🤘 The shadow of the late, great Randy Rhoads loomed large over the Ozzy Osbourne camp in the early 1980s. Following the tragic loss of his seminal guitarist, the Prince of Darkness faced the daunting task of finding a new shredder who could not only live up to the legacy but also forge a new path for his solo career.
Enter Jake E. Lee. A natural talent, Lee was tapped to be the next Ozzy Osbourne guitarist, bringing a unique flair that would define a new era, including the classic albums Bark at the Moon and The Ultimate Sin. However, as Lee recently recounted on the “Talk Is Jericho” podcast, his debut performance was less of a triumphant entrance and more of a technical catastrophe.
The “Horrible” Debut
Lee’s first show with the legendary heavy metal frontman took place in Scandinavia (either Sweden or Finland), and it quickly spiraled into a nightmare scenario no musician wants to face.
According to Lee, the chaos began before the first note. His assigned guitar tech had quit, and the band was forced to take the stage without even a proper soundcheck. This immediately led to problems:
> “The first gig was horrible… I walked out, and my guitar is way out of tune.”
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The situation only got worse. After realizing his tuning was off, the technical malfunctions piled up. The monitor crew discovered they had the wrong cabinet miked, leaving the guitarist’s signal silent. They scrambled to switch the feed, only for the sound to cut out entirely again. Why? They had plugged his gear into a dummy cab—a stage prop—before finally connecting him to the correct, mic’d amplifier.
Fearing the Ax
“I come blasting, and the guitar was still out of tune, and it was just a bad show,” Lee recalled. The sheer number of errors, combined with the pressure of replacing a legend, left the rock guitarist certain of his fate. He felt that Ozzy had every reason to fire him on the spot.
“I was sure I was fired,” Lee admitted. As he came off the stage, anticipating the worst from the notoriously volatile metal icon, he prepared for the end of his tenure.
But Ozzy Osbourne’s reaction caught him completely by surprise. Instead of a confrontation or a pink slip, the metal icon approached him with a humorous reassurance that showed true rock-and-roll solidarity: “He came over, and put his arm around he said, ‘It’s only going to get better after this, right?’”
This surprisingly laid-back response saved Lee’s job and cemented his place in rock history. The disastrous first gig became a humorous anecdote rather than a career killer, allowing Jake E. Lee to go on to an influential run with Ozzy and later form the successful hard rock band Badlands. His story proves that even in the chaotic world of rock and roll, sometimes a rough start can lead to a legendary partnership.