this day. So I was like, “If you’re gonna call it a Lynch Mob album, I’m entitled to a cut. I’m not just gonna get an amount of dollars to play bass.” The whole thing was weird, but we toured until things fell apart with George, as usual.

When we did the second album he was re-editing the video and redoing the artwork, and I was like, “What the hell are you doing? You’re not an art director! Put your ideas in and have them run with it. We hire amazingly talented people to do this, George. Just play guitar. You gotta get out of your own way.”

I used to tell him that all the time – so it’s funny that, in an interview I just saw, he said something like, “I probably would be better off if I just played guitar!”

You started working with Ace Frehley in 2006. What was he like, having just gotten sober?

When I met Ace I was 11 years sober. We talked a lot about that, worked through that a lot, and started going to meetings. He was really going for it, and I was proud of him for how he handled it. I was introduced to him by a friend of mine, Frankie Gibson, who’s in the Hells Angels.

I went up to the house with a bass. He was in his studio and said, “Let’s play – just plug into that Marshall over there.” It was the red Tolex Marshall he used on the Destroyer tour. Another friend of his, a truck driver called Jeff, was there, too. Ace was like, “Jeff’s gonna play drums.”

I was like, “Great! The first time I’m playing with Ace Frehley, and I’m jamming with a truck driver and playing through a guitar amp!” But it turned out great and we became super-close friends. I was lucky to be brought into his immediate circle of friends – not just music, his real circle.

Many people don’t realize you were instrumental in Ace relaunching his solo career.

He was like, “I wanna do another solo record.” I was like, “I think you should – but I seriously think we should go out on a run before we try to record; get your live chops up and get fierce again.” We put a band together with Scot Coogan and Derek Hawkins, and that was the beginning of that run.

After that two or three-week run, we went in and started working on Anomaly. Ace was like, “I want you to co-write with me,” but I was like, “Honestly, I don’t wanna co-write. I don’t think your fans want to hear what I have to say. You haven’t made a solo album in years. They wanna hear where your head’s at.”

How did you put the music together for Anomaly?

He had all these dictaphones he’d used on the Kiss farewell tour for licks and stuff. We’d find a great verse and put it on a dry-erase board until we could pair it up with another verse. Once we had 10 or 12 pairs that we thought were really good, we brought Anton Fig in and started jamming.

Ace’s second act as a solo artist took off after that. You stayed with him until 2015. Why did you leave?

There’s so much stuff when you’re with Ace; and I was more than just the bass player. I was his friend. You get a target on your back because everybody wants to be that guy who Ace turns to.

I always told him, “The term ‘ex-Kiss guitarist’ opens up a lot of doors, but with that comes the burden of the greatest live rock show ever. You’ve gotta give your fans a show.” I came up with the blue plexiboard baffle boards on the amps, and the big backdrop with the lasers, and the walk-on voice saying, “Your mission, should you choose to accept it…”

Ace was all about it. He loved it, was watching his weight. But a lot of the change had to do with when he started going with Rachel Gordon.

After you left Ace’s band in 2015, you joined Jake E. Lee’s Red Dragon Cartel.

They’d done their first record, and Greg Chaisson had come down with throat cancer, so Jake needed a bass player. My son was the best man at Jake’s wedding. We were sitting on my porch when they were on the phone, and my son said, “Jake wants to know if you wanna play bass with him.”

I was like, “Totally. I’ll do it tomorrow – what do you want me to learn?” That’s just how it goes; I was blessed again to play with another gifted musician. Jake a total musical guy who just happens to be a phenomenal guitar player. I grabbed the gig as hard as I could.

Have you considered why you always seem to end up beside such great but enigmatic guitar players?

I am notoriously known for being brutally honest, even at the risk of losing my gig. Ace loved it because he was surrounded by people who’d say he could do no wrong – they’d just ‘yes’ him to death. I never did that. They want the truth because they wanna know if the direction is right.

I’ve always put my guitar players first, before my own personal gains. With Ace I’d say, “What’s the best thing for his career right now? What should he be doing?” It’s the same with Jake: I put him first. Every once in a while, he’ll ask me what I think, but it’s his band.

And Jake knows very well how he wants to represent himself, so I just wanna help him get his music out to the people in the manner that he’s hearing it. Anything that Jake wants to do, I’d love to be a part of. I’m honored to be his friend, and even more honored to be the guy that he wants to look over to on stage right.

What’s next for you?

Jake’s gone through so much physically and emotionally after losing Ozzy and getting shot. So, his world, I think, could go two ways – he’ll let the music fly out, or not. It’s up to him.

I’m kind of shaken up too. He got shot a year ago, almost to the day that Ace died. And I lost Ace, who was really dear to me. Heaven forbid anything happens to Jake. So, I’m going out there next week just to sit next to him at a bar and catch up.

Billy Strings may be a Grammy-winning bluegrass great, but he's proven to be a dab hand at metal guitar, too, by nailing a cover of Ozzy Osbourne's Bark at the Moon dressed as a werewolf.

Taking the Halloween spirit in full stride, Strings and his band were dressed in a smattering of different costumes, from a Phantom of the Opera nod, to a vampire and Frankenstein's monster, for their show at the CFG Arena in Baltimore.

Playing what looks to be a PRS McCarty electric guitar, Strings is bang on the money with the cover, nailing everything from the tone to the song's iconic guitar solo. It's excellent stuff.

As someone commenting on the cover writes, “You never know what you're gonna get when you go to a Billy Strings concert!”

It’s the latest in a long line of Ozzy tributes that have graced stages since his passing. Already, we've seen Nuno Bettencourt and Extreme get creative with a superlative medley, Wolfgang Van Halen’s tear-jerking Mama I’m Coming Home, and the somewhat divisive all-star medley at the MTV VMAs.

Meanwhile, Strings released two signature Martin guitars at the start of the year, both of which are based on his 1940 D-28 in a move that has parallels with the firm's new releases with Jason Isbell. It follows a signature pedal drop with Chase Bliss last year.

Strings has also had his ear pricked by a musical troubadour who's penned a song about buying guitars.

And if you're not over the Halloween frivolities yet, James Hetfield playing a thrash classic dressed as a Kangaroo might just be the remedy you need.

Although his playing on Ozzy Osbourne’s Bark at the Moon (1983) and The Ultimate Sin (1986) is beloved, Jake E. Lee pulls no punches when it comes to what he feels was his finest hour: 1989’s Badlands.

“I thought it was perfect,” Lee tells Guitar World. “There was nothing wrong with it. I didn’t know if it would sell, but I knew it was something I would be proud of for the rest of my life.”

Lee’s love for Badlands isn’t singular. There’s a legion of devotees who feel it was his best work. The album’s greatness doesn’t just come from the sum of its parts, aka the great songs carried out by Lee, vocalist Ray Gillen, drummer Eric Singer, and bassist Greg Chaisson, but because Lee’s musical aspiration had been pent up.

“I was getting a little frustrated,” Lee says of his latter days with Ozzy Osbourne. “But with Badlands, I could do whatever I wanted. And at that point in time, I was getting really into the blues. And Ray Gillen, when we met up, he wanted to do the same thing. We just did whatever we wanted, and it ended up being more of a blues-rock band.”

Unless you were Stevie Ray Vaughan, Jeff Healey, Robert Cray, or Eric Clapton, the blues was less popular than hard rock and Hollywood metal in the Eighties. But Lee wasn’t interested in diving deep into hair metal and felt that taking a chance on a blues‑driven record would give him the creative freedom he sought.

Lee’s need for sovereignty was one thing, but he also was brimming with confidence, leading to a record that oozes six-string-driven machismo.

“I don’t think a player ever really gets to the point where they think, ‘Oh, this is it. I’m it. This is me. I don’t need to go any further,’ you know?” he says. “You always think you can be a little better.”

Most players might never get there, but with Badlands, Lee came closer than most.

“Just shy of that,” he says. “I did [get there]. I was pretty confident in my playing and the band. I thought, ‘This is the best band in the world, we’ll open for anybody. I don’t care who you are, we’ll open for you, and we might make you sorry.”

Songs like Winter’s Call, Hard Driver, and Devil’s Stomp tell the story. Lee got his wish and couldn’t have been more content. Unfortunately, behind-the-scenes dealings and the decline of hair metal, as Badlands was inaccurately categorized, contributed to the band’s demise in the 1990s. Their albums were pulled from shelves – and digital platforms – for good, at least for now.

Lee looks back on the album fondly, if also despondently. He hopes to get it out back out there for mass consumption one day, though it’s probably more or less out of his hands.

“I was really happy,” he says. “When it all folded, I was just so heartbroken that I didn’t want to do anything anymore. There was a period of a decade where I wasn’t doing anything. It was because I was just so heartbroken over what happened with Badlands.”

After playing with Ozzy for most of the Eighties, how did you want to approach Badlands?

“To be honest, by the end of my tenure with Ozzy, I wanted to branch out more. I always like a hard rock edge to whatever I’m playing, but I wanted to experiment a little more.

“When I was writing new stuff for [Ozzy’s] The Ultimate Sin record, a lot of times Ozzy would say, ‘What’s that? That’s not Ozzy, that’s jazz.’ I’d say, ‘It’s not jazz, but it’s branching out a little bit.’ Ozzy would say, ‘No. This isn’t Frank Zappa, this is Ozzy Osbourne. Go back and write me something else.’”

You wanted to do something different. Was your rig much different from what you used with Ozzy?

“It was pretty much the same as the latter half of Ozzy with Badlands. I used Gibson SGs; I love SGs, but I felt like my sound was based on using the Charvel. So, it was mostly the white Charvel, and I would sometimes double that with either the purple or blue burst Charvel.

“And I had two Marshall heads. One was a plexi and the other was an early aluminum-faceplate Marshall, which had more of an edge, while the plexi was warmer. That was my basic rig.”

One of the best solos on Badlands comes during Winter's Call. Do you remember putting that together?

“I was trying to channel Tommy Bolin. That’s the one where the first note in the solo is kind of off. Paul O’Neill was the co-producer for that album, and he said, ‘Please, that first note, it just throws me for a loop.’ [Laughs] I said, ‘I don’t want to change it. That’s why I like that note so much! I think that note’s perfect.’ He tried bribing me with money.

“He said, ‘I’ll give you 500 bucks right now out of my wallet, and tickets to see Cats, and I’ll buy you dinner at the finest restaurant.’ And he said, ‘I’m not even saying we’ll use another one, I just want to hear one where it’s not that weird note.’ I said, ‘Nope.’ I knew if I recorded another one, somehow, that would end up being it.”

Did you just like it because it was “wrong” or weird?

“I remember I wanted it to be kind of psychedelic-sounding. It’s kind of out of tune, but I liked it so much. We kept it, even though it’s a little bit out of tune. The feel of it, I thought, was really cool. I go through different modes; there was a Locrian mode in there, a Phrygian, and I was doing all these things to try and sound like I took acid in the Sixties. [Laughs]”

Dreams in the Dark was the single, and it’s probably the most pop-sounding song on the album. How did that come about?

“We’d started recording the album in L.A., and halfway through, Atlantic Records said, ‘We don’t hear a single.’ So me and Ray went back to New York and started writing more songs. Winter’s Call was one of them, but they didn’t hear a single. I just said, ‘Okay…’

“Never in my life, before or since, have I tried to write a hit single, but Dreams in the Dark was my attempt at writing a pop song. Without having pressure from the record company, I probably never would have written that song – but it’s a good song.”

Hard Driver was the b-side to Dreams in the Dark and is more in line with your vision for the record, it seems.

“Hard Driver was a song I had sitting around. I had presented it to Ozzy for Bark at the Moon and The Ultimate Sin, but he said he just couldn’t come up with anything. So that’s a song I’d had since my L.A. days, I think.”

Did you find Ray Gillen to be more inspirational to you than Ozzy?

“No. I mean I don’t want to compare them as singers. Ray was an exceptional singer, a once-in-a-lifetime singer as far as actual ability to sing. But Ozzy is a once-in-a-lifetime singer, too. He’s a unique voice. When Ozzy sings, you know it’s Ozzy.

“You don’t confuse him with anybody else. He’s blessed to have a unique voice, and his writing and melodies? He’ll come up with them right away. He’d sing these melodies right off the bat; he never had to work at it. They just came to him.”

Listening back to Badlands, as far as the guitars go, there’s a lot of bravado. Were you very confident in your playing by then?

“Yeah, I was. I was very confident, although I’d never actually considered myself a ‘shredder’ in the true sense. I could [play that way] – and I did – but I always thought there were other aspects of playing, like a more melodic sense, and being more heartfelt, like the solo in Rumblin’ Train.”

And that was different from the canned shred that a lot of “hair metal” players were seemingly purchasing off shelves, so to speak.

“I’m not going to say I thought I was the best in the world, but I thought I was as good as anybody – well, except for Uli Jon Roth or some insane person like that. I thought my playing was at a level where I was maybe as happy as I could be with it.”

There’s a legion of fans who feel Badlands was the best thing you’ve ever done. Do you agree?

“The high point of my musical career, really, was Badlands. I mean, it was also Ozzy because I was thrown into it from playing clubs and into Ozzy, which was wonderful. But with Badlands, as far as creativity, working with other musicians, and having a band unit, that was as good as it ever got.”

Did you feel that way from the first time you listened back to Badlands after wrapping the recording sessions?

“The first time I listened back in ’89 and heard the finished product, I didn’t know if it was going to sell, but I knew it was really, really good. I knew it was, to me, perfect. I worked really hard on the songs, and I was there for everybody while recording. I was there for the mixes, and I thought – and I don’t want to sound like an ego man – it was a beautiful piece of art. It’s too bad you can’t get it anymore, but whatever.”

Badlands can’t be streamed, and physical media isn’t available. Are you planning to change that?

“There might be one thing, but I’ve gotta act on it fast. There might be one way where I can get the masters, and I really need to start working on that because that’s it. There’s a deadline on that.”

There have been a lot of theories, but why has Badlands been buried?

“It was such a mess, that whole thing. There’s been so many theories about why you can’t get it, but it was [co-founder and former president of Atlantic Records] Ahmet Ertegun. It was his decree to bury Badlands. He said he never wanted us to see the light of day again. He was very upset with Ray, and he had a falling out with Paul O’Neill.

“I don’t know exactly what he said, but Ahmet was so upset with Ray – and this is what I’ve heard from people that would know – and he made a decree and said, ‘We’re burying Badlands. I don’t ever want them to see the light of day again. They’re history.’ And he was the man. It was his record company.”

What’s your outlook on this music, which clearly meant a lot to you, seeing the light of day again?

“Who knows? I imagine that someday, depending on who’s present at the label, someone will say, ‘We’ve punished them enough.’ There’s potential for making money here because lots of people would love to see that album out again. There’s a lot of interest in it.

“The fact that it’s so buried and hard to get has added somewhat to its legend. But eventually, because this is the way corporations go, somebody’s gonna say, ‘We’ll make some money off it. Let’s put it out again.’ I hope!”

• This article first appeared in Guitar World. Subscribe and save.

All’s been quiet for several years on Jake E. Lee’s proverbial Western Front. The guitarist has taken extended breaks before, like the one after the demise of his beloved Badlands in 1993. Still, after forming Red Dragon Cartel in 2013 and reeling off two well-regarded records in 2014’s Red Dragon Cartel and 2018’s Patina, the thought was that Lee was back to stay. Covid put a pin in that, as it did with most sectors of the world.

Making matters worse is that Lee suffers from particularly nasty arthritis in his right hand, leaving him with “basically no cartilage.” That’s painful, but probably not nearly as painful as a life-threatening incident in October 2024, when he was shot multiple times while walking his dog near his home in Las Vegas.

After intense physical therapy, Lee is recovering well. While none of his injuries were life-threatening, one of the areas of his body damaged during the shooting was his left arm, making his guitar playing even more painful, not that Lee pays much attention to that. “I can live with some pain,” he says. “That’s why they created alcohol.” [Laughs]

Lee’s outlook is nice to hear. Then again, what choice does he have? What else could he do when faced with a wounded left arm and a cartilage-less right hand? One option is that he could quit, which is more or less what he did after Covid forced Red Dragon Cartel off the road in 2020. He was in pain, which he could handle, but time was on his side, so why not?

The results of the time off have been good. When not in physical therapy, Lee has been pulling out his vintage guitars, of which he admits to having too many. He’s reconnecting with SGs, his ’58 Les Paul and various hollow and semi-hollowbodies.

He’s also writing, though not recording, music of his own. Instead, he’s dipping his toe back into the water by laying down a bluesy solo on a yet-to-be-named album by fellow Las Vegas resident and Count’s 77 guitarist, Stoney Curtis.

Oh, and he found time to participate in the Back to the Beginning event in Birmingham, England, on July 5, where his old boss, the late Ozzy Osbourne, regrouped for the last time with his Black Sabbath colleagues Tony Iommi, Geezer Butler and Bill Ward.

As you’ll already know, Lee played in Ozzy’s solo band from 1982 to ’87, appearing on the metal legend’s Bark at the Moon and The Ultimate Sin albums in 1983 and ’86.

Lee featured prominently in the Back to the Beginning event’s first supergroup, a band put together by the show’s curator, Rage Against the Machine’s Tom Morello.

The stellar nature of the lineup – Lzzy Hale (Halestorm), Mike Bordin (Faith No More), Nuno Bettencourt (Extreme), David Ellefson (ex Megadeth), Adam Wakeman (Ozzy), David Draiman (Disturbed), Whitfield Crane (Ugly Kid Joe) and II (Sleep Token) – made the performance Lee’s highest-profile appearance since his Ozzy days.

You can see him on YouTube ripping through The Ultimate Sin, Shot in the Dark, Sweet Leaf, Believer and Changes, the last of these featuring Gen-Z’s poster-boy of the moment, Yungblud, on vocals.

All of this leads to Lee branding this period of his guitar-playing life as a “rebirth.” His mind knows what to do, but his body is lagging behind; still, the outlook is good. “It’s made it interesting,” Lee says. “It’s like I’m relearning the guitar, even though I know how to play it. I’m having fun.”

Jake E. Lee knows a thing or two about fun. He’s shredded beside Ozzy, dropped two of the best records of the hair-metal era in 1989’s Badlands and 1991’s Voodoo Highway, and proved to the world that he still had the goods with Red Dragon Cartel.

But time waits for no one, and to be fair, Lee has never minded retreating when needed. “I’ve taken breaks from the guitar before,” he says. “I always come back refreshed.”

Lee admits this time was different. “It had never been to this length before,” he says. “There were a couple of years where I just didn’t play, unless I was writing something. It’s refreshing. It clears your mind.”

With his left arm getting stronger each day, and a new technique that compensates for the lack of cartilage in his right hand, the outlook for Lee is the best that it’s been in a long time.

For a second, it looked as if he’d have to have surgery to fuse the bones in his right hand, leaving his wrist locked up – but there’s clearly no need for that procedure right now, as fans found out in England on July 5.

This interview took place before Ozzy’s passing on July 22, 2025.

How are you healing up after being shot in October 2024?

“I’ve healed up pretty good. I got shot through the forearm and lost a lot of feeling in my left hand, which doesn’t really affect my playing, but it feels weird. But most of that came back. And I just got finished doing physical therapy for my right wrist because I have arthritis, but that’s getting better. It’s a lot of strengthening and stretching – and steroid shots.”

You recently talked about how there’s no cartilage left in your right hand. How do you compensate for that?

“I have arthritis in my right hand, and they said the cartilage is basically gone. I can’t feel it; it’s bone on bone. I’ve had to adjust my playing style to where I’m using mostly the elbow on the right hand, trying to use as much elbow movement as I can, while keeping the wrist movement down to a minimum. The only operation they had available was to fuse the bones together, and then my wrist would pretty much be locked in. I didn’t want to do that.”

Is the pain manageable while playing?

“There’s some pain, but it’s not that big of a deal. Let me quote [the 1989 movie] Road House by saying, 'Pain don’t hurt,' you know what I mean? [Laughs] I’ve had back issues forever, and wrist pain isn’t anything compared to that.”

Are there any techniques you’re accustomed to that you can’t do anymore?

“I usually use a heavy pick, but I went to a lighter one. It forced me to have a lighter touch with my right hand, and that’s been interesting. And my left hand is a little bit weak, so lately I’ve been playing with sevens to force myself to have a lighter touch. And it’s interesting because Billy Gibbons uses sevens, and that's what Tony Iommi and Brian May use, I think, and they don’t have a problem with getting a good tone.”

Do you feel like you’re almost having to relearn how to play guitar?

“I’m enjoying the sevens right now because it’s a whole different technique as far as the left and right hands. It’s interesting, because, in a way, it’s like learning to play guitar again. But I know how to play guitar, you know? Mentally – and as far as theory and all that – I know exactly what to do, but I have to teach my left and right hands to accommodate me.”

How do you think the Back to the Beginning concert went? I know you experienced some technical difficulties.

“Yeah, there were a few. [Laughs] There was this whole setup, like, ‘Has anybody seen Jake?’ And I was backstage, and I knew my guitar needed tuning, and I kept saying, ‘Where’s the rest of the band? Shouldn’t I be out there?’ But they said, ‘No, we’re not ready for you!’ I was like, ‘Okay… can I go out now?’ They said, ‘Okay, you can go.’ Then they led me to stage right, and I said, ‘Shouldn’t I be stage left? I’m playing over there…’ But they said, ‘No, you’ve got to go this way…’

“So I came out, and I hadn’t heard anything, but Nuno [Bettencourt] had the crowd chanting my name. And I walked out and Lzzy [Hale] and Nuno are doing little bows to me. [Laughs] Then Nuno grabbed me and gave me a kiss on the cheek!”

Once you got rolling, what was the experience like?

“The crowd was chanting my name. It was overwhelming. I’m surprised I didn’t trip and fall down. [Laughs] But because of all that, I was a little out of tune – but it was worth it. To have that introduction and reaction was good for my soul. And then, with Shot in the Dark, we rehearsed it a certain way, but I think David got a little excited and jumped ahead. So I didn’t get to do my cool harmonics at the beginning, but that’s okay! Did I play my best? Maybe not. Was I in tune? Maybe not. Was it fantastic and amazing? Absolutely.”

How did you feel physically and emotionally, especially in front of such a huge crowd?

