🎶 While songs like “Bark at the Moon” and “Shot in the Dark” defined Jake E. Lee’s tenure as Ozzy Osbourne’s guitarist, the musician recently surprised fans by naming a lesser-known track as the one he is most proud of from a guitar standpoint.
During an interview on the Tone-Talk Podcast—recorded shortly before he sustained injuries in a shooting incident—Lee selected a deep cut from The Ultimate Sin (1986) as his creative high point with the Prince of Darkness.
👑 The Pride of The Ultimate Sin
The song Lee chose was “Killer of Giants.” Lee explained that the track’s structure and complexity set it apart from his other work.
> “I would say ‘Killer of Giants’ is probably one of the songs that I’m most proud of, period, that I wrote,” Lee explained. “For one reason, because it’s almost orchestral in the way it’s presented.”
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He elaborated on the constantly evolving nature of the guitar composition, noting its refusal to simply repeat itself. “I do the guitar intro, which I’ll repeat something, but then I never come back to it. I go to another place, go to another place, go another place,” he stated. Lee admired how the song is “just constantly shifting and moving to another place.”
🎻 Echoes of Randy Rhoads
Lee cited another reason for his appreciation of the song: it allowed him to incorporate a specific, intricate style of guitar playing that is not typically associated with his blues-rock sound.
This style—characterized by structural complexity and classical influence—is instead more commonly linked to the work of an earlier, highly lauded Ozzy guitarist: Randy Rhoads. Lee’s embrace of this more academic, compositionally rich approach on “Killer of Giants” elevated the track beyond standard 80s hard rock, making it his most cherished contribution to the Ozzy catalog.