Legendary guitarist Jake E. Lee has broken a decades-long silence and laid bare the real reason his supergroup Badlands – widely regarded as one of the most talented bands of the late ’80s and early ’90s – never reached the heights it deserved: the hair-metal machine crushed it.
In a blistering new interview with Base Sport, the former Ozzy Osbourne and Badlands mastermind didn’t hold back. “We got completely misrepresented,” Lee says. “The label (Atlantic Records) tried to shove us into the hair-metal box because that’s what was selling. We weren’t that, and we never wanted to be.”
Formed in 1988 with the explosive vocalist Ray Gillen (ex-Black Sabbath), drummer Eric Singer (later of KISS), and bassist Greg Chaisson, Badlands was built to be a no-compromise, blues-drenched hard rock monster – think Led Zeppelin and Free updated for the modern age, not Poison or Warrant. Their 1989 self-titled debut is still hailed by critics and die-hards as one of the era’s finest records, yet it peaked at a disappointing No. 57 on the Billboard 200.
Lee points the finger squarely at marketing missteps and terrible tour pairings. “They put us out with Great White, Tesla, all these polished glam bands. Our fans showed up in flannel and work boots; their fans showed up in spandex and Aqua Net. It was a disaster.”
The guitarist also believes the band’s refusal to play the image game sealed their commercial fate. “We weren’t pretty enough for MTV in 1989,” he laughs, but the sting is still there. “If they’d just let us be the dirty, blues-based rock band we actually were, the story would’ve been different.”
Tragedy compounded the struggle when Ray Gillen died of AIDS-related illness in 1993, effectively ending the classic lineup. Badlands limped on for one more album, 1996’s Dusk, before calling it quits.
More than 30 years later, Lee’s candid takedown of the era’s excesses has struck a nerve with rock fans who always felt Badlands was robbed. The interview is already spreading like wildfire across social media, with thousands declaring the band “the greatest that hair metal killed.”
For a generation of rock fans, Jake E. Lee just said out loud what they’ve been screaming since 1989: Badlands was too real for its time – and the industry paid the price for not listening.