“It was a trip. My wrist was a bit sore, but I’ve gotten used to that. I practiced my ass off for the last couple of months on those two songs, so my wrist is used to being a bit sore. And I get to rest it now! But I haven’t played in front of that many people in decades. It was very heady, if you know what I mean.”

You’re known for using your Charvel, but are you trying anything different during this rebirth?

“I have a lot of guitars. I’ve recently been going through them; I have too many. [Laughs] They’ve been sitting in their cases for a long time! I have a ’58 Les Paul Special that I love, and I just brought it out to do some recording with Stoney Curtis. He asked me to do a solo on it, so I brought the ’58 Les Paul, and it’s blues, so the Les Paul fit that perfectly.

What other guitars are you taking out of mothballs lately?

“I have a bunch of old guitars, like a ’63 SG Junior. I love SGs, and I’ve been bringing them out. It’s fun. And I like a wide variety, like hollowbodies; I’ve been really into hollowbodies and semi-hollowbodies lately. They just have a different feel and resonance. I like playing a lot of different guitars because it makes you play a little differently.”

You played a purple custom Charvel at Back to the Beginning. What’s the story there?

“In the Ozzy days, I had my white one, a purple burst and a blue burst. Charvel reissued the white and blue ones, and I’ve been hassling them about getting the purple burst out there. So when this came up, I said, ‘What better promo would there be than for me to come out with a purple burst and have people start asking about it?’ So they made me one.”

“It’s a sweet guitar, and it’s a little different from the versions Charvel has come out with. It’s a Gibson-scale length, with the jumbo frets up to the 12th and then thinner frets above that. I can get a little more meat on the string and a little more wood underneath. And it’s a roasted maple neck, and the body – I think they call it ‘cooked ash,’ so it’s lighter, and they get all the moisture out of it.

“It’s beautiful. Hopefully they’ll come out with a version of it. Also, Kirk Hammett let me play his Greeny Les Paul backstage. I can confirm that it’s a magical piece of wood. I didn’t want to put it down – didn’t want to leave it. I’ve missed it ever since! It’s so resonant; it just sings. I almost wish I’d never played it! [Laughs] Nah – I’m glad I got to bask in its magic, if for just a while.”

Are there any updates to your signature Friedman guitar amps?

“Not too long ago, we came out with the 50-watt [JEL-50]. We also did the 20-watt [JEL-20] and the IR [IR-J Dual Tube Preamp] pedal. The 100-watt [JEL-100] isn’t available anymore; that was a limited run. That was a pretty specialized beast. I don’t think there are a lot of guitar players who can get away with using a 100-watt amp.”

Were there any other additions to your rig on the Friedman side for the show?

“Yes. I used the Friedman IR, the Jake E. Lee version. I figured since it was all rental stuff – rental Marshalls – I didn’t know how many people would be playing through it and what the settings would be like. It’s easier for me to have the IR and have it preset so I could just plug in the effects loop and be all set.”

What was it like reconnecting with Ozzy, who you hadn’t seen in decades?

“I did get to talk to him. There was a big photoshoot a couple days before the gig, and I talked with Sharon, and she brought me over to Ozzy. There’s no ill will; there has never been any on my part. Business is business. I don’t think anything they ever did was to try and fuck over Jake; it was always about business. I didn’t know how they’d be, but they were amazing, friendly, open, welcoming and loving. I hadn’t seen either of them in decades, and after the show, on the flight back, I got a text from Ozzy.”

What’d he say?

“He said he was sorry he couldn’t spend more time with me. And he said that when he got back to LA, he’d shoot me a text and maybe we could get together and shoot the shit for a while. Everything’s cool. I’m glad it’s resolved and everybody still likes each other.”

Do you see this as closure on the Ozzy chapter of your life – and maybe even a rebirth since you’ve been away for so long?

“There’s a certain amount of closure. For years, in the back of my head, it was like, “I hope I get to see Ozzy one more time.” I would’ve hated for the last time I spoke to him to be in 1987. I wanted to tell him I’m grateful for the opportunity he gave me. [Back to the Beginning] was the perfect place to do it – so I did it, and he thanked me. That was a big bucket-list check-off.”

Are you working on new music with Red Dragon Cartel?

“I still write. I quit playing guitar for a couple of years because my wrists were hurting, and when Covid came around, I canceled the last Red Dragon Cartel tour. I said, ‘Okay, this will give me a break,’ and I just quit playing guitar for a couple of years.”

Where does that leave you as far as recording and touring in the future?

“Part of the process now is getting the muscles back into it – but I do still get ideas, usually as I’m falling asleep. [Laughs] But I’ll get out of bed, pick up the guitar and record them.”

What’s next?

“I’d like to do a tour with Red Dragon Cartel, because we never really got to finish off touring for Patina. We got cut off halfway through because of Covid. After that, we’ll see. But I like doing guest spots. It’s challenging, but Stoney’s a friend. I knew I could go in there, and if I played like crap, he’d tell me, ‘This isn’t really up to snuff.’ I’m open to doing that right now and then getting Red Dragon Cartel out on the road.”

• This article first appeared in Guitar World. Subscribe and save.

Jake E. Lee has opened up about how his growing arthritis struggles have affected his playing, while also reflecting on the “fun” he's experiencing of having to reinvent his approach to the electric guitar and the gear he uses.

For many guitar players, the thought of arthritis is the stuff of nightmares. Arthritis is the breakdown of the protective cartilage that cushions the ends of our bones, with joint inflammation, pain, and stiffness all common side effects. For those who experience it in their hands and wrists, it can be a serious hindrance to their ability to play guitar.

Lee suffers from it in his right wrist, and in the past it has forced him to be selective over the songs he plays. But he’s in good spirits about it – he’s seeing the positive side of the challenge.

“It's a lot of strengthening, stretching, and steroid shots,” he tells Guitar World of his recuperation, which includes recovering from multiple gunshot wounds from October 2024.

“The cartilage is basically gone,” he expands. “I can't feel it; it's bone on bone. I've had to adjust my playing style to where I'm using mostly the elbow on the right hand, trying to use as much elbow movement as I can, while keeping the wrist movement down to a minimum. The only operation they had available was to fuse the bones together. My wrist would be pretty much locked in. I didn’t want that.”

The pain, he says, isn’t the top of his concerns, quipping, “I've had back issues forever, and wrist pain isn't anything compared to that.” But he’s also had to tweak his setup to aid his adjustments.

“I usually use a heavy pick, but I went to a lighter one,” he says. “It forced me to have a lighter touch with my right hand, and that's been interesting. My left hand is a little bit weak, so lately I've been playing with seven [gauge strings] to force myself to have a lighter touch.

“And it's interesting because Billy Gibbons uses sevens, and that's what Tony Iommi and Brian May use, I think, and they don't have a problem with getting a good tone.”

The parallels with Iommi are obvious. The accident he suffered – which cost him the tips of two of his fingers and his ability to play a Les Paul – saw him needing lighter gauge strings to make playing easier. Gibbons, meanwhile, found that thinner strings gave him more fluidity across the fretboard.

“It's made it interesting. In a way, it’s like learning to play guitar again, even though I know how to play it,” Lee adds. “I'm having fun. Mentally – and as far as theory – I know exactly what to do, but I have to teach my left and right hands to accommodate me.”

Speaking in the new issue of Guitar World, the former Ozzy Osbourne guitarist revealed he played Kirk Hammett’s legendary Greeny Les Paul backstage at Back to the Beginning.

Lee’s full interview features in the latest issue of Guitar World, alongside Spinal Tap’s Nigel Tufnel’s comments on selling guitars for cheese.

Head to Magazines Direct to pick up a copy.

When Gus G joined Ozzy’s band after Zakk Wylde left in 2009, at 29 years of age, he had been around the block a few times with his band Firewind, but admits that he was a “starving musician.”

“I'm from Greece, and that's not a country that's known for its metal scene or impact,” Gus tells Guitarist. Ozzy's music was like a gateway for me to escape from the small country I come from and allowed me to dream big.”

Gus was drafted into Ozzy’s ranks with the understanding that he’d tour the world and make an album, which ended up being 2010’s Scream. With that, he admits to having “doubts” about his performance and fearing the “hate” he might receive from the fans.

“I'm sure he knew it must've been nerve-racking for a kid like me to all of a sudden be filling in these big shoes of these legendary players,” Gus says of Ozzy’s view on his induction into his band.

Gus’s concern was ultimately for naught, as he stuck with Ozzy until old pal Zakk Wylde returned in 2017 for Ozzy’s No More Tours II, which was to be his final jaunt. Gus admits this was a blow, and save for an occasional email with Ozzy’s wife and manager, Sharon Osbourne, he lost contact with Ozzy thereafter.

However, he’s gained perspective since. “I look at my time with him as someone who helped fill a gap for a couple of years while Ozzy and Zakk needed some time off from each other,” he says. “I'm a fan just like everyone else.”

Like the rest of us, Gus was watching when Ozzy performed his final gig solo and with Black Sabbath in Birmingham, on July 5, 2025. “Ozzy was very strong,” he says of the performance. “I'm sure he gave everything he had and lived for the final gig in Birmingham.”

As for how he looks back on his time in Ozzy’s latter-day band, Gus shrugs, saying, “My deal was for one album and one tour, and they kept calling me to tour for a few more years. So, I must've done something right.”

“But most importantly,” he adds. “I had a lot of fan support throughout the years, and they're the final judge, as you know. So, if the majority of fans were pleased and enjoyed the shows, then we did a good job.”

What are your memories of first meeting Ozzy? Is it true that he invited you to audition for his band via email?

“Yes, that's right. In the summer of 2009, I got an email from management asking me if I'd be interested in auditioning for Ozzy's band. Of course, I was starstruck when I first met him. I couldn't believe I was in the same room as him.

“But he was very cool and broke the ice right away. When I landed in LA and checked in at my hotel, he called me and told me not to worry about it and that he had ‘a good feeling’ about me. He just encouraged me to play with my heart and not worry about mistakes.”

How important was Ozzy’s music to you growing up?

“I grew up listening to Black Sabbath's Ozzy-era records. Sabbath drew me to the heavy metal culture instantly and inspired me to want to start my own band. I remember daydreaming as a teenager and wandering the streets of my hometown [Thessaloniki, Greece], listening to Master of Reality on cassette.”

Coming in after heavy-hitting players like Randy Rhoads, Jake E. Lee, and Zakk Wylde, why do you think Ozzy chose you, a relative unknown, at the time?

“I have no clue, and I’ll never find out, I guess. I was told that someone showed him a video of me on YouTube, and he went, ‘That's the guy.’ He had a great musical ear, and he knew what he liked and what he didn't like. I guess that he heard my sound and felt it would fit right in. I can’t think of anything else.”

Generally, what did Ozzy expect from his guitar players? And underlying, what did you sense that he needed?

“He never came in with any demands. He was always polite and encouraging. So, he always told me to be myself and play with my heart. Nothing else was discussed, really. I tried to do the best job that I could do. I practiced a lot, showed up on time, and played like there was no tomorrow.”

After joining Ozzy’s band, what are your memories of the early rehearsals?

“We did long rehearsals for a month in LA. At some point, we rehearsed most of Sabbath’s catalogue from the ’70s. The band spent a lot of time rehearsing and getting tight together as a unit. I think it showed on the world tour that followed.”

What did you bring to Ozzy’s sound that was different than past players? Did you take influence from them?

“I want to think that I brought a new energy and my own vibe, which is more European, I guess? [Laughs] It’s hard to analyze it myself. And, of course, I'm a huge fan of Randy, Jake, and Zakk, and I've been heavily influenced by all three of them. They were my school of guitar playing; I grew up on them.”

What was it like learning Tony Iommi, Randy, Jake, and Zakk’s parts? And which of those players did you find to be the trickiest to emulate?

“I've been asked this a lot in the past years. It was very exciting to dig deep into each player's style and re-learn it, so to speak. I tried to keep close to the original recordings, but of course, with my own tone and sound. I think the hardest one to emulate must have been Tony Iommi.”

Is that because of the hyper-idiosyncratic nature of his playing and the disability associated with his fingers?

“Yes. His playing is so unconventional. Maybe cause he's missing the tips of two of his fingers. But he slightly bends strings, even when he plays riffs. Also, his sense of timing is unique. I could never sound like Tony Iommi; nobody can. But I loved playing the Sabbath stuff every night.”

Did you use similar gear or your own rig on tour and in the studio?

“I used my own gear completely. Around that time, I started using Blackstar amps, and the Series One 200 amp is the one you hear on the Scream album, but also on the world tour. Of course, I already had my own signature guitars back then with ESP, so I used those.”

How did you approach the making of Scream, and what was it like writing with Ozzy?

“It was a wonderful experience, and we recorded it at Ozzy's home studio. So, every morning, [producer] Kevin Churko would pick me up from the hotel, and we'd drive to Ozzy's house. We'd have coffee and breakfast and then head downstairs and start working on the songs.

“We took our time and made sure everything sounded right. Also, working with Kevin was a big experience for me. He's an excellent songwriter, besides being a producer and engineer. My approach was just to try to add guitars.

“It was an already recorded album, so I tried to give it that Ozzy stamp and vibe. And have a few bits here and there that were reminiscent of his classic players. But of course, I brought my own game when it came down to the solos.”

How do you feel Scream’s legacy has evolved with time, compared to other records with Randy, Jake, and Zakk?

“It’s hard for me to say. I still think Scream is a strong album overall and has some fantastic moments. It's more up to the fans to decide, but I do get a lot of comments still from the young generation of that time, who discovered Ozzy from the Scream album.

“They tell me how much it means to them. I guess it's partly a generational thing. On the other hand, the classics are the classics. His early albums are the staples of his career and of the heavy metal genre in general.”

You left Ozzy’s band after he reunited with Zakk Wylde in 2017. What was that like, and was it difficult news to take at the time?

“Of course, I was bummed ‘cause I knew I'd probably never see him or play with him again. On the other hand, it totally made sense. Ozzy and Zakk have so much history together; those guys had to get back at some point. It was inevitable.”

How did your relationship with Ozzy evolve after you left? Did you stay in touch? And did you get to talk with Zakk at all thereafter?

“I last saw Ozzy at Graspop Festival in Belgium in 2016; that was the last time. He was there with Sabbath, and Firewind was playing that day as well. Honestly, we didn't stay in touch after I left. There was an occasional email to Sharon just to see how Ozzy's doing after his [quadbike] accident [which damaged his neck].

“But nothing besides that. He was always in my thoughts, and I hoped he'd get through this. As for Zakk, I bumped into him at a festival in France a couple of years ago and we spoke a bit. He's always been very nice to me.”

There’s no denying that Ozzy was special. He is beloved worldwide. But for you, someone who played with him, how will you remember the man and the musician?

“Ozzy was everything you imagined him to be. Proper rock royalty, very caring for those around him, big-hearted, generous, and super-funny. He was the funniest guy I've ever met. His aura was so strong that when he walked into a room, everyone stopped immediately and looked at him.”

Where do you think your career might have gone if you’d never met or played with Ozzy?

“I owe so much to Ozzy and Sharon for giving me that opportunity. It changed my life forever. Sure, I had my band before I met the Osbournes and made records, but I was a starving musician. Everything changed after I worked with him. So many opportunities and doors opened for me, and of course, playing with Ozzy has been such a huge part of my music career.”

How do you look back on your place within the canon of Ozzy’s players?

“I remember at some point, while recording Scream, I was having doubts about myself and my abilities, and I said to Kevin Churko, Ozzy's producer, ‘I'll probably get a lot of hate when the new album comes out, and people will think I'm the worst guitarist he's ever had.’

“And Kevin said to me, ‘I don't think so. But even if that happens, at least you were one of them, and how many people can say that?’ But all things considered, I think I did well during a transitional phase for Ozzy.”

Jake E. Lee has joked that he regrets playing Kirk Hammett’s legendary Greeny Les Paul during Black Sabbath’s blockbuster bow out, because now it’s all he can think about.

While the onstage performances at Back to the Beginning were off the scale, backstage was also teeming with rock royalty. It provided many with the chance to rub shoulders with musicians they’d never met before, or, as was the case for Jake E. Lee and his former boss, Ozzy Osbourne, reconnect with those they had not seen in decades.

In fact, while backstage at the gig, Lee also got the opportunity to play a rather iconic electric guitar.

“Kirk Hammett let me play his Greeny Les Paul backstage. I can confirm that it's a magical piece of wood,” he tells Guitar World. “I didn't want to put it down – didn't want to leave it. I've missed it ever since! It's so resonant; it just sings.

“I almost wish I'd never played it,” he laughs. “Nah – I'm glad I got to bask in its magic, if for just a while.”

The Gibson Les Paul was first made famous in the hands of Fleetwood Mac founder, Peter Green, who insisted that Gary Moore took it off his hands when he left the group. The Metallica marksman is its third high-profile owner. It's heralded for its mythical middle position guitar tone, and though Hammett was reluctant to buy it at first, it's become one of his most important six-strings.

Lee, whose health issues forced him to pivot to plan B on the night, wielded another intriguing axe onstage. It was a Charvel with a gorgeous deep purple burst, and its origins were steeped in mystery. Thankfully, Lee was happy to spill the tea.

“In the Ozzy days, I had my white one, a purple burst, and a blue burst,” he explains. “Charvel reissued the white and blue ones, and I've been hassling them about getting the purple burst out there. So when this came up, I said, ‘What better promo would there be than for me to come out with a purple burst and have people start asking about it?’ So they made me one.

“It's a sweet guitar, and it's a little different from the versions Charvel has come out with,” Lee details. “It's a Gibson-scale length, with the jumbo frets up to the 12th and then thinner frets above that. I can get a little more meat on the string and a little more wood underneath. It's a roasted maple neck, and the body – I think they call it ‘cooked ash,’ so it's lighter, and they get all the moisture out of it.”

Lee goes on to say he hopes the “beautiful” guitar will receive a proper production run, and he won’t be alone in thinking that. For now, fingers will be crossed.

Jake E. Lee’s full interview with Guitar World features in the latest issue of the magazine, which has just been released. Head to Magazines Direct to grab a copy.

Read the tributes to Ozzy Osbourne since his death in July at the age of 76, and you’ll hear salutes to every side of his considerable skill set. The flesh-creeping feline yowl. The underrated ear for a melody. The knack for turning a macabre lyric. The madhouse stage presence.

But whatever else he was in life – heavy-metal icon, reality TV pioneer, berserker, survivor – Osbourne was no guitarist. As the Black Sabbath and solo star readily admitted, to cast him as a ‘musician’ in the traditional sense – or as an ‘instrumentalist’ in any sense – was off the mark.

“I don’t play an instrument, I don’t understand music, I can’t even play chords on a guitar,” Osbourne insisted in one video interview with his son, Jack. During a separate 2017 encounter with Rolling Stone, a rueful note crept into the frontman’s voice. “That’s one of my biggest regrets. I can play a little bit of harmonica, and that’s about it. It’s been interesting, because I can’t communicate on a musical level with other musicians.”

Unlike other figures we have bade farewell to in 2025 – among them Mick Ralphs, Brian James and Joe Louis Walker – Osbourne never put fingers to fretboard to play a single classic riff, much less an essential solo or trailblazing technique. And yet, his impact and influence on the guitar scene over the past half-century is deep, profound and undeniable.

Remove the singer from the narrative and some of the rock era’s greatest six-string moments would either never have existed or else gone down in a drabber, much-diluted fashion. Lift him from the timeline – were such a thing even possible – and a fistful of hungry young rough diamonds might never have caught their break or blossomed into all-time greats.

It feels a little glib to cast him as ‘the heavy-metal John Mayall’, but perhaps there’s something in the comparison. Like the Brit-blues godfather – or, indeed, that other supreme talent-spotter, David Bowie – Osbourne had an eye for untapped genius and the ability to ignite it.

Time and again, he drew hard-rock and metal’s most promising gunslingers to him like an industrial magnet, then lit the fuse that turned base metal into gold.

“It’s like shopping for a new suit,” Osbourne told Guitar World’s Brad Tolinski of his recruitment policy. “There may be a whole rack of blue suits, but only one will grab you. There’s no ritual, there’s no formula. I’ve just been lucky that everybody’s liked my taste in guitar players.”

Osbourne’s first guitar foil, of course, does not belong in this category. Even in his early 20s, Tony Iommi was no ingénue in need of a guiding hand.

Rightly recognised as the chief architect of Sabbath’s thunderous, industrial shudder, his steely de facto leadership meant the Birmingham band would likely have gained a level of notice with or without Ozzy onboard.

Yet the best rock ’n’ roll has counterpoint, and it is hopefully not sacrilege to argue that Iommi’s pulverising SG grooves – especially after he began drop-tuning for songs like Children Of The Grave – might have been too torpid, too sludgy, too heavy without Osbourne’s insistent, agonised upper-register vocal as a catalyst.

From Paranoid to Iron Man, the riffs landed so hard precisely because of that tension between razor’s edge and blunt instrumentation.

His firing from Sabbath in ’79 should have been the end of Ozzy. But while future wife Sharon Arden must take credit for pulling the drug-wrecked singer out of the dirt, his nascent solo career only flew thanks to him identifying the neo-classical wizard Randy Rhoads as a breath of fresh air among the Iommi clones lining the corridor to audition.

“I was all over the fucking place,” Osbourne told this writer in 2011. “But fucking hell, when I first heard Randy play, it was poetry in motion. I thought, ‘Wow, I’m onto a good thing here.’ Who knows why we worked so well. Who knows the answer to anything. But sometimes you’ll meet a girlfriend and it’s more than just a night in the sack.”

Osbourne and Rhoads – with vital input from bassist Bob Daisley and drummer Lee Kerslake – were a true creative team, fixing each other’s holes, working nose-to-nose and exploring tone and pitch to ensure both vocals and guitars exploded from the mix on standouts like Crazy Train and Mr Crowley.

“I’d give him a melody, and he’d work a riff around it,” the frontman told journalist Jas Obrecht. “What we both worked out [was], every heavy metal band sticks to one key. So we made a rule that every number we recorded was never played in the same key.”

The magnanimous singer even defied record label bosses to let his then-unknown junior partner perform an unaccompanied classical vignette, Dee, on 1980’s Blizzard Of Ozz.

In hindsight, it was an unprecedented and ballsy move for a make-or-break debut solo album.

