In a new interview on Talk Is Jericho, former Ozzy Osbourne guitarist Jake E. Lee has reopened one of rock’s longest-simmering grudges: his abrupt 1987 firing from the Prince of Darkness’ band, despite writing the lion’s share of the music on the platinum albums Bark at the Moon and The Ultimate Sin.
According to Lee, the beginning of the end came down to one absurdly simple disagreement: he wanted to rehearse and write at night (like every rock band he’d ever been in), while bassist Phil Soussan and keyboardist John Sinclair wanted daytime sessions so they could hit Hollywood parties after work.
“Rock ’n’ roll to me is a nighttime thing. Always has been,” Lee explained. “Phil kept whining, ‘Why can’t we do it during the day? There’s all these great parties at night!’ I told him, ‘We’re working, man. Sorry about your parties.’”
The conflict apparently escalated behind the scenes. When the axe finally fell, Ozzy told Lee it was “time to spread your wings,” while Sharon Osbourne was blunter: “There are certain members in the band that you’re rubbing the wrong way.”
Lee has no doubt who those members were.
“I know it was Phil and John Sinclair,” he said. “This all seems so petty.”
Adding insult to injury, Lee says the late drummer Randy Castillo (who Lee personally fought to get into the band while Castillo was still in a leg cast) later confirmed that Soussan was the ringleader campaigning for his dismissal. Lee remains certain Castillo had no part in the plot, noting, “Randy told me, ‘I owe you for the rest of my life.’”
Despite the bad blood, Lee’s riffing and songwriting on classics like “Bark at the Moon” and the title tracks from both albums remain fan favorites to this day, even as he’s often been written out of the official Ozzy narrative.
“It’s rock ’n’ roll politics,” Lee shrugged. “Petty, but that’s how it went down.”
Almost four decades later, the nighttime warrior still sounds a little stunned that a fight over rehearsal hours cost him one of the biggest gigs in metal.