“For me,” Osbourne told this writer, “if it’s just fucking headbanging from start to finish, that’s not an album, it’s just a fucking racket. So when Randy says to me, ‘Do you mind if I put this classical instrumental piece on?’, I said, ‘What are you fucking asking me for? It’s your album as well. Just go for it, y’know?’”

Two years later, Rhoads’ death at 25 in a stupid, senseless prank-gone-wrong might have put Osbourne back to square one. Yet the singer somehow managed to replace the irreplaceable, unearthing a volley of stellar players and urging them to contribute.

Some were dazzling-but-transient placeholders, like Brad Gillis or Bernie Tormé. Others, though, stuck around to become part of the mythology. Jake E Lee proved a tough and fiery sideman when he joined for 1983’s Bark At The Moon.

Later that decade, a Viking-haired Rhoads acolyte named Zakk Wylde was pumping gas until divine intervention (or glorious dumb luck, you decide) led Ozzy’s hand to his audition tape.

“You can imagine how many guitarists sent in their résumés – it was fucking mind-boggling,” recalled the frontman in an interview with Joe Bosso.

“So after a while, Sharon started bugging me – ‘When are you gonna listen to these tapes?’ I just didn’t want to deal with it. So one morning I decided, ‘I gotta do this.’ I stuck my hand in a bag and pulled out a tape, and Zakk’s tape was the first and only one I listened to.”

Once again, Osbourne and Wylde’s partnership bore instant fruit (“Back then it was just us in a room jamming,” the guitarist told Andrew Daly. “We’d be blasting it out in a room. The first song we worked on was Miracle Man…”).

And even when Wylde stepped away from the line-up in the post-millennium to tend to Black Label Society, the ripples kept spreading, with one Osbourne Band axeman informing the next.

“I grew up on Ozzy and Sabbath – if you’re into heavy metal, that’s your father,” late-period sideman Gus G told That Metal Interview podcast, adding in a separate interview with Rob Laing that “the first Ozzy album I got on cassette was Diary of a Madman. When I first heard Randy, I thought, ‘Whoa, who is this guy…?’”

No guitarist, then. But Osbourne’s passing marks the exit of both metal’s most captivating frontman and a lightning rod for the genre’s towering players.

Perhaps Wylde spoke most succinctly for the long line of Osbourne alumni – not to mention the wider hard-rock guitar scene – when he laid it on the line in a 2015 interview with Australia’s Heavy magazine.

“Without Ozzy, I wouldn’t be talking here with you right now. The thing is, with Ozzy, he introduces you to the world, and whatever you want to do is up to you…”

• This article first appeared in Guitarist. Subscribe and save.

Things might have gotten messy during his time in Ozzy Osbourne’s band in the early ‘80s, but Jake E. Lee can set that aside and because of what the late Prince of Darkness meant to him.

“He changed everything for me,” Lee tells Guitarist. “He put me in the spotlight. Whether that would have happened if I hadn’t been in his band is anybody’s guess.”

Lee had to deal with the added pressure of replacing Randy Rhoads, who’d died in a plane crash in 1982. A maverick with no interest in imitating Rhoads or becoming a fashionable Eddie Van Halen clone, he struggled to connect with Ozzy on a personal level.

They weren’t like brothers and they weren’t best friends. In fact, Sharon Osbourne allegedly pressured the young and green Lee into signing a contract that saw him miss out of writing credits and boatloads of cash associated with 1983’s Bark at the Moon.

As a result, while recording 1986’s The Ultimate Sin, Lee fought for proper payment and credit – which likely contributed to his firing in 1987. But even so, Lee says he liked Ozzy.

“He had a rare personality. A lot of people are kind and have those same qualities, but it really shone from him. He was this clownish, funny, sweet guy; I always felt that way and I think everybody else felt it too. That’s why it’s so hard to fully comprehend that he’s gone.”

After his dismissal, Lee did just fine for himself with Badlands and Red Dragon Cartel. He didn’t keep in touch with Osbourne, and as time passed, he started to feel that, compared to Rhoads and Zakk Wylde, his accomplishments with Ozzy weren’t important.

Still, time heals most wounds, and years later Osbourne himself acknowledged Lee’s writing contribution to Bark at the Moon, writing in the liner notes to 1997 compilation album The Ozzman Cometh that “Jake came up with the riff. It was the first song we wrote together.”

Lee‘s participation in Ozzy’s Back to the Beginning final show in July wasn’t just about reconnecting with and celebrating the singer, but also about redemption for him, his era of the band, and his unique guitar playing.

“Everybody was so supportive,” Lee says. “Nuno [Bettencourt] in particular surprised me. I assumed he kinda knew who I was, but I didn’t think he’d ever like me or anything. But he was so supportive and helped me a lot, and so did Tom Morello.”

Lee knows that one gig doesn’t change decades of reflection on what happened in the ‘80s. But he does feel better about and it all – and can comfortably claim a weight legacy, particularly the song Bark at the Moon, “It was such a good tune,” Lee beams. “It helped confirm that Ozzy wasn’t over just because Randy had passed. I’m proud to have been a part of that.

“I always wanted to reconcile, tell him there weren’t any hard feelings and end things on a friendly note. I got to do that.”

Where’s your head at after Ozzy’s death?

“I hadn’t seen him in almost 40 years. We hadn’t been in contact. But he might be the single most important person that happened to me in my life – other than my wife!

“He’s the person I’m most connected to as far as the general public is concerned. For most people, he was the highlight of my career. The fact that he’s gone now – I’m still wrapping my head around it. His personality was so huge, and even though he abused himself so much early on, he survived. I always thought he’d probably outlive me, so it’s a big loss.”

It seems Ozzy had a certain magnetism that drew people to him.

“Yeah, magnetism is a good word. He was bigger than life – but deep down he was a kind man. He made you like him and you felt like he liked you too.”

Ozzy had a unique relationship with all his guitar players. What was yours like when you joined his band?

“Well he wasn’t really a father figure, and not really a brother. I suppose for me it was less familial. We never really got that close; I don’t know why that is. Our personalities didn’t mesh as closely as his did with Randy or Zakk.

“It worked well, I liked him and I assumed he liked me – but it was always awkward around him. He was the boss; that’s how I looked at him. But on stage it worked. There was a definite connection.

“On a personal level it was less so. It just didn’t happen that way. I don’t think it was my fault or his fault; it’s just the way it was. He sent me a text after the Back to the Beginning show and it was really sweet. It was about getting together once he came back to LA, so we could sit down and actually talk.”

What do you think he wanted to talk about?

“I don’t think it was any big deal – I think that after all these years, he just wanted to catch up. I’m glad he sent that text. I’m glad I went to Birmingham, and got to talk to him even if it was just for a minute or two.”

Did you always want to talk things out, and even play with Ozzy again?

“I did always want to reconnect with him on whatever level. Not necessarily musically, but that would have been nice. I didn’t want it to end with getting fired and feeling like there was bad blood.”

How did being fired make you feel?

“I never really took it personally. He said some things about me, but I never said anything bad about him. I stated the facts – I got kind of screwed over on the Bark at the Moon record. But I knew it was a business move, and that it wasn’t based around fucking me over.”

What was it based around?

“Getting as much money as he could! And when he fired me, the feeling I got from people in the industry was shock. He talked some shit about me; but I always assumed he did it because he needed to have a good reason for getting rid of me.

“I never really fired back because I knew I’d never win. Getting into a fight with Ozzy Osbourne through the press, he’s gonna win. And I still liked him, and I still liked Sharon.”

You could look at it like Sharon trying to ensure her husband’s career was resurrected after being fired from Black Sabbath.

“Yeah, that’s pretty much the way I felt about the whole thing – and money has never been important to me. People don’t believe that; they say, ‘Yeah, right!’ But it really doesn’t.

“I’m kind of like a hippie! If I have enough money to get by, that’s all I need. I don’t need a mansion. I don’t need a Ferrari. Money corrupts so many people. I never let it corrupt me. If I wanna do something I’ll do it, and I’ll see if I can get paid for it.

“You can offer me a lot of money to do something, but if I don’t want to do it I just won’t. The fact that they made money on some of their business decisions at my expense is not a big deal to me. It’s wasn’t about money with Bark at the Moon – it was always about the credit.”

Despite that, and even with the focus on Randy, your era has become beloved.

“It seems that way! And it was some good stuff. I think a lot of people were just mad that it wasn’t Randy. I’m not him, and that pissed a lot of people off. But I brought some good stuff.”

At that time you were one of the few LA players who weren’t trying to emulate Randy or Eddie Van Halen clone. The fans picked up on that.

“I agree – I did sound different than all of them. I’m not sure why that is. Maybe it’s because I had a little bit of punk in me? When I came to LA in ’80 or ’81, punk was big and I liked it. But I couldn’t go to any of the shows because I had long hair. If you went to those shows back then and you had long hair, you were guaranteed to get your ass kicked!

“I was welcomed with open arms by the LA metal community. I think that was the determining factor in my playing. But I always really liked punk. X was my favorite LA band, more than Van Halen – and I loved Van Halen. To me, X was just the ultimate rock ‘n’ roll band.

“And I always had this sort of violent attitude towards my guitar. I was maybe more aggressive than a lot of other LA players. Maybe that helped define the difference between me and the other guys.”

It must have felt good to represent your era of Ozzy’s career at the Back to the Beginning show.

“It absolutely did. That was a big part of the whole week. And at some point, I was wondering if there was a memo put out by everybody to go out of their way to make Jake feel good about himself! I started looking around for a bucket of pig’s blood; Someone would say, ‘Okay, no more pretending,’ and then I’d get dunked!”

The acclaim is a testament to how people feel about your era.

“Honestly, I don’t think I ever felt that. That might be my fault. It might have been me going online – which is always a bad idea – and reading about all the reasons why I was the worst Ozzy guitar player, and starting to sort of believe it a little bit.

“Well, not believe it, but let it weigh on me. That’s just human nature. You see something where there’s 99 comments about how good you are, and then you read one where you’re shit, and that’s the one you remember!”

Did the experience in Birmingham help reframe some of that negativity?

“Maybe somewhat. I do feel a lot better about it. What I have to think about now – and this is a little difficult – is saying, ‘Okay, now I can go out with more confidence, have people talking about me, and get a good thing going.’

“I could also look at it as, ‘Well, that would be a good way to leave on that high note.’ Because I’m trying to figure out what exactly it is that I want to do now.

“I’m proud of what I did with Ozzy. I don’t necessarily think it was the high point of my playing. But I was really good, and Ozzy did make me better. In Hollywood I was maybe considered the top guitar player, or at least in the top three. But when I joined Ozzy I got a lot better.”

Can you track why, or how, specifically?

“It was a do-or-die moment. I do see how I got more focused and better at my craft with Ozzy. I should have thanked him for that, and during my last talk with Ozzy, I did. He did make me a better guitar player. He made me look at my guitar playing more.

“The solo from Bark at the Moon is an example. I had the second half all worked out, and the first half was something completely different in my mind. It was more melodic; more like a Neal Schon thing.

“I was sure it was gonna work. I can still hear it in my head, and I still think it would work! I spent all night trying to get it the way it sounded in my head, and I know [producer] Max Norman was getting frustrated. And I was frustrated.

“But Ozzy walked in and said, ‘What the fuck is that?’ I said, ‘It’s not exactly how I want it, but it’s close.’ He said, ‘No, no, that’s not working. Just go out there and jam.’ I was like, ‘Why not? I’ll try it.’

“And I think the solo that ended up on the record was my second take of just jamming. Ozzy said, ‘That’s it!’ Max said, ‘Yeah, I think that’s it.’ I was like, ‘Really? I didn’t put any thought into it. I’m just sitting here ripping it out. How can that be the solo?’”

Ozzy’s advice about just jamming is good advice for any young player.

“Yeah. And now, years later, I can look back and go, ‘I see how that works!’ He made me rethink how to play the guitar. I appreciate that.”

Jake E. Lee has shared the final text message he got from the late Ozzy Osbourne, which he received shortly after the Back to the Beginning show.

Earlier this week, it was announced that Ozzy had died at the age of 76 mere weeks after he took to the stage and reunited with his Black Sabbath bandmates for a highly anticipated farewell concert.

Lee had replaced the late Randy Rhoads in Ozzy's band after Bernie Tormé and Brad Gillis had helped complete the Diary of a Madman tour. A key part of Ozzy’s rich legacy of guitarists, Lee produced two albums – Bark at the Moon (1983) and The Ultimate Sin (1986).

When he was shot in Las Vegas last year, Ozzy sent his well wishes, and in doing so, revealed they hadn't spoken in the 37 years.

Lee's inclusion on the Back to the Beginning bill – a gig creative director Tom Morello said hinged on Lee’s presence – gave the pair an opportunity to briefly catch up. They may not have spent much time together on the day, but Ozzy showed his kind-heartedness as Lee headed to the airport the next day.

Posting on social media, the electric guitar wizard shared the text he got from Ozzy as he awaited his flight back to the US.

“Hi Jake, I’m so sorry I couldn’t spend more time with you on the weekend but it was really chaotic,” the text reads. “I would really like to see you when I eventually get back to L.A. to shoot the shit, it’s been so long since we saw each other.

“Where are you living these days?” Ozzy then asked. “The last thing I heard was you were living in Las Vegas. How did the gig go for you on Saturday? I really hope you had fun. I will text you when I eventually get back to L.A. and we must hook up much love and respect Ozzy.”

The world had expected Lee to play his biggest Ozzy hit, Bark at the Moon, in Birmingham, but he was forced to tackle his Plan B songs, performing The Ultimate Sin and Shot in the Dark instead.

Tributes to the heavy metal icon have come pouring in, while Tony Iommi has discussed how Back to the Beginning helped ice Ozzy’s colorful life in the best way possible.

Following the announcement that Ozzy Osbourne has died at the age of 76, we're revisiting the Guitar World archives to look back on the life and legacy of the legendary Black Sabbath singer.

The following interview is taken from Guitar World's June 1990 issue. The original headline was "The Good, The Bad & The Ozzy: Or How to Become a Heavy Metal Guitar Hero in One E-Z Lesson."

If only half the rumors about him are true, Ozzy Osbourne should be dead. Yet, after 21 years of twisted public behavior, the man who brought you songs like Paranoid, Bark at the Moon and Children of the Grave looks incredibly healthy and ready to take on the world.

Ozzy recently celebrated more than 20 years in the business by polishing off a live greatest hits EP, Just Say Ozzy, and is currently at work on his next studio metal masterpiece.

In the conversation that follows, Ozzy thoughtfully recalls what made each of his great guitarists special, and elaborates his criteria for choosing a guitarist, his audition process, and his theory on why it's good to be bad.

Let’s start by looking at your past guitarists. How did you find Randy Rhoads?

"Thinking back, it was quite extraordinary. I had been in Black Sabbath since high school, and suddenly Tony Iommi fired me from the band. It was a shock because Sabbath had always been there. I was out of my brain on drugs and alcohol and I was stuck in the position of getting a band together. I had never auditioned anyone before and I was petrified.

"The auditioning process was so embarrassing. How do you tell someone that they’re not what you’re looking for? Back then, everyone was trying to clone Jimi Hendrix. I heard nothing but Purple Haze and Foxy Lady riffs. One guy even hooked up several tape recorders and echo units so he could play both the lead and rhythms to Hendrix tunes simultaneously. It was a nightmare!

"I had almost given up when somebody told Sharon [Osbourne, Ozzy’s wife and personal manager] about this great guitar player in town named Randy Rhoads. Shortly afterward, Randy came over to my Los Angeles apartment. He was so frail, tiny and effeminate that I thought, 'Oh no, oh hell.' But out of politeness, I invited him to play the next day.

"Unfortunately, when he turned up, I was stoned out of my mind. I mean, I was on another planet. Some guy woke me up and said, 'He’s here!' I looked up and Randy started playing from this tiny amp. Even in my semiconsciousness he blew my mind. I told him to come by the next day and that he had the gig.

"The next day I told someone I dreamed that I hired a guitar player. They told me I didn’t dream it and that he was coming that day. I thought, 'Oh god, what have I done? I hope he can play!'"

How do you know when a guitarist is right or wrong?

"It’s like shopping for a new suit: there may be a whole rack of blue suits, but only one will grab you. There’s no ritual, there’s no formula. I’ve just been lucky that everybody’s liked my taste in guitar players."

What were Randy’s weaknesses as a player? Was there any aspect you had to help him with?

"He didn’t really have any weaknesses. I was the one that needed work. I had just come from Sabbath and Tony Iommi was a bit of a tyrant. His attitude was that I was the singer, I was allocated a space, and if I couldn’t come up with anything then I was screwed.

"Whereas Randy would work with me. Randy had patience because he was a guitar teacher. It was potentially a very frustrating situation for him because I couldn’t play a musical instrument. But he was always supportive and would say things like, 'Try bending a note here,' or 'Try this key.'

"It was a bit like going to music school. Randy was very instrumental in bringing me out of me. The first two Ozzy albums are by far the greatest things I’ve ever done. He was too good to last."

You and Randy had chemistry.

"Yeah, and now I think it’s gone, but you never know. I was never sure whether my work with Sabbath was any good. I used to think it was all too ordinary, but it seems to have stood the test of time. You never know what you got till it’s gone."

You must have had more confidence when you found Jake E. Lee.

"Not really. I knew a guitarist had to look good and have a good attitude, but other than that… Randy was the exception. He was from somewhere else.

"Randy came to me one day and said, 'I’ve had enough of this rock and roll stuff, I want to get a degree in music from UCLA.' I said to him, 'Why don’t you wait a few years and get some money and success behind you. You can always get a degree when you’re 90, if you want.' But he wanted to study right then and there.

"He started spending hours practicing and writing out his own formulas – diads or niads or whatever you call them. Day in and day out, whatever spare time he had was spent plucking on his flamenco guitar. He was a musician in the true sense. The instrument was an extension of his personality.

"When we were recording Diary of a Madman he would disappear into the studio for days. I’d ask him what he was doing and he would say, 'I’m working on this solo and I still can’t get it.' Finally, it would come to him and he would call me and say, 'Listen to this.' It would always tear my head off.

"That’s the difference between guitar players: there are guys who’ll go wingly-wangly up and down the fretboard, and some have emotions and others don’t. Randy and Eddie Van Halen were at the winning post, and everyone else is a close second.

"I mean, this Yngwie Malmsteen guy must have the capability to do some amazing things, but it’s too cold; it’s too much for the mind to take in. And watching Steve Vai is like watching a good mechanic strip down an engine in three seconds and rebuild it. He makes things run perfectly, but there’s no nice little errors that make things sound human."

Okay, but what about Jake?

"Well, Jake was fine for the first three days; then he wanted to take over. Randy wasn’t like that; he was one of the cool guys. I wouldn’t say Jake and I got along, but I wouldn’t say we didn’t get along. But in the last few years he became very reserved and it was hard to communicate with him.

"We lived together in a house in Beverly Hills and we never spoke! It wasn’t because we didn’t like each other. We just didn’t have anything to say.

"It was similar to the relationship I had with Tony Iommi. We’d get together to rehearse, write a mediocre song and then go our own way. It’s not the relationship I wanted with Jake, but a festering cancer set in. I wouldn’t have it. If I ask, 'What do you think of that?' I want a reaction. If it’s negative we’ll try something else, that’s not a problem. But Jake would shrug his shoulders, raise an eyebrow and walk away.

"The word 'band' means a band of men – an army, a platoon, a unit. A chain is only as strong as its weakest link. If there is a communication breakdown – hey, that’s a great name for a song – you’ve got no unit.

"To be fair, Jake did have a fantastic presence and he was a great guitar player."

What made Zakk stand out?

"This is a bizarre story, but it’s the God’s honest truth. It was a bad period for me because I was sick of auditioning people – drummers, bass players, keyboard players, you name it. Now it was time to audition yet another guitar player. The spark had gone out of it, probably due to my various battles with drugs and alcohol. I had a lot of personal hang-ups about a lot of things, plus I was tired.

"I asked the guys who were in the band at the time to put out the word that I needed somebody and to have people send me résumés. I auditioned about 50 guys. Some of them were hilarious. I asked one guy to play something in a specific key. He said, 'I think it would be better in another key.' I said, 'No it wouldn’t. Just play it in the key it was written in.' He protested again and I just thought, What the hell am I doing here? I’m jet-lagged to the max, arguing with some idiot guitar player.

"Then there were all these Eddie Van Halen clones on steroids. They played like Van Halen while standing on their heads and hopping on one leg. One guy even played like Eddie while eating a fucking sword!

"One morning I was confronted with a mound of tapes and I remember picking one up out of thousands and saying, 'Look here, a Randy Rhoads clone.' It was a picture of some guy with long blonde hair playing a Les Paul Custom. I couldn’t even bring myself to listen to his tape. I tossed it back in the pile and forgot about it.

"Then about six months later, my drummer, Randy Castillo, walks in and says, 'I found this great guitarist from New Jersey, and his name is Zakk.' I walked into the audition and I knew I had seen him before, but I couldn’t remember where. He plugs in and plays my whole catalog, note for note.

"I then asked him to play something of his own and he played some acoustic stuff and some classical stuff. He had a bounce and a spark about him. Then I realized where I saw Zakk before: he was the Randy Rhoads clone in the photo, the one tape I had picked out of thousands. Only it turned out that he wasn’t a Randy clone at all. Randy would’ve looked like an ant next to Zakk.

"There were lots of benefits to choosing Zakk. He had followed my career and he knew my songs better than I knew them myself. We knew it wouldn’t be hard to break him in."

Now that you’ve worked with Zakk for a while, what do you think his strengths are?

"That’s a difficult question. He’s still very young and still very impressionable. I think he’s still finding his own feet."

What are the drawbacks to working with young players?

"I keep thinking I would love to work on a project with musicians my own age. I guess I’d better do it quick because with each passing year the number of people my age gets smaller. I’m starting to feel like a daddy or something. I don’t want to be the wild man of rock and roll for too much longer."

You could go the David Coverdale route and hire established guitarists, yet you seem to prefer to discover new talent.

"I want someone that’s hungry. I want someone who wants to go out and kick Eddie Van Halen’s ass. I look for that hunger, that ability to succeed."

What was your most bizarre auditioning experience?

"There’s been thousands of them. One guy did a break dance and spun around on his back on the floor while playing wild guitar licks. There were lots of guys who were great but horrible to look at. I mean, there’s always cosmetic surgery, I suppose. Besides being a great guitarist you’ve got to look the part; you’ve got to be able to attract people. Some of the people I’ve auditioned looked like they should’ve been in a sideshow at the circus.

"I’m never worried about finding players, though. If Zakk walked through the door and said, 'I’m leaving,' I’d say, 'God bless you, goodbye.' There’s an abundance of guitar players jamming in their rooms who are brilliant. In fact, I often wonder why they aren’t out doing something.

You’ve got to have an interesting frontman.

"Yeah, you’re right. There is a lack of good frontmen. Axl Rose is the best I’ve seen in many years. I appeared in a movie called The Decline and Fall of Western Civilization, Part II: The Heavy Metal Years, along with a number of bands. I couldn’t believe the horseshit in that film. It seemed that all anyone talked about was partying and getting laid. What about being in a band and playing music?

"Guns N’ Roses is a great name for a band and they seem committed. I’m not trying to be trendy, but that’s what I think. I think they’ve got a great image, as well. Everybody likes the bad guys.

"Take that band Stryper – that’s the highest form of hypocrisy. They wear the same clothes as me, but they carry crucifixes and Bibles. The difference is, nobody likes to hear a good person. I discovered that many years ago."

What’s your assessment of Tony Iommi? He’s left-handed, his fingers are chopped off, he had to detune his guitar three steps, yet he ended up defining a genre.

"In the beginning he was brilliant – he was the master of heavy metal riffs. He was very clever. But I never really knew Tony; we rarely spoke. He was the god-almighty figure in the band and verged on being a bully. I must have learned something from him, though, because when I left I did pretty well on my own. I still keep in touch with the rest of the band, but I don’t speak with Tony because we never talked when I was in the band.

"He’s very intimidating. To be honest, toward the end his playing bored me, because everyone else was progressing and he wasn’t. That’s probably not fair, given his problems with his fingers. I should be grateful for Black Sabbath. But Tony needs to stop writing about devils and bullshit – it’s already been done.

"Ultimately, I think it was good that I moved on when I did. It was starting to get frustrating, because Tony would get a good headbanger going, then he’d start doing all this weird stuff. It started getting too complicated."

Except for Shot in the Dark, your live versions of songs stay pretty close to the originals.

"I’ve seen bands who’ve played endings that are longer than the actual song. I always think, Jeez, c’mon! End it already! I’m old-fashioned in the sense that I like the song to sound like the song. I don’t even like live records; I haven’t really acknowledged the release of Just Say Ozzy. Those songs have already been done. Why do them again?"

Aren’t you ever tempted to rework songs to keep them from getting boring?

"No. If I don’t get off on something, I just drop the song from the set. I’ve got enough tunes in the pipeline."

Millions of bands have tried to cop your formula, yet you endure. What is it about your songs that make them stand the test of time?

"God only knows. I was touring with Metallica a couple of years ago and I went backstage to talk with them. They were hanging out, and all of them were staring at me in a very strange manner. Then a couple weeks later I wandered backstage and they were playing Sabbath tunes.

"I asked ’em if they were trying to give me a hard time. And they said 'No, we’re mad for Sabbath.' They were big fans. I thought, What, Sabbath-mad? It’s incredible to me that people still like the music.

"Sabbath was a band that used to pull into an arena, play and never see a fan on the street. We came, we saw, we conquered and went home. I’d see an occasional acid freak wandering around San Francisco like a zombie mumbling 'Black Sabbath.' But we had no real contact with the fans, and we had no idea of the extent of our impact.

Of your albums, which are your favorites?

"Black Sabbath, Paranoid, Sabbath Bloody Sabbath, Blizzard of Ozz and Diary of a Madman. I relate more to the period of time than to the actual album. If I was having fun, then it was a good album. If I wasn’t, then the album was crap. We had a blast making Blizzard and Diary – screwed-up and always laughing.

"Those first two albums were my revenge because I was fired from Sabbath. I thought, Man, I’ll show them what it’s about! I always come out with my best when my back’s against the wall. It’s always when the luxury and financial rewards come piling in that I begin to lose it."

What would make you hungry again?

"I am, in a way. This is the first record I’ve ever done sober. I’m five months sober, and it’s very difficult. I don’t know whether it’s good or not. I’m writing mellower songs. Not to say the album will be mellow. Zakk will make sure it’s not. He’s crazy. In fact, he reminds me of me.

"During rehearsal, I’ll sit down with the road crew and have a can of Coke. Geezer [Butler] will walk in and quietly join us, then Randy [Castillo, drums]. But Zakk, you hear him from a mile away, screaming or whatever. He’s like a circus coming to town. Geezer cowers when he hears Zakk coming. There are so many cool-guy guitar players with their sunglasses and all that, but Zakk is one of the boys.

"He’s a real shitkicker. He always says hi to people and takes the time to talk to the fans – he’s always on. One of the key things about him is that he’s always got some time for the people. That’s a big asset. When people find success, they tend to get big heads and 18 bodyguards. They forget that without the fans they wouldn’t have a flash limousine and the money to pay for the bodyguards.

"You shouldn’t make yourself over-available, but you shouldn’t make yourself invisible either. I have to be careful because, in a lot of areas, not only are there a lot of people who like me but also a lot of people who hate me. I don’t want to be the next John Lennon.

"Trying to clean my act up was a major step in my life. I’m suddenly stone-cold sober in this zoo and the lions are trying to pick the lock. I was stoned for 21 years. Most rockers get stoned to break down the inhibitions, paranoia and shyness that stem from personal hang-ups we’ve carried around since we were kids. We all want to communicate with our fellow man, but we’re too frightened to try.

"Getting drunk allowed me to relax. But after a period of years, that stopped working for me. So I had a real dilemma. I was getting high and it was killing me. Yet, I was afraid of being sober. Things began going drastically wrong for me in my personal life. I had hit the bottom, and all that was left was death or insanity. Now with the grace of God, I’ve kept my sobriety, but I still take it one day at a time.

"On the next studio record I’ve decided to take a whack at writing a love song and things I actually feel. I may also write a song called, 'Son of a Bitch, Everything’s Real.' [laughs]

Someone once described you as a “nuclear bluesman.” The analogy fits – you often write simple, guitar-oriented songs about the woes of the modern man.

"Just the other day I was watching an old video of me singing Paranoid. I listened to the lyrics and thought, Hell, where were we when we wrote that? It was really strange because I had this smile on my face while I was singing this heavy, heavy song.

"I mean, Sabbath grew up in Birmingham, England, which was in an industrialized pit. That was a billion light years from San Francisco’s hippified flower power, where you’d hear some guy singing about wearing flowers in your hair. Meanwhile, my life was shit. I was frightened by fear. Fear has been my closest friend throughout my life. That’s why we drank. That’s why we’re all fucked up.

"But I have no real regrets, except that I wasn't up to keeping Randy Rhoads from getting on that plane. I'm no superman, no person from another planet – I'm just a lucky guy."

Jake E. Lee was in a unique position when he joined Ozzy Osbourne’s band in 1983. He wasn’t just filling Randy Rhoads’ shoes; he also was covering some of Tony Iommi’s most iconic riffs and solos.

“It just sounds evil,” Lee says of Iommi’s playing. “He bends so [that] it’s not quite in pitch. It just made it sound so much better. There are things like that that I found challenging. Where did he come up with all those riffs? It’s not human. It’s unfathomable how he just kept coming up with riffs!”

At the time of this conversation, conducted several months before July 5’s Back to the Beginning extravaganza, Lee has been recovering from a shooting that took place near his Las Vegas home last October.

His left arm was injured in the incident – but he also suffers from arthritis in his right hand, leaving him with little cartilage. It goes without saying he needed time to get up to speed. But none of that matters to him as much as simply bearing witness.

“It’s a thrill to be a part of it,” he says. “And even more so for me to watch it. I hope Ozzy can get through it. I haven’t spoken with him or seen him in decades.

“I really don’t know what condition he’s in, but he deserves a final farewell performance. No matter how he is, or how well his singing is, he deserves to have that final farewell. I’m happy to be a part of it.”

What led to your involvement with Back to the Beginning?

“Tom Morello called me. He said, ‘There’s going to be a thing, an original Sabbath performance and Ozzy Osbourne’s final performance. I can’t see this going on without Jake E. Lee in there somewhere.’ I said, ‘Yeah, I’d love to do it.’”

Do you remember the first time you heard Black Sabbath’s music?

“I was 13 and had just gotten into the whole rock ’n’ roll thing. I’d grown up playing classical piano and was a bit of a snob. [Laughs] I thought rock ’n’ roll was stupid! Then I heard Jimi Hendrix’s Purple Haze and said, ‘This changes everything!’ It opened a whole new world, and there was a new band called Black Sabbath.”

How did their music affect you?

“I said, ‘Wow! Cool, man.’ I love horror films, and that [debut album] opening track [Black Sabbath] was like listening to a horror movie. I don’t know if I’d say I was scared – but it overwhelmed me. I’d never heard anything like it. I don’t want to say [it was] evil… but that menacing sound, I just loved it right away. Black Sabbath was one of my three favorite bands as a teenager, along with Led Zeppelin and Grand Funk Railroad.”

Can you measure the impact of Tony Iommi on you as a young guitarist?

“It was huge. I saved up my money to where I could finally buy an [Gibson] SG, and that was because of him. I wanted to sound like him. I thought he had the greatest tone. Tone-wise, to this day, Tony Iommi is my greatest inspiration. Every time I’m trying to set my stuff up to get the sound right, I play War Pigs. If I can sound anything close to what he sounded like on that, I’m going with it.”

When you joined Ozzy’s band, you were in a unique position, following Randy Rhoads while also playing on a tour featuring many of Tony’s riffs and solos.

“I joined in the middle of the Speak of the Devil tour. Half of the set was Black Sabbath, and half was the stuff with Randy, so I just tried to get as close as I could.

“With the Sabbath stuff, I will say I tried to modernize it or put a little bit more of me into it. It was classic rock that you could kind of fuck with because everybody knows the originals, so I played around a little bit more when we did the Sabbath stuff. With Randy’s, I tried to keep it pretty close because that was fairly recent.”

Was Ozzy as wild as he was made out to be back then?

“One of my favorite Ozzy stories was from that tour. We were doing War Pigs, and it’s the first verse, and Ozzy looks at me and mouths, ‘What are the words?’ I knew the words, but he stumped me. I wasn’t expecting that. I didn’t want to say the wrong words, so I just said, ‘I don’t know…’ So he started singing ‘Old MacDonald Had a Farm.’ [Laughs]”

How did that work out?

“It worked perfectly! [Laughs] It was genius. It was like, ‘Old MacDonald haaaad a faaarm, he had some pigs with an oink oink here, and an oink oink therrrrrre.’ I remember it clearly, and it just worked so great. It was onstage, and I remembering looking at the punters in the front row, and they were just like, ‘What the fuck is going on?’ [Laughs]”

Whose style was more difficult to duplicate – Tony’s or Randy’s?

“To be honest, probably Tony’s. It’s not difficult; nothing he plays is really that different except for those trills. I don’t know how he plays those trills so fast – but there’s a nuance.

“A lot of times, when he bends a note, especially the lower notes, he doesn’t go all the way to pitch-perfect. He makes it a little bit flat, which makes it sound more menacing and kind of evil. That’s part of the genius of his playing.”

Is there anything specific you’d like to play on July 5?

“I know people are expecting Bark at the Moon, but I don’t know. Right now, with my wrist, the arthritis and everything, that would be very challenging. I have a couple of months to get up to it, so I’ll practice it just in case that’s the one. But that’s going to be pretty challenging for me physically.

“I’m shooting for The Ultimate Sin. It’s heavy, and I like the solo in it.” [Editor’s note: Lee would end up tackling this song along with Shot in the Dark, while Nuno Bettencourt and Vernon Reid ultimately took on Bark at the Moon.]

What does this final send-off mean to you?

“It’s thrilling. Like I said, Sabbath was one of my three favorite bands. It was just chemistry between the players that you can’t plan on or make happen. If any one of those guys aren’t in Sabbath, it’s just not as good.

“Dio did a good job, but it just wasn’t Sabbath to me. And Bill Ward just had that swing that made them sound so different from every other band that was trying to play metal.”

• This article first appeared in Guitar World. Subscribe and save.

Former Ozzy Osbourne guitarist Jake E. Lee has revealed that Tom Morello instigated his impending reunion spot with The Prince of Darkness at the Back to the Beginning show because he couldn’t see it happening without him.

The historic metal event, which takes place at Villa Park stadium in Birmingham, England, next month will see Ozzy and Black Sabbath grace the stage for one last time, with a host of guest musicians starring across both sets.

Sammy Hagar has already revealed the Ozzy song he’ll be performing on the night, while Jake E. Lee has spoken candidly about his position. While the world expects him to play his biggest Ozzy hit, Bark at the Moon, he’s admitted that health issues may force him to resort to plan B.

Furthermore, speaking in Guitar World’s latest print issue in the build-up to the big bow-out bash, Lee says he’s honored to have been invited. He hasn’t crossed paths with the Prince of Darkness since departing from the bad in 1987.

“Tom Morello called me. He said, ‘There's going to be a thing, an original Sabbath performance and Ozzy Osbourne's final performance. I can't see this going on without Jake E. Lee in there somewhere,’” he explains.

Lee was chosen as Ozzy’s full-time guitarist, following the untimely passing of Randy Rhoads, who helped shoot the Sabbath singer to solo stardom with two albums: Blizzard of Ozz (1980) and Diary of a Madman (1981).

Lee's electric guitar exploits featured on two albums, Bark at the Moon (1983), and The Ultimate Sin (1986), before the virtuoso was replaced by Zakk Wylde.

“It's a thrill to be a part of it,” Lee says. “And even more so for me to watch it. I hope Ozzy can get through it. I haven't spoken with him or seen him in decades. I really don't know what condition he's in, but he deserves a final farewell performance.

“No matter how he is, or how well his singing is, he deserves to have that final farewell. I'm happy to be a part of it.”

Another key part of his Ozzy reign was playing Sabbath songs each night. For Rhoads, who wasn’t a Sabbath fan, he put Tony Iommi’s iconic riffs through his own lens. For Lee, it was a chance to doff his cap to one of his earliest guitar heroes.

“I was 13 and had just gotten into the whole rock 'n' roll thing,” he says of his earliest Sabbath experience. “I'd grown up playing classical piano and was a bit of a snob. I thought rock 'n' roll was stupid! Then I heard Jimi Hendrix's Purple Haze…

“I love horror films, and that [debut album] opening track [Black Sabbath] was like listening to a horror movie. I don't know if I'd say I was scared, but it overwhelmed me. I'd never heard anything like it.

“[Iommi’s playing] just sounds evil,” he expands. “He bends so [that] it's not quite in pitch. It just made it sound so much better. There are things like that that I found challenging. It's unfathomable how he just kept coming up with riffs!

“Black Sabbath was one of my three favorite bands as a teenager, along with Led Zeppelin and Grand Funk Railroad. Every time I'm trying to set my stuff up to get the sound right, I play War Pigs!”

For those who missed out on a ticket to heavy metal’s hottest event in years, the chaos of the riff-infested frivolities will be available as a live stream.

To read Jake E. Lee’s interview in full, alongside conversations with the rest of Back to the Beginning’s bumper cast, head to Magazines Direct to grab a cop of Guitar World.

Jake E. Lee is, understandably, widely expected to play his staple hit, Bark at the Moon, when he joins Ozzy Osbourne at the blockbuster Back to the Beginning gig next month – but the electric guitar legend has admitted he harbors some doubts over whether he’ll able to play the iconic cut.

The show will see both Black Sabbath and Ozzy bow out for the last time, and a host of guests are lined up to feature. The Prince of Darkness has already said he’ll only do “bits and pieces” at the show, with the likes of Wolfgang Van Halen, KK Downing, and Lzzy Hale all set to be involved in some capacity.

Each high-profile guest will seemingly tackle a classic Ozzy track or two across the evening’s itinerary – Sammy Hagar has already let slip what song he’ll be playing, for example – but Lee, who was shot multiple times last year, has hinted he may not be able to tackle arguably his most famed track.

“I know people are expecting Bark at the Moon, but I don’t know,” he tells Guitar World. “Right now, with my wrist, the arthritis and everything, that would be very challenging. I have a couple of months to get up to it, so I’ll practice it just in case that’s the one. But that’s going to be pretty challenging for me physically.”

Similarly, Ozzy has been going through endurance training ahead of the historic concert. For Lee, not being physically able to tackle Bark at the Moon’s gung-ho riffwork is the worst-case scenario. That’s necessitated a plan B. Just in case.

“I'm shooting for Ultimate Sin [the title track from his second and final Ozzy album],” he reveals. “It's heavy, and I like the solo in it.”

Regardless of what song he ultimately performs on the night, Lee says it’s “thrilling” to be involved in his former employer’s swan song. He was a notable absentee at the singer’s second Rock and Roll Hall of Fame induction last year, during which Wolfgang Van Halen seemingly put the long-standing EVH-Randy Rhoads rivalry to bed.

“Sabbath was one of my three favorite bands,” Lee beams. “It was just chemistry between the players that you can’t plan on or make happen. If any one of those guys aren’t in Sabbath, it’s just not as good.

“Dio did a good job,” he adds, “but it just wasn’t Sabbath to me. And Bill Ward just had that swing that made them sound so different from every other band that was trying to play metal.”

Looking back on how the Ozzy gig changed his life, and the thing most players get wrong when playing Bark at the Moon, Lee once said: “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.”

Meanwhile, Tom Morello, who has curated the event and is set to feature in an all-star supergroup on the night, has been recalling his favorite Ozzy memories, including the time he and Slash nearly got blown up in New Orleans.

For more from Back to the Beginning’s all-star cast on what to expect on the night, and their words on the legacy the band have forged, pick up the latest issue of Guitar World from Magazines Direct.

A lot of people have played guitar with Ozzy Osbourne. They are not all here. In the interests of keeping this list shorter than a book, we’ve restricted it to people who were hired, however briefly, for Osbourne’s solo band.

That means there’s no Tony Iommi, Black Sabbath’s towering God of Riff. Nor are any of the superstars who guested on Ozzy's last two studio albums: Slash, Tom Morello, Jeff Beck, Eric Clapton, and Mike McCready are all guitar giants in their own right, but only footnotes in the Osbourne story.

There are three guitarists who also missed out on being here by the narrowest of margins. Robert Sarzo, brother of Ozzy bassist Rudy, was hired by Ozzy and Sharon to replace Randy Rhoads. Unfortunately for Sarzo, Sharon’s dad and Ozzy’s label boss, Don Arden, had already offered the gig to Bernie Tormé.

Dokken guitarist George Lynch was hired in 1982 and got as far as traveling with the band and performing at soundchecks. He was unceremoniously dumped in front of Jake E. Lee.

Steve Vai, meanwhile, was hired in 1995 to co-write one song. He ended up getting on so well with Ozzy that the two schemed to make a full record, making an album’s worth of demos that were ultimately shelved.

These, then, are the guitarists who wrote and played on Ozzy’s classic albums and took part in his legendary tours.

Randy Rhoads – (1979–1982)

In just two albums, 1980’s Blizzard of Ozz and 1981’s Diary of a Madman, plus the posthumous live album Tribute (1987), Randy Rhoads set the bar for every subsequent Ozzy guitarist.

His combination of two-hand tapping, blazing legato, savage pinched harmonics, and demonic blues licks became essential vocabulary for shredders. He took the classic rock combo of a Les Paul and Marshall into the 80s, boosting it with the new MXR Distortion+ pedal, and modding the amp with cascading gain stages.

Rhoads’ last days with Ozzy were fraught. He was allegedly vehemently opposed to plans to record the live Sabbath covers album Speak of the Devil.

Ozzy drank heavily, and tensions became so bad that Rhoads had allegedly made plans to leave the band once the album was released. Whether this rift between Osbourne and his guitarist would have been healed can never be known. A plane crash ended Randy’s life on March 19, 1982. He was 25.

In a Guitar World interview conducted shortly before his death, Rhoads said that he felt his guitar journey was far from complete, opining, “For me, it's just flash that impresses the kids. I'm trying to make a name for myself as fast as I can.

“I wish I could take time and come up with something that nobody else has done. But that's gonna take a few years yet.”

In his brief career, though, Rhoads exerted a towering influence on metal guitar, neo-classical guitar, and on Osbourne’s sound. Alongside Eddie Van Halen, Randy Rhoads defined the sound of metal guitar for the 1980s.

Bernie Tormé – (1982)

While Ozzy and Sharon were making plans with Robert Sarzo, Don Arden (Ozzy’s former manager and owner of Jet Records, Ozzy’s label; also Sharon Osbourne’s father) had offered the gig to Gillan guitarist Bernie Tormé.

Quite why Arden’s choice overruled Ozzy’s is unclear. Perhaps inevitably, this was a brief union.

According to Rudy Sarzo’s memoir, Off the Rails, Tormé announced after a handful of shows that he would be returning to England to work on his solo album.

While Tormé’s tenure in the band was brief, it was impactful. A 15-year-old Zakk Wylde witnessed Ozzy with Tormé at Madison Square Garden. Of that experience, Wylde later wrote, “I told him how amazing his playing was that night and how he made everybody in the building feel as if Randy’s presence was with all of us.”

After Ozzy, Tormé formed a solo band, and went on to collaborate with Twisted Sister’s Dee Snider in Desperado. Tormé died in 2019, aged 66.

Brad Gillis – (1982)

Under pressure to find a replacement, Ozzy auditioned Night Ranger guitarist Brad Gillis in a hotel room and enlisted him to complete the Diary of a Madman tour.

“I first met Ozzy in the master suite at the Helmsley Palace Hotel in New York,” Gillis told Guitar World in a 2021 interview. “I had my red Strat, no amp, and played him Flying High Again.

“How surreal to be sitting at the edge of his bed, with him cross-legged on the floor singing up to me while I played the song! Once I got through the solo he jumped up, gave me a big hug, and said, ‘Brad, I love you. Pull me through.’”

Gillis shadowed Tormé on the tour until he was ready to take over. His performances on the tour were recorded for Speak of the Devil (released as Talk of the Devil in the UK), a live album released under duress and consisting entirely of old Black Sabbath material.

Despite its unpromising origins, Speak of the Devil won Gillis a lot of fans. He put his own stamp on the songs with an impressive tone from a stereo chorus and a pair of Mesa/Boogie Mark IIB amps.

After the tour, Gillis returned to Night Ranger, with whom he's released 13 studio albums to date.

Jake E. Lee – (1982–1987)

Lee was a former member of Ratt and Rough Cutt, as well as a glam metal band with possibly the most on-the-nose name of all time, Sexist. He had also auditioned unsuccessfully to join Dio when former Ozzy bassist Dana Strum recommended him to audition for Osbourne’s band.

Lee has said that Ozzy was unhappy with George Lynch’s performances in rehearsals, and Lee pipped him to the gig.

Lee recorded two albums, Bark at the Moon (1983) and The Ultimate Sin (1986), with Osbourne. The former's title track was Lee’s standout Ozzy performance, with its jet-fuelled riff and fearsome alternate-picked solo.

Lee claimed he had written much of the album and was unfairly denied songwriting credits. He refused to work on The Ultimate Sin until he had a contract guaranteeing him songwriting royalties.

Of Lee’s dismissal in 1987, Osbourne told Stereogum in a 2022 interview: “The way it went was, Randy Castillo, my old drummer, had started to turn me against him. It was very sad because I had no qualms with the guy. He was a great guitar player.”

Lee, meanwhile, said in a 2018 interview that bassist Phil Soussan was “partly instrumental in getting me fired,” claiming that Soussan wanted to be Ozzy’s main songwriter, at Lee’s expense.

“I didn’t see it coming at all,” Lee told Guitar World in 2013. “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 [in Los Angeles] 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 went on to form Badlands. Since then, he has only sporadically released music with his bands Wicked Alliance and Red Dragon Cartel, whose last album dropped in 2018.

He has recently suffered from a complete lack of cartilage in his right hand, which has limited his ability to play. In October 2024, he said he was playing again and wanted to tour. Just days later, however, he was shot multiple times while walking his dog.

Though Lee is recovering well, understandably, there has not been much talk of new music from him.

Zakk Wylde – (1987–1993, 2001–2009, 2017–present)

Although Randy Rhoads is usually considered the greatest Osbourne guitarist, Zakk Wylde is in many ways the definitive one.

Wylde has spent so many years with Ozzy that his unmistakable sound has become the one audiences expect from Osbourne’s band. And though many capable players have tried to fill his shoes, his larger than life persona and continued visibility on the metal scene has tended to overshadow his replacements.

Wylde’s initial run produced No Rest for the Wicked and No More Tears. These albums marked a strong return to form for Ozzy, earning multi-platinum awards and that mark of any great metal album, one-star reviews in Rolling Stone.

Speaking about how he was selected for the much-coveted role, Wylde told Guitar World in 1989, “When [Ozzy] auditioned guitar players, his big gripe was that most everyone played like Yngwie Malmsteen on acid, and that wasn’t what he wanted.”

After the live album Live & Loud, Wylde left to pursue solo projects Pride & Glory and Black Label Society. Wylde was never fully gone though, as he played the guitars on Ozzmosis, the one studio album Ozzy wrote and released between his first two stints in his band.

Alex Skolnick – (1995)

Skolnick managed a whopping one (1) concert with Ozzy during his tenure, making him the shortest-lived touring guitarist Ozzy ever had. Still, that’s one better than Robert Sarzo, George Lynch, or Steve Vai managed.

Skolnick had already left Bay Area thrashers Testament when he got the Ozzy audition. His Ozzy gig was an intimate one at the legendary Rock City club in Nottingham, England. Geezer Butler was the bassist.

“It was really cool,” Skolnick recounted to Guitar World in 2012. “It was one of these periods where Ozzy and Zakk Wylde had temporarily parted ways. He tried out a few different people, and I think I was the only one who made it as far as doing an unannounced show with him in England, and he told me I was hired.

“But, I later found out from Sharon Osbourne that they had also been looking at another guy, Joe Holmes, who ended up doing the tour. Then they brought Zakk back.”

After joining the elite group of musicians to have been fired over the telephone by Sharon Osbourne, Skolnick then formed a successful jazz trio and later rejoined Testament.

Joe Holmes – (1995–2001)

Holmes had experience filling big shoes. His first gig had been replacing Jason Becker in David Lee Roth’s touring band after Becker’s diagnosis with ALS. Prior to that, he had played with LA shock rockers Lizzy Borden.

Although Holmes never recorded an album with Ozzy, his stint with the band coincided with the rise of Ozzy’s mammoth Ozzfest tours. As a result, he has probably performed to more people with Ozzy than any guitarist besides Zakk Wylde and Tony Iommi.

Despite appearing in the video for Perry Mason, he did not perform on the original recording. Still, his punishing delivery of that song for the Ozzfest 1996 live video is a testament to his fiery playing.

Holmes’ only Ozzy studio recording is the 1996 single Walk on Water, from the Beavis and Butthead Do America soundtrack. He co-wrote three tracks on the 2001 album Down to Earth, but the returning Zakk Wylde recorded them.

Since leaving Ozzy, Holmes has been relatively quiet, releasing only one album with his band Farmikos, in 2015. Still, he dropped a video for a new solo song, The Deadfall, in January 2025, so we may be seeing much more of him in future. The recording features his former Ozzy bandmates Mike Bordin and Robert Trujillo.

Gus G – (2009–2017)

Much fanfare greeted the arrival of then-29-year-old Gus G in Ozzy’s band. The hype was that Ozzy had discovered yet another young talent comparable to Randy Rhoads or Zakk Wylde.

In fact, Gus was hardly unknown, having released 13 albums with four different bands, and temporarily replaced Michael Amott in Arch Enemy for Ozzfest 2005.

Reflecting on his audition for Ozzy in a 2015 interview with Guitar World, Gus said, “We did six songs – six of the ‘must haves’ on his setlist. Ozzy came in the room and we played them all back to back with no breaks. The second that one song ended he would just call out the next one. It was like ‘Oh, shit!’ But it was cool.

“At the end of it he turned around and said, ‘You’re fuckin’ great!’ Then they all went into a room next door for a few minutes, and I was sitting there all alone like, ‘What’s going on now?’ Finally everybody came back in and they were all smiling. They asked if I wanted to come play a gig.”

The hype never quite materialized, largely because Gus never got the chance to write with Ozzy. Although he played on 2010’s Scream, Gus never quite put his stamp on the Osbourne sound like Rhoads, Lee, or Wylde had. That’s not to say he wasn’t good: Let Me Hear You Scream remains a big solo.

“I’m really proud of that,” he said in a recent interview. It was the one solo on the album he was asked to re-do.

“This is gonna be the first song that people will hear you on,” Sharon reportedly told him. “You're gonna be the new guy and people will be checking you out on that one. I just think you can do better.” Gus raised his game, and the solo smoked.

Gus was somewhat pushed aside in favor of a returning Zakk Wylde in 2017. Gus, who had kept his band Firewind active between commitments with Osbourne, simply returned to business as usual with Firewind and his solo work.

The list of guitarists who nearly joined Ozzy Osbourne’s band over the years is something of a who’s who of the 1980s guitar scene, featuring the likes of Vito Bratta, Richie Ranno, Marty Friedman, Jennifer Batten and more.

Now, Chris Impellitteri – founder of heavy metal band Impellitteri, who was widely considered to be one of the fastest guitarists of all time in his prime – has opened up on the time he himself auditioned for Ozzy’s band.

In a new interview with Guitar World, Impellitteri recalls receiving a message from Osbourne’s wife and manager, Sharon, at some point in the 1980s when he was at the peak of his powers. And, though he doesn’t recall the specific year he was approached, it seemingly coincided with the time Jake E. Lee departed, right before Zakk Wylde was eventually hired as his replacement.

“Let me not exaggerate that because it's been so many years,” Impellitteri relays. “What I remember – and I don’t know if Jake [E. Lee] was still in the band – that I was living in an apartment, and I had roommates.

“I came home one night from rehearsal, and my roommate goes, ‘Oh you've got to listen to this message,’ which said, ‘This is Sharon Osbourne. Me and Ozzy have been checking you out, and we really love your guitar playing. We want you to come down and audition.’”

There was one problem: Impellitteri had just signed a deal with Relativity Records, meaning it was nigh-on impossible for him to get out of the contract and join Ozzy’s band. Still, he turned up for the audition.

“I talked to Sharon, and I think Ozzy, probably three to five times,” he continues. “There was some back and forth. The problem was that I’d already signed a deal with Relativity [Records]. I had an attorney at the time named Peter Paterno, and he was frustrated and goes, ‘Chris, why didn't you do the gig?’

“I was like, ‘First of all, it technically wasn't offered to me. They basically just asked if I would come down and play with them.’”

Though he wasn’t offered the gig, Osbourne’s camp was apparently “very interested” in Impellitteri, who ended up going down to play two or three songs with the band. Still, a deal is a deal, and Impellitteri didn’t walk away from Relativity Records.

Whatever the case, it would have been an interesting appointment, and as Impellitteri goes on to speculate, the direction of Ozzy Osbourne’s band could have followed a completely different trajectory had the neo-classical speed shredder been recruited.

“If you listen to the new [Impellitteri] record, War Machine, I promise you that a lot of the stuff we do has elements of Randy Rhoads,” the guitarist notes when asked about what direction he’d have taken Ozzy’s band.

“Let’s say everything worked out with Ozzy, and I joined, right? I don’t think I would have wanted to do a record in the direction that he went. And by the way, those records with Zakk are amazing, and Zakk’s a phenomenal player. I really love him.

“I would have wanted to do something more like Blizzard of Ozz or Diary of a Madman. At that point in his career, Zakk and those songs elevated Ozzy, so imagine if you had this little brat kid like me, going, ‘No, no, no, we're going to do another Diary of a Madman.’ [laughs]

“Would that have been a positive thing for Ozzy or a negative? That change was orchestrated as the landscape was changing, and Ozzy, who was already big, became even bigger.”

The full interview with Chris Impellitteri will be published on GuitarWorld.com in the coming weeks.

In the latest case of ‘company repackages an entire amp rig into a compact pedal’, Friedman has teamed up with Jake E. Lee to produce the IR-J.

Based on the pair’s previous collaborative release – and inspired by Friedman’s newly pioneered IR-D preamp form factor – the IR-J repurposes two of the former Ozzy Osbourne guitar player’s signature tube amps into a conveniently sized, footswitchable, pedalboard-friendly amp replacement.

Specifically, the IR-J features two channels based on the JEL-100 and JEL-20. The latter was released last summer, while the former arrived some time before that.

But there’s a little more to the story here, because both the JEL-20 and JEL-100 were themselves based on the Friedman-modded amps that Lee played at the peak of his playing powers: ’70s-era Plexis and some more aggressive amps heard during the 1980s.

That means, through its dual channel design, the IR-J effectively looks to deliver two decades’ worth of hard rock guitar tones.

With Channel 1, you get British-voiced cleans and a Plexi-style tone, while Channel 2 delivers a higher-gain JEL sound with an extra “percussive punch”.

These are both accessed by their own footswitches, with a final third switch serving as an independent TS style boost that can be tweaked via side-mounted Tone and Volume parameters.

On the pedal itself, each channel gets its own strip of controls – Boost, Volume, Treble, Middle, Bass and Gain – as well as an assortment of toggles that access Bright voices, and Cab/IR options.

The IR-J comes loaded with some custom Lee-curated OwnHammer IRs, but more can be utilized via the Friedman editing software. It also boasts MIDI connectivity and an Effects Loop.

Under the hood, there is a pair of 12AX7 preamp tubes, which promise to help deliver “all the tone, response, gain characteristics, and harmonic complexity you expect from a Friedman design”.

“With Ozzy, his post-Ozzy band, Badlands and most recently, with his own group, Red Dragon Cartel, Lee’s playing embraced the athleticism of the ’80s while remaining firmly rooted in the hard rock fundamentals of the ’70s,” Friedman notes.

“Jake’s tonal choices provide the evolutionary glue between the sonics of those two great eras.”

“Dave has an innate understanding of where I’m coming from as a player and we’re alike in the way we hear tones,” Lee adds. “ I grew up in the ’70s and those muscular, articulate rock tones were the tones I always sought, but I made a name for myself in the ’80s when you needed a little more aggression and a little more scream.

“I’ve always tried to retain a little of that ’70s heart and I still do, and that’s what this preamp does – though it’s got plenty more on tap if you need it!”

The IR-J is available now for $599.

Visit Friedman for more.

YouTube guitar guru Marty Schwartz – best known under his channel name Marty Music – has revealed the hardest song he’s taught during his tenure as one the internet’s most popular guitar teachers.

Schwartz is interviewed as part of Total Guitar’s new All-Star Masterclass cover feature, which sees the magazine call on some of the world’s greatest players (including the likes of Guthrie Govan, Philip Sayce and Sophie Lloyd) for a bumper crop of tips, tricks and techniques.

“I’m more of a feel and groove classic rock guy,” Schwartz tells Total Guitar. “I don’t really do the virtuoso shred stuff. It’s not what I desired to be and I have to want to get good at something in order to work on it.”

Schwartz says his toughest challenge therefore is still from the classic rock world, but an era when big hair and bigger solos dominated the scene: the 1980s.

“The hardest one was [Ozzy Osbourne’s 80s classic] Bark at the Moon,” says Schwartz. “The chords aren’t too hard, but the picking speed on that open A is insane. I’ve seen videos of Jake E. Lee teaching it at a clinic and he couldn’t even play the solo... and it’s his solo! That made me feel a little better because my hands aren’t really fast.”

The clip above certainly shows Schwartz put in a highly convincing effort nonetheless. He says the secret to getting as near as he did comes down to that (annoyingly persistent) necessity of learning the guitar: slowing it down and repeating.

“I used an app to slow it down and keep it in pitch,” says Schwartz. “I tend to start at 70 percent, where I can feel like I nail it every time, stick with it for a couple of weeks, and then speed up by five percent every couple of weeks… [but] I got that one to 90 percent and it was starting to feel like falling off the cliff!” 

To add insult to injury (or at least injured pride), the guitar teacher says the video tanked to boot, “which left me wondering why I bothered!”

Never mind Marty, we still love you. And we’re not alone. The guitar teacher was recently awarded with his own signature guitar, in the shape of the Epiphone Marty Schwartz ES-335.

In the meantime, we have increased respect for another YouTube guitarist. After all, Kayla Kent makes nailing the Bark At The Moon solo look easy.

To read Schwartz's full interview, plus tips, tricks and insight from the likes of Guthrie Govan, Cory Wong, Sophie Lloyd and Joe Bonamassa, pick up issue 376 of Total Guitar.

Guitar amp specialist Friedman has reignited its relationship with Jake E. Lee for another signature head and cab rig.

The pair’s second collaborative release, the JEL-20 Head and JEL-112 Cab follow the previously released (and limited edition) JEL-100 signature head, though the former streamlines proceedings into a far more compact and transportable 20-watt package.

Despite the smaller scale, Lee and Friedman have refused to compromise on tonal capacity, with the JEL-20 seeking to combine two distinct decades of guitar tone into one unit.

Specifically, they’re tones close to the former Ozzy Osbourne guitarist’s own repertoire: “muscular, articulate” ‘70s-era Plexi-style sounds and the “aggression”, “scream” and “aggressive slant” of ‘80s amps.

“Jake’s tonal choices provide the evolutionary glue between the sonics of those two great eras,” the Friedman listing noted. “This new signature amplifier brings those tones in a user-friendly 20W package with features normally only found on the very highest-end amplifiers. Dave Friedman has done it again.“

“I grew up in the ‘70s and those muscular, articulate rock tones were the tones I always sought, but I made a name for myself in the ‘80s when you needed a little more aggression and a little more scream,” Lee reflected. “I’ve always tried to retain a little of that ‘70s heart and I still do, and that’s what this amp does.”

But while the tones of yesteryears are the order of business here, Friedman and Lee have also kept modern players in mind, and have included an internal load and cab sim XLR output for both analog-accurate, straight-to-mixer sounds and silent recording.

Furthermore, additional ground lift, level and center/edge of speaker cone simulation switches introduce some extra simulation versatility, with a global Presence control and FX loop capping off the spec sheet.

Control-wise, an impressively streamlined control panel has been tailored to fit around the tonal double act the JEL-20 is tasked with. A shared three-band EQ accommodates JEL and Plexi channels, each of which can be accessed through the front Channel switch.

While the Plexi has an additional three-way Bright switch, the JEL channel has a boost function that can be harnessed via the push/pull gain control. A final universal Saturation switch adds gain, compression and, obviously, saturation.

Under the hood, two EL84 power tubes lineup alongside a trio of 12AX7 preamp tubes.

“This amp puts the two specific tones I use to create my sound in one head: The sweetness and warmth of a classic Plexi and the more aggressive slant of the master volume amps of the ‘80s – all tweaked to my taste,” Lee continues. “Dave [Friedman] has an innate understanding of where I’m coming from as a player and we’re alike in the way we hear tones.

“Dave doesn’t hear things as a technician, he hears things like a musician, and that made him really easy to work with.”

The JEL-112, meanwhile, comes loaded with a 12” Celestion G12M-65 Creamback speaker and flashes an identical signature red tolex.

The JEL-20 and JEL-112 are available now for $1,699 and $699, respectively.

Head over to Friedman for more information.

In the pantheon of guitarists who have stood alongside Ozzy Osbourne, Jake. E Lee had the biggest shoes to fill when he assumed the role in 1982. Following the tragic passing of Randy Rhoads earlier that year and a short-lived replacement in the form of Night Ranger's Brad Gillis, the Prince of Darkness set out to recruit an axeman to continue Rhoads' legacy.

After auditioning a plethora of budding guitarists for the role, Ozzy landed on Lee, who quickly found his feet despite the difficult circumstances, writing a wealth of material for Ozzy's third solo album, Bark at the Moon, and its followup, The Ultimate Sin.

Lee spoke with Guitar World for the November 1986 issue following the release of The Ultimate Sin, detailing his contributions to both albums, why Ozzy insisted he use a tremolo bar, his thoughts about Eddie Van Halen, and the monumental task of following in Randy Rhoads' footsteps.

You had far more input on The Ultimate Sin than you did on Bark at the Moon. Did you want to become more involved in the songwriting and production process, or was that just a natural process?

“It was thrust upon me, more or less, but I wanted more input. I’ve had almost complete control over every band I’ve ever been in, except for Ratt, which was almost a partnership between me and Stephen [Pearcy, vocalist], but I had control over the music. 

“It was like a Van Halen/Roth thing: Steve had control over the clothing and the show, and I had control over the music. So I was used to being in control of the music in a band. And I wanted it that way with Ozzy.”

How much input did you have on Bark at the Moon?

“Most of the music was mine: Rock ’n’ Roll Rebel, Bark at the Moon, Now You See It (Now You Don’t), Waiting for Darkness and Slow Down were mine.”

How easy or difficult is it to present material to Ozzy?

“On Bark at the Moon, I approached him really cautiously, because I was the new guy and I could be out at any second. I’d just play him riffs, and if he liked the riff, then the whole band would work on it. But when I write a riff, I also write the verse and chorus and everything around it. 

“Bob Daisley [bassist on Bark at the Moon] would change a part here or there, and Ozzy might change a part, too, but that was it, really. I didn’t argue too much if I didn’t like the way something was coming out. I’d go, ‘I don’t really like this,’ and they’d go, ‘Well, what do you know?’ And I’d go, [in a sheepish voice] ‘I don’t know anything.’

“I hated the strings on Bark at the Moon. And I hated So Tired. Actually, I didn’t mind it when we did it as a four-piece, but then they schmaltzed it up with all the strings, and I hated it.

“So I’d present something, and they’d fight, debate, say it sucked or whatever. Everybody contributed a little bit, so the songs didn’t come out the way I imagined they would. 

“On The Ultimate Sin, while Ozzy was in the Betty Ford [Center], I got a drum machine, one of those mini studios, a bass from Charvel – a really shitty one – and I wrote more or less entire songs. I didn’t write melodies or lyrics, because Ozzy is bound to change things. But I wrote the riff and came up with a chorus, verse, bridge and solo sections. 

“Then I wrote the drum and bass parts I had in mind. I put about 12 songs down on tape like that, and when Ozzy got out of the Betty Ford [Center], I said, ‘Here ya go! Here’s what I’ve got so far.’ And I’d say half of it ended up on the album.”

Does Ozzy interpret your songs in a way similar to how you originally heard them?

“He almost always does something different from what I expect. On this record he sang a bluesier style than I thought he would. Sometimes I’ll write something weird that I think he’ll like, and he’ll say, ‘That’s too weird. Are you on acid or something? This isn’t Frank Zappa.’ 

“Or I’ll write something simple that I think he might like, and he’ll go, ‘That’s pop!’ So it’s a weird little area: it can’t be too commercial sounding and it can’t be too weird. Especially on this record: we didn’t go out on a limb and we didn’t try to make it commercial. But we kept what we thought Ozzy could get away with, without raising too many eyebrows.”

That’s why a song like Shot in the Dark was a surprise, because it borders on FM pop.

“Yeah, we had our doubts about that one. I write a lot of songs like that. Most of the songs I’ve kept have been really commercial or really weird. I wasn’t so sure of the song when Phil [Soussan, bassist and writer of Shot in the Dark] first presented it. It was getting kind of commercial, and Ozzy wasn’t too sure of it either. But [producer] Ron Nevison gunned for that one, and it worked out all right.”

The fact that you don’t use a vibrato bar is a big part of the Jake E. Lee style. How did that develop?

“Ooooh! Everybody who uses a bar is going to hate me. [laughs] And everybody uses a bar. What Brad Gillis [Night Ranger, formerly with Ozzy] does with a bar is pretty innovative; some of what Eddie Van Halen has done with a bar is fairly innovative. 

“I don’t think a lot of what he has done with a bar is innovative, but he has brought it back and he doesn’t rely on it like some people do. It’s real easy to start a solo by hitting a harmonic at the fifth fret of the G string and to end a solo by playing the E string and hitting the bar again. 

“I’m not saying that Eddie relies on that, because, obviously, he’s a great guitar player. But a lot of people do use the bar when their brain or their heart quits thinking about the music. They need to have a filler, and that’s why I think a bar is cheating.

“I think young guys should learn how to play without the bar, and then, once they’re pretty happening, they can start incorporating the bar. That’s what I always planned on doing, but I’ve never gotten around to it yet. I haven’t gotten good enough. 

“You put a guitar with a bar in my hand and I go crazy, whacko. You might as well glue my hand to the bar, because that’s all I want to do. I’m useless when there’s a bar on there, so for my own good I don’t use a bar.”

On The Ultimate Sin, did the absence of large-scale keyboard parts give you more creative freedom?

“Yes. That was something I insisted on. Ozzy kept saying, ‘We’ve always had a keyboard player. Where is a keyboard player now that we’re writing songs?’ 

“On Bark at the Moon, if we didn’t know what to do, it was real easy to say, ‘Don [Airey, keyboardist], make some kind of noise.’ When we were writing the new album, I more or less insisted that we didn’t have a keyboard player. I said, ‘Look, if we can write a song without keyboards, then the keyboards will add that much more when we finally do add them.’ 

“I wanted to write the songs and not have anything filling up space besides the bass, drums and guitar. If something didn’t work, we could change it musically. We brought the keyboard player [Mike Moran] in only after all the parts were done. We did demos all the time we were writing. We had keyboards there that belonged to Ozzy, and I played them on a lot of the demos.”

We didn’t know that you played keyboards.

“Yeah, that’s what I started on. I started playing keyboards when I was six, and I’m classically trained. I took classical piano for two to four hours every day until I was 16. I went to the Music Conservatory when I was 12 and I was the second youngest person ever admitted there. I was supposed to be a real promising piano player.”

What happened?

“I hated piano! Piano kept me from playing football and baseball with the other kids. But I was always musically inclined, and my sister happened to have a guitar sitting around the house, and when I picked it up, I said, ‘This is the one.’ I started playing guitar and I quit playing piano. My parents wanted me to be the next Van Cliburn, but I wanted to be the next Van Halen.”

You later joined Ratt and then Rough Cutt. How did you hear about the spot in Ozzy’s band?

“Someone contacted me about it. At first I said no, because I didn’t want to step into Randy Rhoads’ shoes. It’s hard enough trying to replace a good guitar player – and I don’t want this to sound callous – but when they die, they turn into legends. I didn’t want to be compared to somebody else for the rest of my life. 

“But I went down there anyway, and I think there was a list of 25 guitar players. We each spent 15 minutes in the studio doing whatever we wanted to do. We had our pictures taken; they were given to Ozzy and he picked three of us: George [Lynch, Dokken], Mitch Perry and me. 

“George was flown to England and given first crack at it. Me and Mitch were left in LA. Ozzy came down and we auditioned at S.I.R. in New York City, and I got it. And I was 45 minutes late! 

“Dana Strum, who did the first round of auditions, said Ozzy had almost walked out the door; he said, ‘Fuck it, if this guy doesn’t care enough to show up on time and he’s going to be this kind of problem, forget it. I don’t care how good he is.’ But Dana kept him there.”

Did Ozzy remark about the fact that you didn’t use a tremolo bar?

“Yeah. The first thing he said was, ‘Do you know how to play a guitar with a wang bar on it?’ And I said, ‘Of course. Anybody can play a guitar with a wang bar, but I don’t like it.’ And he said, ‘Well, why don’t you think about using one? Because I don’t think you can play some of these songs without one.’ And I said, ‘I can. I’ll show ya.’ 

“After rehearsal he said, ‘Yeah, fine, it sounds like you’ve got one, I don’t care. As long as it sounds good you don’t need to use one.’ He was under the impression that a modern guitarist cannot play without a bar. I proved him wrong, I hope. I can’t think of anyone new who doesn’t play with a bar.”

When you sit down to record a solo, what goes through your mind in terms of notes and effects?

“There are basically three different ways I work out a solo. The first method involves taping everything at the rehearsals and editing down the best parts from each take to make a master copy. The solos on Thank God for the Bomb and Lightning Strikes are good examples of this method. 

“On Thank God for the Bomb, I played a different lead every time we rehearsed it, so I ended up with 50 different leads. I just took the best bits from every solo and put them into one solo.

“The second way involves listening to the rhythm over and over. I’ll set my guitar across the room; I won’t even touch it. I’ll hum the rhythm in my head and wait until the ideas start coming. Then I’ll pick the guitar up. 

“That’s probably my favorite way of writing a solo. That’s the way a real musician would do it; he’d play what’s in his head rather than automatic riffs. I’m not that good yet, so I still go for the riff. I used this method on most of the songs.

“The third way is where I don’t have anything worked out and nothing in my head; I just walk in the studio and say, ‘Roll the tape, let’s see what comes out.’ Those are like jams. I did that on Shot in the Dark and Never Know Why. When I don’t know what I’m doing, that’s what comes out.”

“And the solo on The Ultimate Sin is really just an exercise in arpeggios.”

The solo on Slow Down, from Bark at the Moon, seemed to be really effective.

“I liked that solo. I think it was my favorite solo on there. It might be my favorite solo that I’ve ever done because it’s really melodic and it has a lot of fire, which is how I’d like to play. But I don’t get comments on that solo too often. I don’t get comments on my solos much anyway.”

Is that true?

“Well, I do now, but I didn’t so much on the first album. Kids would come up and say, ‘Hey, you’re hot! You’re great,’ but I actually got a lot of compliments on the way I moved. They would say, ‘Hey man, you move better than anybody.‘ I got a lot of general comments like that, but on this new tour a lot of people are telling me that my leads are happening.”

Maybe on the first album you were still living in the shadow of Randy Rhoads.

“Yeah. I still am.”

Were you a fan of Randy’s?

“Mmm, yeah. I thought he was the best new guitar player post-Eddie. I thought he was the most promising one I’d heard. I was sad when he died. In fact, me and Warren got drunk that night toasting Randy Rhoads.

“There was one show [with Ozzy] where there were these kids off to the side, so I went over to see what they were doing. They all had Randy Rhoads T-shirts, and they kept pointing at the shirts and going ‘Number One,’ and then they’d point at me and flip me off. 

“I went over there after the show and I said, ‘Wearing a Randy Rhoads T-shirt only reminds Ozzy that he’s lost a friend. Randy is not around to appreciate it, and I don’t appreciate it. I’m glad you liked Randy but you don’t have to shove him in my face.’”

Do you ever have the feeling that other players are looking at you to see what you’re going to do next?

“Yeah – waiting for me to fuck up. I feel a little pressure, but it doesn’t bother me. On the first record, I felt it because there were a lot of guitar players out there who wanted the gig, and they said, ‘Okay, this is the guy he picked. Let’s see what he’s got.’ 

“I did feel that every time I went in to play something because I knew there were going to be a lot of people listening to see if I did any good or not. I’m not the kind of person who really cares what other people think. I play what I like, and if somebody else likes it, great; they’re a friend of mine. 

“If they don’t like it, we can still be friends, but I don’t really care. I didn’t feel that kind of pressure so much this time, but I do feel it once in a while. There are guitar players who still come up to Ozzy and go, ‘I’m the guitar player you should have got.’”

Do you ever feel obscured by playing in Ozzy’s band?

“No. If anything, I think I get more attention than I deserve as a guitar player. If somebody comes up to me and goes, ‘Man, you’re the best guitar player in the world,’ I start feeling stupid. I go, ‘Nah, there are guys better than me.’ But if somebody comes up and says, ‘You really suck. You’re nothing compared to Randy,’ then I go, ‘Hey, fuck you! I’m good. I’m probably 10 times better than you’ll ever be.’”

Many in the rock and metal world had assumed the Prince of Darkness had finally hung up his devil horns. But in the wake of prolonged sickness, an ever-resilient Ozzy Osbourne has risen, shocking us all with his latest solo effort, the sinister Patient Number 9.

In typical fashion, Patient Number 9 is a verifiable smorgasbord of guitar-driven exhibitionism, with the likes of Jeff Beck, Eric Clapton, Mike McCready, Zakk Wylde, and Toni Iommi all stopping by to sling their respective axes.

Patient Number 9 may well be Osbourne's best effort in decades, but this latest display of guitar grandeur is far from his first rodeo. Each Osbourne effort is packed to the gills with amp-imploding bravado, the likes of which few artists would attempt, let alone execute.

In the 42 years since he first unleashed Blizzard of Ozz, the impenetrable rocker has gifted the masses with droves of iconic moments – almost too many to count. Below are 20 of the most explosive guitar moments that Osbourne's adoring fans have borne witness to.

20. Scary Little Green Men

Album: Ordinary Man (2020)
Guitarist: Tom Morello

Ozzy Osbourne's long-awaited return to the studio had its fair share of standout moments, Scary Little Green Men being one of the best of the bunch. At a glance, you might not think Rage Against the Machine's Tom Morello a fit for Osbourne's singular brand of metal, and in truth, you be right. 

So, for this one, the alternative-thinking Morello chose to forgo the typical tropes, instead marking the track as his own. While lacking a definitive solo, it does feature Morello's classic funky riffing and distinct songwriting cues.

19. Lightning Strikes

Album: The Ultimate Sin (1986)
Guitarist: Jake E. Lee

Often derided for its glam metal stylings, The Ultimate Sin is usually discarded by Osbourne's hard-edged fans. Still, in a vacuum, the record is quite good, and if you go into it with the understanding that it's a product of its time, you might just learn to love it. 

As for Lightning Strikes, it's one of the heavier cuts on an otherwise slick record. Featuring some slinky riffing over the top of a big chorus, Lightning Strikes' best moment is the second of two Jake E. Lee's solos, which handily sends this one home.

18. Gets Me Through

Album: Down to Earth (2001)
Guitarist: Zakk Wylde

Latter-day Ozzy records can be a mixed bag, but if you're willing to sift through some fodder, you'll find some gems. When it comes to Gets Me Through, it's one of the steadier tracks from a record long since forgotten.

Zakk Wylde stamps his signature sludge-ridden riffing over a slow-paced verse before opening things up, giving way to a simple yet fierce guitar solo that howls as if the bearded guitar wizard is attempting to summon a malignant demon from hell.

17. I Don't Wanna Stop

Album: Black Rain (2007)
Guitarist: Zakk Wylde

If there's one latter-day Osbourne track that you don't want to miss, it's I Don't Wanna Stop. Linchpinned again by Zakk Wylde, the track slithers along with sinister intent. Throughout the verses, Wylde's modulating, chugging riffs implode into momentary bursts of virtuosity before he finally relents and sets his fretboard aflame, conjuring illicit sounds begging to be cranked at max volume.

 16. One of Those Days

Album: Patient Number 9 (2022)
Guitarist: Eric Clapton

If you've ever made a definitive statement that you'd never see Eric Clapton lend his talents to an Ozzy Osbourne track, you're probably not alone. Still, for Osbourne's latest record, Slowhand surprises the masses by delivering some tidy licks for One of Those Days. 

With anarchic darkness creeping in, Clapton suddenly slides in familiar blues undertones to wondrous results. About midway through, the blues hero unexpectedly channels lost visions of late '60s Cream, delivering a wah-soaked burst of glory that Clapton has seldom revisited in his post-power trio career. 

15. Hellraiser

Album: No More Tears (1991)
Guitarist: Zakk Wylde

Often thought of as one of Wylde's signature moments, Hellraiser is a classic, for sure. It's no secret that 1991's No More Tears is considered one of Osbourne's finest records, but in some ways, it's a bit dated. That malady does affect this cut ever-so-slightly, with some out-of-place keyboards making themselves known. 

Thankfully, Wylde sees to it that we forget all of that in short order by erupting into shameless glory, pummeling any and all synths into quiet submission.

14. Bark at the Moon

Album: Bark at the Moon (1983)
Guitarist: Jake E. Lee

For his first solo affair without Randy Rhoads, Osbourne did all that he could to make the best of things without the fallen hero, and to his credit, newcomer Jake E. Lee rose to the challenge. 

Sure, in some ways, Bark at the Moon followed an already established blueprint. But with Lee in the fold, for better or worse, the neoclassical stylings were gone; instead, the throttle was ratcheted to its wit's end, with traditional heavy metal nuances front and center. This track is significant because it proved to the world that for Osbourne, there was life after Randy Rhoads.

13. Goodbye to Romance

Album: Blizzard of Ozz (1980)
Guitarist: Randy Rhoads

In one of the most delicate moments in his esteemed catalog, Goodbye to Romance found Osbourne sorrowfully pouring his heart out. Poetics aside, the track is integral to understanding the breadth of the rocker's catalog. 

Osbourne can raise hell – that much we know – but many often forget his ability to channel a cheerless power ballad. Perhaps a harbinger of what was to come, Goodbye to Romance made it cool to key in on emotion, and Rhoads' soulful guitar stylings sure didn't hurt either.

12. My Jekyll Doesn't Hyde

Album: Ozzmosis (1995)
Guitarist: Zakk Wylde

Hitting shelves at the tail end of the grunge explosion – which Osbourne shrewdly sat out – Ozzmosis was overlooked and even lamented by many of the singer's core fans. 

A sad situation, to be sure, but there's still time to flip the script; if you're looking for a starting point, My Jekyll Doesn't Hyde is the ticket. In what can only be described as an autobiographical affair, the real selling point is Zakk Wylde's contribution, which amounts to demonic riffing and lava-spewing guitar mastery, the likes of which are bound to make your blood boil.

11. Immortal

Album: Patient Number 9 (2022)
Guitarist: Mike McCready

Curious onlookers would be best served to expect the unexpected; that way, you'll be better prepared when Osbourne does things like feature grunge guitar maestro Mike McCready on a record. McCready and Osbourne are an obvious mismatch on paper, but as they say, “You don't play the game on paper.”

The best way to describe McCready's two cents, Immortal, is sublime. Disclaimer: crossover fans expecting the grunge stalwart to channel Pearl Jam vibes will be sadly disappointed. Instead, McCready dug deep into his bag of tricks and crafted a solo that harks back to his time in '80s proto-metal outfit Shadow.

10. Over the Mountain

Album: Diary of a Madman (1981)
Guitarist: Randy Rhoads

Fans will recall Over the Mountain as one of Osbourne's signature tracks, and with good reason: it's outstanding. With a chorus tailor-made for FM radio, and a riff that stays with you for days after you've heard it, it's easy to see why this song is well loved. 

Digging into Rhoads' playing, Over the Mountain provides another layer of depth to the Flying V toting wunderkind's arsenal. Throughout not one but two impressive solos, Rhoads lets loose an auditory assault coated in a buttery smooth tone so sickly sweet you can almost taste it.

9. Killer of Giants

Album: The Ultimate Sin (1986)
Guitarist: Jake E. Lee

Speaking of delectable tone, Jake E. Lee's sinful licks showcased in 1986's Killer of Giants are beholden as a thing of glorious guitar-driven splendor. As far as the track goes, it's mid-tempo, with some frenetic moments and a bit of a hard-to-place ambience. 

Waves of power chords caress the edges of Osbourne's mystical lyricism, with otherwise sparse instrumentation making for not only one of Lee's finest moments but one of Osbourne's best post-Rhoads cuts, period.

8. Miracle Man

Album: No Rest for the Wicked (1988)
Guitarist: Zakk Wylde

With Jake E. Lee moving on and many of his fans galvanized by his foray into hair metal, Osbourne needed to make a statement. After reportedly auditioning just about every guitarist on the Sunset Strip, Osbourne settled on the relatively unknown Zakk Wylde.

The move would pay off, forcing Osbourne back towards his heavy metal roots. For Miracle Man, Wylde's solo is chaotically tasteful, but the track's real signature is defined by a talk box, which is entirely uncommon in Osbourne's music.

7. S.A.T.O.

Album: Diary of a Madman (1981)
Guitarist: Randy Rhoads

It's no secret that Randy Rhoads was a pioneer of the neoclassical style of guitar, but on S.A.T.O., Rhoads threw that completely out the window and deployed his best '70s-era Toni Iommi impression.

Admittedly, the solo is a touch technical, but the chord structure and riffing are as proto-metal as it gets. All in all, for S.A.T.O., Rhoads set aside his demonstrative style and did an exemplary job of creating an atmospheric vibe above all else.

6. Patient Number 9

Album: Patient Number 9 (2022)
Guitarist: Jeff Beck

One of the many things that make Osbourne's latest record excellent is his willingness to step outside of his comfort zone and juxtapose musical elements in ways that seem wrong but ultimately are oh-so-right. To be sure, including fingerstyle fusion legend Jeff Beck would undoubtedly fall into that category. 

As Patient Number 9 kicks off, the listener might feel a bit uneasy, and the first of two solos doesn't do much to dispel that. But stick it out until the end, and Beck treats you to one of the finest guitar moments ever laid to tape on an Osbourne full-length.

5. Mr. Tinkertrain

Album: No More Tears (1991)
Guitarist: Zakk Wylde

Ballsy riffs, heavy open chords, and slight synth touches immerse the listener, sleepily guiding them through the first four-plus minutes of the quirky Mr. Tinkertrain.

All is calm until Zakk Wylde bludgeons you over the head and rams his guitar right down your throat. While Osbourne does his best to repel the Berzerker with a seething call to arms, Wylde's blues-inspired shredding kicks him square in the teeth, proving once and for all why he may well be Osbourne's best, if not most versatile, sideman of all.

4. Road to Nowhere

Album: No More Tears (1991)
Guitarist: Zakk Wylde

In a catalog defined by bombast and machismo, Road to Nowhere is something of a different flavor. Not quite a power ballad, and certainly not a high-intensity rocker, Road to Nowhere serves as Zakk Wylde's definitive moment. 

Chiming, open chords allude to chugging riffs, all of which are accented by sheepish blues soloing throughout, with spurts of shred mixed in for taste. Toward the end, Wylde blows things open, offering up his masterstroke: one of the most dynamic, clear-toned heavy metal solos you will ever feast your ears on. If you're trying to understand what makes Zakk Wylde great, this track lays it all on the line.

 3. Crazy Train

Album: Blizzard of Ozz (1980)
Guitarist: Randy Rhoads

Undoubtedly, Ozzy Osbourne's best-known track, Crazy Train, is the archetype for all that came after – not only for Osbourne but, in many ways, all of popular rock music. Deeply heavy, intricately complex, and outrageously catchy riffing earmark Crazy Train's guitar playing with a bullet. 

If you've ever been to a sporting event, listened to the radio, or existed on planet Earth, you've heard this one. While this is a great song, with a legendary and oft-imitated solo, you don't need to be a fan of Osbourne's work to know and love it.

2. Mr. Crowley

Album: Blizzard of Ozz (1980)
Guitarist: Randy Rhoads

Tragically paired for only two records, the star-crossed duo of Ozzy Osbourne and Randy Rhoads still managed to change the musical landscape. While hard to comprehend their symbiosis, let alone the cavernous depths of Rhoads's talent, if you endeavor to do so, Mr. Crowley is a good start. 

And while Rhoads featured prominently among several forever-loved tracks, Mr. Crowley shows the full spectrum of his ability. Serpentine riffing and melodic soloing pan across the speakers, taking listeners on a sonic journey unlike any other. You can't help but reminisce on the one-of-a-kind talent lost when Rhoads left this Earth.

1. Rock 'N' Roll Rebel

Album: Bark at the Moon (1983)
Guitarist: Jake E. Lee

You might have expected Randy Rhoads to be positioned at the top of this list, but it's Rhoads' successor, Jake E. Lee, posturing at the stage's edge. Bucking his guitar against his hip and bloodying his scurrying fingers in a race to hot-rodded Stratocaster glory, Lee is often the forgotten man on Osbourne's guitar totem pole. 

Rock 'N' Roll Rebel is a torrid deep cut, forcefully positioning Lee chest to guitar-strapped chest with Rhoads' ghost. If you've not heard or have perhaps forgotten, Rock 'N' Roll Rebel is a not-so-gentle reminder of Jake E. Lee’s reign as Osbourne’s partner in controlled chaos.

Charvel led off 2022 with the announcement of four distinct, eye-catching signature guitars, among them a new model for former Ozzy Osbourne guitarist Jake E. Lee.

Though it's not Lee's first signature Charvel, the Pro-Mod So-Cal Style electric guitar – which is now available to the public – is over $1,500 cheaper than the influential metal guitarist's existing USA Signature six-string. 

Based on Lee's 1975 model, the guitar features an alder body and a graphite-reinforced, bolt-on maple neck that sports a 12"-16" compound radius, 25.5” rosewood fingerboard with 21 jumbo frets and a heel-mount truss rod adjustment wheel. 

Sonically, the axe is driven by a Seymour Duncan JB SH-4 humbucker at the bridge, with two slanted DiMarzio SDS-1 DP111 single-coils in the neck and middle positions. These are controlled by just a single volume knob and a five-position blade pickup switch.

Elsewhere, the six-string features a hardtail bridge with a black base plate and Charvel tuning machines with pearl buttons. All hardware is finished slickly in black.

In keeping with its minimalist theme, the guitar – aside from its slanted single-coils – features little in the way of signature identifiers.

“When I was coming up in the ‘80s, Charvel was the cool guitar to have,” Lee said in a statement. “40 years later, it still is.” 

The Charvel Jake E. Lee Signature Pro-Mod So-Cal Style 1 HSS HT RW – to give it its full Christian name – is available now, in a Pearl White finish, for $1,299. It joins the recently-launched Sean Long Signature Pro-Mod San Dimas Style 1 HH HT M, Satchel Signature Pro-Mod DK22 HH FR M and Henrik Danhage Signature Pro-Mod So-Cal Style 1 in Charvel's stable of new-for-2022 signature models. 

For more info on the guitar, stop by Charvel.

Today, we've teamed up with Jake E. Lee's Red Dragon Cartel to premiere their new "Speedbag" music video. You can check it out above. 

"Speedbag" is one of the highlights from Red Dragon Cartel's new album, Patina, which came out back in November via Frontiers Music Srl.

When asked about the bluesier sound of Patina, Lee told Guitar World in a recent interview: "Part of the reason for that is because this one was done more organically. The songs were written with everybody in the room, and then it was recorded pretty much like we did in the old days. So it just has that vibe to it."

"The other thing is that the last time we recorded with [producer] Kevin Churko, and his production is a little more modern-sounding," Lee continued. "But this one I think comes across sounding more like a product of an old geezer like me. [laughs] There’s more flavors. One song, there’s even a little bit that kind of sounds like Dick Dale."

To read our entire interview with Lee, from our January 2019 issue, step right this way. You can also check out Red Dragon Cartel's upcoming tour dates below.

For more on Red Dragon Cartel, point your browser over to redragoncartel.com. 

Red Dragon Cartel 2019 Tour Dates:

2/23: Reno, NV @ Nugget Casino Resort

2/24: Agoura Hills, CA @ The Canyon Club

2/26: San Diego, CA @ Brick By Brick

2/28: Los Angeles, CA @ The Whisky

3/1: Santa Ana, CA @ Malones

3/2: Las Vegas, NV @ Vamp’d

3/3: Tempe, AZ @ Marquee

3/5: Denver, CO @ Herman’s Hideaway

3/7: Dallas, TX @ Trees

3/8: San Antonio, TX @ The Rock Box

3/9: Houston, TX @ Warehouse Live

3/11: Nashville, TN @ The Basement East

3/13: Joliet, IL @ The Forge

3/14: Ft. Wayne, IN @ Pierre’s

3/15: Detroit, MI @ Token Lounge

3/16: Toronto, ON @ The Rockpile

3/18: Pittsburgh, PA @ Crafthouse

3/21: Buford, GA @ 37 Main

3/22: Greenville, SC @ Firmament

3/23: Hopewell, VA @ Beacon Theater

3/25: Sellersville, PA @ Sellersville Theater

3/26: New York, NY @ Iridium

3/27: Baltimore, MD @ Rams Head Live

3/29: Teaneck, NJ @ Debonair Music Hall

3/30: Patchogue, NY @ 89 North

3/31: New Bedford, MA @ The Vault at Greasy Luck

4/2: Queens, NY @ Blackthorn 51

It all started when Jake E. Lee had a good reason for naming the new album from his band, Red Dragon Cartel, Patina. “I liked the word because it refers to something that’s weathered and aged and actually looks cooler because of it,” the 61-year-old guitarist says.

“And so I thought it was applicable to me. Because I’d like to think I look cooler as I’m getting older.” Lee laughs. “Although I’m sure there’s a lot of people that would disagree!”

Looks, of course, are in the eye of the beholder. But is Jake E. Lee getting better with age? Quite possibly. Patina is his second album with Red Dragon Cartel, the band he put together after a hiatus from the music business that spanned roughly two decades. Prior to retreating from the spotlight, Lee made a name for himself as one of hard rock’s premiere shredders, first with Ozzy Osbourne, with whom he played from 1983 to 1987, and then with his own blues-rock outfit, Badlands.

When he reemerged on the scene in 2014 with the hard-rocking Red Dragon Cartel, he received a hero’s welcome from fans that revere his hot-wire licks and solos on Ozzy albums like Bark at the Moon and The Ultimate Sin. But Patina finds Lee delving more heavily into the bluesy style reminiscent of his Badlands days, complete with groove-oriented riffs and solos that rely more on hooky melodic themes than note-y pyrotechnics.

“I’m pretty happy with all the solos on this record,” Lee says. “They’re a little more melodic and well thought-out than in the past. I didn’t resort to just playing fast when I didn’t have any ideas. And the band recorded everything together on a ranch in Pennsylvania, where we were able to hang out and jam and come up with material really naturally. So that added to the vibe.”

The result is a new-and-improved Red Dragon Cartel, which also includes in its lineup singer Darren Smith, ex-Lynch Mob bassist Anthony Esposito and ex-Saigon Kick and Skid Row drummer Phil Varone. Now two albums in with his new band, Lee is looking forward to once again getting out on the road and sharing his music with fans. And in keeping with the title Patina, he says that he’s been away long enough that he’s no longer “out of date.” He laughs again. “Now I’m…classic!”

Patina is a more bluesy affair than the first Red Dragon Cartel record. Would you agree?

Yeah, that sounds about right. Part of the reason for that is because this one was done more organically. The songs were written with everybody in the room, and then it was recorded pretty much like we did in the old days. So it just has that vibe to it. The other thing is that the last time we recorded with [producer] Kevin Churko, and his production is a little more modern-sounding. But this one I think comes across sounding more like a product of an old geezer like me. [laughs] There’s more flavors. One song, there’s even a little bit that kind of sounds like Dick Dale.

What song is that?

Oh, boy…let me think of the name of the song, because all of them had joke titles until we actually wrote lyrics, and those are the titles I still know them by. It’s the last song on the record — “Ink and Water.” It starts with the bass, and then I do, to the best of my abilities, these little jazzy sorts of flourishes. And then it goes into a surf kind of a thing. But I’ve always liked to try to throw as many flavors as I can into the pot. I used to do that in Badlands. I really didn’t do it very much with Ozzy.

For most of your career you’ve been put into a box as a “shredder.” But this new album is definitely not a shred album. There’s a lot of great guitar playing on it, but the solos are more reliant on melodies and themes, or even odd sounds, as opposed to just cramming as many notes as possible into a bar of music.

I never adhered to that whole shredder thing. I know some people put me in that category, but I never considered myself one. And I don’t think there’s anything wrong with shredders. It’s not that I don’t want to be there, it’s just that some people, their playing is more of a stream of consciousness — sort of like John Coltrane, where they play a bunch of notes and can say something with it — and I never really thought I was that kind of a player. Although I did used to play faster more often. But for this record in particular, I wanted to make every note count. And Tyler Esposito, who is [bassist] Anthony’s son, he was the recording engineer on the album and he has a really good ear for things. He wouldn’t let me get away with just playing fast because I didn’t have anything else to do. So I’d play something in the studio, and then I’d come into the control room and I could always tell by the way he looked at me — he’d be like, “Really? That’s what you’re going to do for that solo? Play a bunch of notes?” And he would make me go back out until I came up with something worthwhile.

One song that has a really great solo is “Crooked Man.” There’s also a nice blend of electric and acoustic guitars on it.

I like that one a lot. It’s got that quirky riff in it and then it goes into a very acoustic-flavored bridge, which is unusual for me because I don’t even own an acoustic! I’ve never owned an acoustic. I don’t like acoustic guitars. [laughs] The thing that drew me to the guitar was Jimi Hendrix and the whole growl and ferocity of the electric, and you don’t get that with acoustic. So I’ve never owned an acoustic. Whenever I need one I just borrow it. And the one I used on this album was a nice one — a Fifties or early-Sixties Martin.

Another interesting one is “Chasing Ghosts.” It gets almost proggy in the solo section, don’t you think?

Yeah. That one used to be called “Chode Strangler.” I really have to get used to these real titles…

“Chode Strangler?” Where did that name come from?

Well, let me see… why was it called “Chode Strangler”? Oh — because I wanted to get a vibe kind of like [Ted Nugent’s] “Stranglehold.” [laughs] It doesn’t really come across that way, but that’s how it started. I liked that title, though I don’t know what we would have made the lyrics about. Well, I have an idea of what we could have made the lyrics about, but I don’t know if that’s really something I’d want to be associated with! But that was a strange one. The chorus softens up from the verse, which is kind of the opposite of what choruses usually do. And then it goes into an odd time signature thing, kind of like the Police or something. And there’s a weird solo in there. So there’s a lot of cool parts.

What was your main guitar and amp setup on Patina?

The main amp that made it through at least 60, 70 percent of the record was an old Marshall 50-watt from the Seventies that belonged to Anthony. And there were some other heads — a Silvertone, a 1969 Laney, a Voodoo, a Fender Twin. But the bulk of the record was the Marshall.

What about guitars?

There was no one guitar, really. I have a friend down in Florida who has a pretty large guitar collection, and he drove a bunch of them up to the studio for me to use. I can’t remember everything, but I know there was a ’52 Tele and a ’68 Tele, a ’57 Strat, a ’63 Strat and a ’69 Les Paul. I also used a ’56 Gretsch and my ’68 SG. I had a lot of guitars to choose from, which is not the way I’ve ever done it in the past. Usually I’ll pick a guitar and amp I like and just go.

Did you use your Charvel signature model at all?

I did, on “Ink and Water.” I do some tap harmonics in the chorus, and I used that guitar specifically. It’s not really too high in the mix, but it’s there.

What about pedals?

Well, my buddy that brought me all the guitars also had probably close to 100 pedals, all old vintage ones. So I had a lot to choose from. If I wanted, say, a chorus, there’d be 12 choruses for me to try. And there were some great old ones, like a Boss CE-1, the one you have to actually plug into the wall. I remember I used that a lot. There was also a Roland Funny Cat, a lot of bizarre old pedals.

Are you planning to do a full-scale tour behind Patina?

I am. I don’t think there’s any firm commitments yet other than I know we’re going to Japan in April, and we’ll probably do an American tour before that. Other than that, nothing else is actually set. We’ll probably be doing bars and clubs, although we were hoping to go out on tour with somebody — ideally we wanted to do something with Zakk Wylde, because I just think that would be really cool to have two Ozzy guitar players together.

Fans would love a double bill like that. Was the idea ever broached with Zakk’s camp?

I think it was, with his management. Because I don’t know Zakk personally. I only met him once and that was when he was 19 — back when he was skinny and pretty, you know? [laughs] But it’s been a long time since I’ve actually talked to Zakk.

That one time you met him, was he already playing with Ozzy?

Yeah. It was right after he got the gig. We were at some hotel in L.A., I can’t think of the name, for a Badlands meeting. And Ozzy walked by. And then Zakk walked by and he introduced himself. And he was really cool. I mean, I had nothing against him.

Did you guys chat at all? Was there any advice you offered him about the Ozzy gig?

I mean, I had just gotten fired. What kind of advice could I give? [laughs]

“Don’t get fired.”

[laughs] No, I didn’t give any advice. I just wished him luck. It was a very brief meeting. But he seemed like a nice guy and he’s always been very kind to me in the press.

The tour for the last Red Dragon Cartel was your first time doing extensive road work in decades. How did it feel?

The actual performing part was easy. I like playing live and I didn’t have any problems with that. The traveling part, my body doesn’t weather it as well anymore. About 10, 11 years ago I broke my back, and around the same time I shattered my heel. I don’t want to sound like a whiner, but the traveling part is definitely harder. But the performing? That’s no problem. Getting up onstage and playing music, that still feels natural.

You spent a lot of years outside of the music industry. Now that you’re back, does this world feel comfortable to you? Or do you feel like a fish out of water?

It’s really a bit of both. It’s not the same world, that’s for sure. And I’m not saying that as a good thing or a bad thing. But like I said, this record was made like I would have made it back in the Eighties and Nineties, and I don’t know how many people would do it that way anymore. It’s so much easier just to do it the way I did the first Red Dragon Cartel record, which was to piece it all together in the studio. But I don’t know if it’s so much that I feel out of place as it is that I know what my place is and I’m not trying to change it. And also, I don’t care. At this point in my life I just do things the way I want to do them. And if it works, it works. If it doesn’t, it doesn’t. Either way, it’s no skin off my back.

Red Dragon Cartel have shared the official video for "Bitter," from their recently-released sophomore album, Patina.

In support of the album, the band will be hitting the road early next year for a full U.S. tour. The outing kicks off February 23 in Reno, NV and is scheduled to wrap up April 2 in Queens, NY. A complete list of dates can be found below.

For more information, head over to reddragoncartel.com. 

Red Dragon Cartel 2019 tour dates:

2/23: Reno, NV @ Golden Nugget Casino
2/24: Agoura Hills, CA @ The Canyon Club
2/26: San Diego, CA @ Brick By Brick
2/28: Los Angeles, CA @ The Whisky
3/1: Santa Ana, CA @ Malones
3/2: Las Vegas, NV @ Vamp’d
3/3: Tempe, AZ @ Marquee
3/5: Denver, CO @ Herman’s Hideaway
3/7: Dallas, TX @ Trees
3/8: San Antonio, TX @ The Rock Box
3/9: Houston, TX @ Warehouse Live
3/11: Nashville, TN @ The Basement
3/13: Joliet, IL @ The Forge
3/14: Ft. Wayne, IN @ Pierre’s
3/15: Detroit, MI @ Token Lounge
3/16: Toronto, ON @ The Rockpile
3/18: Pittsburgh, PA @ Crafthouse
3/21: Buford, GA @ 37 Main
3/22: Greenville, SC @ Firmament
3/23: Hopewell, VA @ Beacon Theater
3/25: Sellersville, PA @ Sellersville Theater
3/26: New York, NY @ Iridium
3/27: Baltimore, MD @ Rams Head Live
3/29: Teaneck, NJ @ Debonair Music Hall
3/30: Patchogue, NY @ 89 North
3/31: New Bedford, MA @ The Vault at Greasy Luck
4/2: Queens, NY @ Blackthorn 51

Today, Jake E. Lee's Red Dragon Cartel released their new studio album Patina via Frontiers Music Srl. In support of the release, the band will be hitting the road early next year for a full U.S. tour. The outing kicks off February 23 in Reno, NV and is scheduled to wrap up April 2 in Queens, NY. A complete list of dates can be found below, along with the music video for "Havana."

Patina is a definitive statement of Lee's incredible guitar skills,  with monster production from bassist/producer Anthony Esposito and a hard-hitting mix courtesy of Max Norman—a relationship Lee has held since his days with Ozzy Osbourne.

You can order Patina on CD/LP/digital and stream the album here. Additionally, U.S. fans can get an exclusive 180g, green vinyl from F.Y.E. stores or online here. This pressing is strictly limited to 250 copies and will not be repressed.

For more information, head over to reddragoncartel.com. 

Red Dragon Cartel 2019 Tour Dates:

2/23: Reno, NV @ Golden Nugget Casino
2/24: Agoura Hills, CA @ The Canyon Club
2/26: San Diego, CA @ Brick By Brick
2/28: Los Angeles, CA @ The Whisky
3/1: Santa Ana, CA @ Malones
3/2: Las Vegas, NV @ Vamp’d
3/3: Tempe, AZ @ Marquee
3/5: Denver, CO @ Herman’s Hideaway
3/7: Dallas, TX @ Trees
3/8: San Antonio, TX @ The Rock Box
3/9: Houston, TX @ Warehouse Live
3/11: Nashville, TN @ The Basement
3/13: Joliet, IL @ The Forge
3/14: Ft. Wayne, IN @ Pierre’s
3/15: Detroit, MI @ Token Lounge
3/16: Toronto, ON @ The Rockpile
3/18: Pittsburgh, PA @ Crafthouse
3/21: Buford, GA @ 37 Main
3/22: Greenville, SC @ Firmament
3/23: Hopewell, VA @ Beacon Theater
3/25: Sellersville, PA @ Sellersville Theater
3/26: New York, NY @ Iridium
3/27: Baltimore, MD @ Rams Head Live
3/29: Teaneck, NJ @ Debonair Music Hall
3/30: Patchogue, NY @ 89 North
3/31: New Bedford, MA @ The Vault at Greasy Luck
4/2: Queens, NY @ Blackthorn 51

Red Dragon Cartel, the band led by former Ozzy Osbourne and Badlands guitarist Jake E. Lee, have shared the lyric video for a new song, "Crooked Man." The track will appear on their upcoming sophomore album, Patina, out November 9 via Frontiers Music srl.

As previously reported, Patina was recorded at Obscenic Arts, bassist Anthony Esposito's studio in Dillsburg, Pennsylvania, and mixed by producer Max Norman (Ozzy Osbourne, Megadeth, Loudness). Red Dragon Cartel is rounded out by singer Darren James Smith and drummer Phil Varone.

You can check out the cover art and track list for Patina below, and pre-order the album here.

Patina tracklist:
01. Speedbag 

02. Havana 

03. Crooked Man 

04. The Luxury Of Breathing 

05. Bitter

06. Chasing Ghosts 

07. A Painted Heart 

08. Punchclown (bonus track) 

09. My Beautiful Mess 

10. Ink & Water

Today, we're thrilled to team up with Jake E. Lee's Red Dragon Cartel to premiere the music video for "Havana," the rollicking first single off their upcoming album, Patina. You can check it out above. 

Patina—which is set for a November 9 release via Frontiers Music Srl—was recorded at Obscenic Arts, bassist Anthony Esposito's studio in Dillsburg, Pennsylvania. It was mixed by producer Max Norman (Ozzy Osbourne, Megadeth, Loudness).

Patina is the band's first release with Esposito on bass and Phil Varone behind the kit. You can check out its cover art and tracklist below. 

"I chose 'Havana' as the first song to be released from the new album for a few reasons," Lee told Guitar World about Patina's lead single. "First off, it begins with a lone guitar playing the riff, promoting the idea that this is a guitar-heavy record. The song's production is about as straightforward and basic as it gets on this album and I wanted it to be apparent that, overall, it's more of an old school approach, as opposed to its predecessor [Red Dragon Cartel's self titled, 2014 debut album.] And, it's just a cool riff I couldn't wait to share with anyone interested in what I'm doing!"

Lee also told Guitar World about Red Dragon Cartel's newest members, saying: "Anthony Esposito is on bass. I first met him when he was a part of the original Lynch Mob. He brings with him not just the solid, groove-oriented style he's known for, but a very lyrical and inventive, not unlike John Paul Jones, presence to the tracks.

Phil Varone is the drummer," Lee continued. "He was originally in Saigon Kick (one of the best band names ever) and, like Ant, is a very solid and groove oriented player, who is not afraid to turn things upside down to give the song a more unique flavor."

To pre-order Patina, step right this way.

For more on Red Dragon Cartel, point your browser over to redragoncartel.com. 

Patina tracklist:
01. Speedbag 

02. Havana 

03. Crooked Man 

04. The Luxury Of Breathing 

05. Bitter

06. Chasing Ghosts 

07. A Painted Heart 

08. Punchclown (bonus track) 

09. My Beautiful Mess 

10. Ink & Water

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!

Charvel continues its long-held partnerships with Warren DeMartini and Jake E Lee with the release of brand-new signature models. The Warren DeMartini USA Signature Frenchie and the Jake E Lee USA Signature Blue Burst will be unveiled this week at the Summer NAMM Show in Nashville, Tenn.Warren DeMartini USA Signature Frenchie
Fans have long clamored for a replica of Warren DeMartini’s famed and beloved “Frenchie” guitar, as seen live on tour and on a slew of magazine covers throughout Ratt’s reign in the 1980s. Charvel has responded with the Warren DeMartini USA Signature Frenchie, available in a Snow White and a Gloss Black finish. Both are detailed with cross decals and a tribute quote to James Dean in French that translates as “too fast to live, too young to die.”

The Frenchie also offers premium features such as a Dinky alder body, one-piece bolt-on quartersawn maple neck and a 12"- 16" compound radius maple fingerboard with 22 jumbo stainless steel frets and black dot inlays.

Custom-made for the legendary lead guitarist, the Seymour Duncan Warren DeMartini RTM (“Rattus Tonus Maximus”) bridge pickup is a powerful high-output humbucker that naturally compresses for a well-balanced and even tone, perfect for complex chording and precision soloing. The RTM is boosted by an SSL-4 Quarter Pound neck pickup, adding fat, supercharged punch and extra sustain.

The Frenchie also features a single volume control knob, three-way toggle switch, a Floyd Rose Original locking bridge and Gotoh tuning machines. Available in October 2017.Jake E Lee USA Signature Blue Burst
Jake E Lee’s original Blue Burst guitar gained notoriety during his stint with Ozzy Osbourne, as he recorded and performed live with the famous instrument throughout the band’s pivotal Bark at the Moon and Ultimate Sin years. Charvel has recreated an unmistakable replica of Lee’s original model down to the very last detail.

The Jake E Lee USA Signature Blue Burst features a poplar body, one-piece bolt-on quartersawn maple neck and a 12” radius rosewood fingerboard with 22 medium jumbo frets and white dot inlays.

Equipped with a versatile customized Seymour Duncan JB Alnico II humbucking bridge pickup, this model can handle a diverse range of tones from sweet and warm to aggressive and distorted. It’s also supercharged with two powerful single-coil DiMarzio SDS-1 pickups in the middle and neck for extra gain with a deeper, darker tone. The pickups are controlled with a five-way blade switch and single volume knob.

Available in a mesmerizing Blue Burst, this signature axe also features black Gotoh tuning machines and brass Charvel hardtail bridge and output jack plate. Available in October 2017.

For more information, go to charvelguitars.com.

It must have been a Herculean task for Jake E. Lee to take over the guitar-playing slot in Ozzy Osbourne’s band after the singer’s beloved rising star guitarist, Randy Rhoads, perished in a plane crash back in 1982.

But that’s exactly what Lee did. With blazing riffs and ripping solos in songs like “Bark at the Moon” and “Rock N’ Roll Rebel,” Jake E. Lee became an overnight guitar hero for many aspiring guitarists who wanted to copy every nuance of his wicked vibrato and incendiary technique.

To perform those and other songs, he relied on heavily modified mid-Seventies Fender Stratocaster that many assumed was a Charvel guitar.

Affectionately dubbed “Whitey,” the guitar originally had a tobacco sunburst finish until Lee’s roommate, who worked as a painter at Charvel, shaved down the headstock and painted it white. The guitar’s most noticeable modification was to the middle and neck single-coil pickups, which were slanted in reverse, a Hendrix-inspired configuration that made it distinctively cool and which makes it all the more surprising that Charvel never seized an opportunity to offer the guitar as a signature model or a variation thereof, despite the company changing hands.

Since his brief tenure in Ozzy and with his own band, Badlands, Lee has kept a low profile, but he recently emerged with his new band, Red Dragon Cartel. Throughout his erratic career, what has remained consistent is the guitar with which he is most identified. Thankfully, this time around, Charvel is recognizing this iconic instrument by offering the Jake E. Lee Signature model with the same stripped-down sensibility and killer tones.

FEATURES There are plenty of well-established Strat-style guitars available but none come close to the Spartan refinement of the JEL. Unlike most “super strats” in this categorical arena, which commonly possess locking tremolos, extra frets and dual humbuckers, the JEL features only the bare necessities, including a hard-tail bridge design, 21 frets, a Seymour Duncan JB humbucker and two reverse-slanted DiMarzio SDS-1 single-coil pickups, which are controlled by a singular volume knob and five-position blade switch.

The guitar features an incredibly lightweight ash body and a very slim, quarter-sawn maple neck with a rosewood fretboard. The medium-jumbo frets are superbly dressed and crowned, and the 25 1/2–inch-scale neck is super fast, with a hand-rubbed oil finish that makes chord changes feel incredibly smooth. The pearl-white with lavender-hue finish, matching painted headstock and Gotoh pearl button tuners give the guitar the boldness of a white tuxedo at a black-tie affair.

PERFORMANCE The JEL is an expressive instrument because it warrants flying around the fretboard with downright ease. It’s no surprise Lee was able to wrangle wide-interval vibrato tricks that simulated the effect of a tremolo bar—the 12-to-16-inch compound radius allows for remarkable two-and-a-half-step bends without a hint of fretting out. The neck is rock-solid sturdy despite having such a sleek profile, which makes fluid sweep picking or wrapping your thumb over the top edge of the fretboard a cinch.

The Seymour Duncan JB humbucker is perfectly suited for this model, having all the midrange bite needed for a variety of musical styles without overwhelming the inherent sweet tone of its ash body. The reverse-slanted DiMarzio SDS-1 pickups have a slightly hotter output but are properly balanced for clarity. Having them inverted reveals a woolly nature on the high strings, where notes sound fatter with plenty of brawn. On the bass side, notes have a flutey bottom end and prolonged sustain. For all its simplicity, the JEL sounds huge and feels like a high-end custom instrument, proving less is truly more.

LIST PRICE $2,831.35
MANUFACTURER Charvel Guitars, charvel.com

The DiMarzio SDS-1 single-coil pickups have plenty of zest in this reverse-slanted configuration, which makes notes sound bigger.

Quite possibly the most comfortable, shred-worthy neck profile, which makes playing this guitar effortless.

THE BOTTOM LINE The Charvel JEL Signature is a stripped-down rock and metal machine with pure, raw tones and the most player-friendly neck.

As you might've read in the February 2014 issue of Guitar World, Former Ozzy Osbourne and Badlands guitarist Jake E. Lee is back with a new band, Red Dragon Cartel.

Below, check out the music videos for "Shout It Out" and "Deceived," two tracks off the band's new self-titled album, which was released January 28 via Frontiers Records.

It’s a hard-hitting, 10-song collection that features guest appearances from artists like Cheap Trick’s Robin Zander, In This Moment’s Maria Brink and former Iron Maiden vocalist Paul Di’Anno. It also highlights Lee’s inimitable guitar playing and, perhaps most importantly to him, showcases his talents as a composer.

“I was never too comfortable being seen as just a shred guy,” he told Guitar World. “I was always more interested in the song.” You can check out the rest of our interview right here.

The band is rounded out by Ronnie Mancuso, D.J. Smith and Jonas Fairley. For more about each band member, visit reddragoncartel.com.

“For a while, it was pretty uncool to be me,” Jake E. Lee admits, speaking to Guitar World from a Las Vegas recording studio late one December evening.

It’s something of an unexpected statement, but what is even more surprising is the fact that Lee is saying anything at all.

Back in the Eighties and early Nineties, when he was slaying arena stages with Ozzy Osbourne and his own group, Badlands, the San Diego–raised ax man was a bona fide guitar god, with a beautifully liquid and limber playing style that, much like his serpentine stage moves, seemed to flow from him effortlessly.

And yet, save for a few low-key recordings, it’s been more than 20 years since most rock and metal fans have heard anything new from the guitarist.

Until now. Earlier this year, after decades of relative inactivity, the 56-year-old Lee announced the creation of a new band, Red Dragon Cartel. The group, which he formed with friend and Beggars & Thieves bassist Ronnie Mancuso (and which also features singer D.J. Smith and drummer Jonas Fairley), recently released its self-titled debut album.

It’s a hard-hitting, 10-song collection that features guest appearances from artists like Cheap Trick’s Robin Zander, In This Moment’s Maria Brink and former Iron Maiden vocalist Paul Di’Anno. It also highlights Lee’s inimitable guitar playing and, perhaps most importantly to him, showcases his talents as a composer. “I was never too comfortable being seen as just a shred guy,” he says. “I was always more interested in the song.”

And yet, Lee first came to national attention as the man tapped to fill Randy Rhoads’ incredibly large shoes in Ozzy Osbourne’s band. He appeared on 1983’s Bark at the Moon and 1986’s The Ultimate Sin, two albums that established him as one of the preeminent shredders of his day.

Then, following a sudden and unexpected dismissal from the Osbourne camp, he re-emerged in 1988 with Badlands, a heavy blues-rock combo that also featured former Black Sabbath singer Ray Gillen and future Kiss drummer Eric Singer, and emphasized Lee’s songwriting chops as much as his guitar. The group released two strong records, 1989’s Badlands and 1991’s Voodoo Highway, but soon disbanded amidst internal tensions.

With grunge and alternative rock in full bloom at the time, and Lee feeling that he was becoming pigeonholed as an Eighties-rock relic, the guitarist decided to head underground. “I figured, Okay, I’ve had a nice run. I’ll keep making music but I’ll just make it for myself,” he says. “I thought I’d bow out gracefully.”

Now, with Red Dragon Cartel, Jake E. Lee is ready to throw his hat back in the rock-guitar ring.

GUITAR WORLD: How did Red Dragon Cartel come together?

It was real casual. About two years ago, Ron [Mancuso] just approached me about doing something. I hadn’t done anything in a while, and I can’t say I really had any plans to. But he had been talking with [producer] Kevin Churko [Ozzy Osbourne, Five Finger Death Punch], who has a studio here in Vegas, and they both thought it’d be interesting to see if I was interested in playing. I had ideas that I’d saved up for the last 15 years or so, and Ron and I started to go through them. Since we didn’t have a band, per se, and it was just the two of us writing and recording, we figured we’d just do like a Slash or Santana thing and reach out to different guys to see if they’d want to sing on different songs.

You mentioned that some of the riffs on the new album date back more than a decade. Did you have a lot of material stockpiled?

Oh, yeah. I had hundreds and hundreds of little WAV files in a folder on my computer. Some of them were fully fleshed-out songs, and others were just, like, five-second riffs. The one with Maria [Brink], “Big Mouth,” that was probably one of the first things I ever recorded onto a computer, back in ’96 or ’97. The opening guitar thing you hear on the record, that’s the actual original track I recorded back then. So it’s 16, 17 years old. And the most recent thing I wrote was what became the first song on the album, “Deceived.” That was probably from a few months ago. All the others fell somewhere in between.

So you’ve been recording all these years, but without any explicit intention to release anything to the public. What was the goal?

I was just stockpiling ideas. I still had a desire to make music, but at a certain point, particularly in the mid Nineties, I didn’t see any interest from people. I’d kind of outlived my shelf life, especially since I was a part of—and I hate saying it—the hair-metal thing. So there weren’t a lot of interesting opportunities coming my way. It was always people from that one genre wanting me to make more music like that.

Or, because I also had Badlands, it was blues-rock guys that wanted to form blues-rock bands. But I’d already done those two things and I was looking to do something else, something more musically exotic, maybe. But I wasn’t cool anymore, and I was shot down a lot.

From what you’re saying, it sounds like if the musical climate had been different in the Nineties you would have stayed in the game.

I would have. If I had had an opportunity to make something fresh and exciting, I certainly would have stayed. But I didn’t want to just rehash Badlands or Ozzy.

During your years out of the spotlight, you went through periods where you didn’t pick up a guitar at all.

Yes. Especially in the mid Nineties, when I got heavily into computer stuff. I would tear computers apart, put them back together. I used to do that with cars, too. And because of that I started looking into music software and getting involved in that. So I was still writing music, but not necessarily on guitar. And there were long stretches where I didn’t play. At one point, I probably went a year without picking up my guitar. But I was always creating music in one form or another. It’s always been my first love in life. It’s still what I was doing all that time.

Because you haven’t released much music over the last few decades, you’re encased in amber for a lot of fans, so to speak. With this new record, they might be expecting to hear Jake E. Lee shredding like it’s 1986.

Well, that shred thing was me in Ozzy. I don’t think it was me so much in Badlands. I remember when we were recording that first Badlands record, our A&R guy would come into the studio, hear the songs and then say, “You need to do a guitar solo. You need to have your own version of ‘Eruption.’ ” And I would be like, “Um, no, I really don’t.”

The focus in Badlands was the music and the songs. I was hoping to shed that whole shredder thing at that time. But, that said, after all these years of having “disappeared,” every once in a while I’ll Google my name and I’ll see a lot of people that like to talk about some of the flashier things I used to do: the over-the-fretboard thumb thing, the whammy sounds from bending the neck. People seem to focus on those things a lot.

For better or worse, those tricks helped to establish you as a guitar hero to a certain segment of music fan. Is that something you were comfortable with?

Not completely. But Ozzy did place a lot of emphasis on it. He said, “Okay, when we do a concert, you’re gonna have to have a guitar solo.” And I hated the whole idea of it. So that’s when I came up with some of the flashier stuff. And really, toward the end of my solo spot I was just making a bunch of noise. Because I didn’t want to just stand there and shred in front of a bunch of people. If you watch some of the old live footage, half of my solo spot is me rolling around on the floor and making noises with my guitar.

Were those days with Ozzy happy times for you?

I wouldn’t have missed it for anything. 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.

The guys in Mötley Crüe, in Ratt—they all went up the ladder together, whereas I felt like I was in a band with a bunch of old coots that had been doing it for a long time. [laughs] When I’d get excited about being in a new country—shit, when I’d get excited about just being in an airplane—they’d all be like, “Yeah, yeah…” I didn’t really have anybody to share it with. But it’s still a part of my life I’ll always look back on fondly.

You mention Ratt—a lot of people probably don’t know that you were a member of the band in their early days.

Yeah. They were originally from down in San Diego, when they were Mickey Ratt. After they moved to L.A. they shortened the name. I think they ran into some problems with Disney. Then I moved up to L.A. about a year later and ended up joining them.

Ratt quickly became one of the hot bands in the Sunset Strip scene.

Sure. At the time Mötley Crüe was still the big band in town. But we were starting to headline places like the Whisky [a Go Go], all the big clubs.

So why did you quit?

There were a bunch of reasons. I felt that [lead singer Stephen] Pearcy was taking on the rock star attitude a little bit more than I cared for. He’d be drunk onstage, he’d announce a song that we’d already played three songs earlier, that kind of thing. And then there was the fact that [late guitarist] Robbin [Crosby] got into the band. Because when we started it was just me on guitar.

And then Robbin moved up to L.A. maybe six months after I did, and he didn’t know anybody else, so he’d come to all the Ratt shows and hang out. Then he started campaigning hard to be in the band. Eventually I said, “Okay, okay. But just play what I tell you to play. I don’t want you to get in the way. I like the one-guitar thing.” And he said, “No problem.”

But once he was in, things changed completely, of course. It was, “So when do I get to solo?” And I was like, “Dude, I’ll tell you what. You can take a solo whenever you can do one better than me.” Now, that was kind of mean, but it upset me when he changed his whole tune. So, basically, Robbin was getting on my nerves because I didn’t want to be in a two-guitar band, and Pearcy was pissing me off because he was drunk all the time. At some point I just said, “Fuck it, I’m done.”

From there, you did a short stint with Rough Cutt and then hooked up with Ronnie James Dio. You played with him right as he was launching his solo career after leaving Black Sabbath.

I met Ronnie because his wife, Wendy Dio, was managing Rough Cutt. So Ronnie would come out to all the shows and eventually he asked me to play with him. It was an early formation of the Dio band. We would jam in his garage—me on guitar, Vinnie [Appice] on drums and Ronnie on bass. And I remember there was no P.A., and Ronnie would stand in the room and you could hear him sing, even without a mic. And I had a 100-watt Marshall going! But I think the only song I played with him that eventually made it to his first record was “Holy Diver.” I remember working on that a little bit.

After Dio, you went to Ozzy, where, even though there were a few guitarists that preceded you in his band—Bernie Torme, Brad Gillis, and even George Lynch for a minute—you were seen as the true successor to Randy Rhoads. Had you been a fan?

I thought Randy was great. Also, I loved Sabbath. I grew up on them. And when they fired Ozzy, me and everyone else thought that was it for him. So when he put out Blizzard of Ozz with Randy, I was blown away. I couldn’t believe it. He came back with a vengeance.

Did you find any of Randy’s guitar parts particularly challenging to play?

I can’t think of anything in particular that I found challenging. Then again, I was only given, like, a week to learn everything. So, really, it was all challenging! It was like one big homework assignment.

The details behind your dismissal from Ozzy’s band have always been murky. But generally speaking, it seems that the two of you didn’t click on a personal level.

We definitely were different types of people. 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.

Were you surprised to be let go?

I was. 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.

That said, when you came back with Badlands, it seemed, at least from the outside, to be a more authentic expression of your musical personality than maybe anything you had done previously.

Well, it was certainly another side of my playing. And I wouldn’t say the stuff I did with Ozzy wasn’t me. I loved metal, I loved Black Sabbath. It was all heartfelt. But I did have certain boundaries there. And after two records with Ozzy, I admit I was starting to feel a little bound in. So Badlands presented me with a whole new musical palate to draw from. I’d always loved blues rock, and this was a chance to play in that style. Badlands wasn’t necessarily what I had always hoped to do, but it opened up a whole other side of my playing that I hadn’t been able to tap into with Ozzy.

Guitar-wise, in those days you were closely associated with the white Charvel that came to be known as Whitey. But in reality that guitar wasn’t a Charvel at all, correct?

That’s right. It was actually a mid-Seventies Strat. And originally it had a tobacco sunburst finish. Back in San Diego I worked at a guitar store, and I picked it out of a dozen Strats they had there. And the thing is, I originally intended to get one with a [whammy] bar. But when I went through all the guitars, the one that didn’t have the tremolo on it was head and shoulders above the rest as far as its tone. So I got that one. Otherwise, I probably would have played a bar through my whole career.

So how did a tobacco-burst Strat become a white Charvel?

By the time I moved up to L.A. my guitar was looking kind of trashed. And the tobacco sunburst thing didn’t really fit in with the Sunset Strip vibe. Looking back on it now, it sounds kind of silly, but the guitar didn’t look cool. Everybody else seemed to have bright, custom guitars. I kind of felt like the poor boy. So for my birthday, my roommate at the time, who worked as a painter in the Charvel shop, offered to take it in and paint it. And while it was in the shop, they also shaved down the headstock and slapped on a Charvel sticker. So that was it. But at least now I felt like I belonged! Even though I was really just an imposter. [laughs]

You also changed the pickups.

Yeah. I would always swap out my pickups in those days. Eventually I settled on a [Seymour Duncan] JB for the bridge humbucker, and the two single-coils were DiMarzio SDS-1s. And for amps, I had two old Marshall 100 watts—a Plexi and an aluminum face. In the studio, I would doubletrack my parts, with the Plexi on one side and the aluminum face on the other. And then I had my Boss OD-1 [OverDrive], the two-knob version. I would just turn down the distortion and crank the volume on it.

What gear did you use on Red Dragon Cartel?

The bulk of the rhythms were done with my ’68 SG Standard, and for leads I used either my ’63 SG Junior or my ’58 Les Paul TV Special. For amps, I had a new EVH [5150] head that belonged to Kevin [Churko] and a ’68 plexi 50-watt of Ron’s. On some things, like “Feeder,” I played this little eight-watt Lockard, which is a great-sounding amp. Super saturated. And then I also had a ’69 Laney Supergroup 100-watt—the classic Sabbath amp—which I used on “Deceived” and “War Machine.”

Are you planning to do extensive touring around Red Dragon Cartel?

We’re doing a few shows, and we have some festivals lined up in Europe, where they still like old guys like me. [laughs] Japan looks promising, too. But I don’t know about America. They’re not as fond of somebody my age. But if the demand is there, I’d be glad to do it.

So now that the album is out, is Jake E. Lee’s self-imposed exile, so to speak, over?

Who knows? I’m more of the thinking of, Okay, we made a record, let’s go out and see what the response is, see if anybody gives a shit, see if we can tour and take it from there. But I’ll say this: If it doesn’t work, I’m happy to fade back into the woodwork again. I’ve had a nice career and I’m not looking to relive my glory days or anything like that.

You don’t crave the spotlight.

Nah. Not at all. I do miss playing live, but I’m not one of those guys who needs to go out in front of people to see if they still love me. It’s not a priority of mine.

That’s a rare thing in rock and roll.

Yeah. [laughs] I guess I’m just bashful.

Photo: Angela Boatwright

In the video below, which was posted last month by Charvel, guitarist Jake E. Lee discusses his Charvel signature model guitar.

The former Ozzy Osbourne and Badlands guitarist also discusses the roots of his original white Charvel, which started its life as a sunburst Fender Strat.

Lee also discusses his guitar and more in the February 2014 issue of Guitar World. You can read the entire interview right here.

From Charvel:

"With its unmistakable So–Cal ash body contours and lavender–hued Pearl White finish, the same instrument players have long clamored for becomes the first instrument in the Jake E. Lee Signature series."

For more about Charvel's Signature Series, visit charvel.com. For information about Lee's new band, Red Dragon Cartel, visit reddragoncartel.com.

The Guitar World gang visited the Charvel booth at the 2014 Winter NAMM Show in Anaheim, California.

We got the low-down on the company's new Jake E. Lee signature model, and you can check out our video below.

From Charvel:

"With its unmistakable So–Cal ash body contours and lavender–hued Pearl White finish, the same instrument players have long clamored for becomes the first instrument in the Jake E. Lee Signature series."

Although it's not shown in the video, Lee even made an appearance at the Charvel booth to check out his axes and talk about his new band, Red Dragon Cartel. Warren DeMartini and Dave Nassie were also spotted!

For more about Charvel's Signature Series, visit charvel.com.

If you follow my column, you'll know Jake E. Lee is one of my favorite guitar players.

I've often referenced him as an influence for several of my lessons, which is why I was extremely excited to hear he was making a comeback with his new band, Red Dragon Cartel.

Even more special was the fact that I was booked as direct support for their live debut (Jake's first show in 20 years!) at the Whisky A GoGo in Los Angeles. It was truly an honor to share the stage with such a legend.

In case you're not familiar with Jake E. Lee's career, let me give you a brief history. Jake's first major gig was with Ozzy Osbourne in the Eighties. He helped make one of Ozzy's most classic albums, Bark At The Moon. The title track is a guitar masterpiece with probably one of the best riffs and guitar solos in metal history.

Following Ozzy, he formed his own band, Badlands, which saw a progression in Jake's style from Eighties shred to a much rawer blues/hard rock sound. After Badlands broke up in the early Nineties, Jake went into semi-retirement. Although he did release music (including two solos albums) sporadically throughout the past 20 years, it seemed as if he'd remain behind the scenes and never tour again.

I arrived at the Whisky during Jake's soundcheck, and for the next 45 minutes experienced Jake E. Lee in top form, jamming through some of his most well-known songs from Ozzy, Badlands and his new material with Red Dragon Cartel.

I'd describe Jake's current style as being to closer to his playing during Badlands. I noticed he'd often improvise a lot of his solos with a blues-rock-based feel. He sounded great and seemed to be playing the same white Charvel guitar he used during his early days with Ozzy.

For amplification, he was using an EVH 5150iii head with two speaker cabinets in a rather strange setup. The first cab was a matching EVH, which was perpendicular to the audience, facing the drums. Then he had a second cab at 90 degrees to the EVH, facing the audience. This was a Marshall 1960 B cab; based on the color of the grill cloth (faded tan), I'd say this cab was from 1986. I managed to snap a pic of the head where you can see a few of the settings marked out (Check out the photo gallery below).

You can see his stage setup in this video and also hear some tasty licks from Jake as he plays through the Badlands classic "Sun Red Sun." Please note this is from the sound check, not the actual show.

Soon after the doors opened, the Whisky was jammed, and there were a few other well-known musicians in the audience, including Warren Di Martini (Ratt), Oni Logan (Lynch Mob), Claude Schnell (Dio) and Joe Holmes (Ozzy). Eddie Trunk, presenter of That Metal Show, was also there to host the event; he's been very supportive of Jake's comeback.

I must admit I was very nervous to be playing in front of one my biggest guitar idols. After our set, I ran off the stage straight into the audience to watch my hero take the stage for the first time in 20 years. Jake's set was a great mix of Ozzy, Badlands and Red Dragon Cartel, ending with "Bark At The Moon."

Red Dragon Cartel's debut album will be released January 28. The band will be touring extensively throughout 2014.

As a longtime fan of Jake's work, I'm really happy to see him making music again and touring. Cheers!

Photo: Alex Solca

Will Wallner is a guitarist from England who now lives in Los Angeles. He recently signed a solo deal with Polish record label Metal Mind Productions for the release of his debut album, which features influential musicians from hard rock and heavy metal. He also is the lead guitarist for White Wizzard (Earache Records) and toured Japan, the US and Canada in 2012. Follow Will on Facebook and Twitter.

Former Ozzy Osbourne and Badlands guitarist Jake E. Lee has released the lyric video for a new song, "Feeder," by his new band, Red Dragon Cartel.

The band features Lee, bassist Ronnie Mancuso, drummer Jonas Fairley and vocalist D.J Smith. The new disc also will feature guest appearances by other singers, including Robin Zander of Cheap Trick (who sings on "Feeder," which you can hear below), Sass Jordan of S.U.N. and more.

Red Dragon Cartel's eponymous debut album will be released January 28 through Frontiers Records.

The band came about when Mancuso, an old friend of Lee's, helped coax the guitarist out of retirement. Mancuso, a session guitarist/bassist, composer and producer for Beggars & Thieves, was sharing studio space at The Hideout in Las Vegas with producer/engineer/mixer Kevin Churko (Ozzy Osbourne, Five Finger Death Punch, Rob Zombie, Hinder) — and that's exactly where Red Dragon Cartel was recorded.

”The two new tracks I've heard are very impressive and are incredibly fresh sounding — but not really in the same family as [Jake's] work with Badlands or Ozzy," Michael Toney, author of a recently published book, Tales From the Stage, Vol. 1, told eddietrunk.com. "It’s still hard rock, but perhaps a bit more melodic.”

Red Dragon Cartel can be pre-ordered here.

Lee's last album was Retraced, his 2005 collection of covers, which included versions of songs by Procul Harum, James Gang, Grand Funk Railroad, Robin Trower, Montrose and more.

Lee recently made an appearance in the music video for Beggars & Thieves' "We Come Undone." Check it out in RELATED CONTENT above. Look for more Jake E. Lee and Red Dragon Cartel updates as we get them!

For more about Red Dragon Cartel, visit reddragoncartel.com.