Jake E. Lee, best known for his blistering guitar work during Ozzy Osbourne’s early solo years, has opened up about feeling like a “footnote” in the Prince of Darkness’s legacy, until fate handed him one last moment in the spotlight.
Speaking on the Talk Is Jericho podcast, the 68 year old guitarist revealed how performing at Ozzy’s final show, ‘Back to the Beginning,’ helped him finally find peace with his place in heavy metal history.
“It was a great week for me,” Lee shared. “Maybe one of the best weeks of my life. I came in there feeling kind of like a footnote, maybe even an almost forgotten footnote: ‘Oh, yeah, we’ll throw him in there too.’ But everybody treated me so respectfully and [there was] encouragement and support from everybody. It made me feel special.”
Lee explained that much of his frustration stemmed from his absence in Ozzy’s documentaries and official retrospectives, despite being a key part of the singer’s 1980s revival. “I’m not mentioned much in documentaries and things about Ozzy. At the Rock And Roll Hall Of Fame, you know, not a photo,” he said.
Joining Ozzy’s band in 1982, just months after Randy Rhoads’ tragic death, Lee went on to write and record on ‘Bark at the Moon’ (1983) and ‘The Ultimate Sin’ (1986), two cornerstone albums of Ozzy’s solo career. Yet, by 1987, he was dismissed from the band and slowly faded from the narrative.
That changed when Tom Morello, serving as musical director for Ozzy’s farewell concert, reached out personally.
“When Tom called, I didn’t know why,” Lee recalled. “I’d never met him before, but when he called me he said, ‘I can’t imagine doing this without you.’ Hmm, really? Cool! I’m in!”
Held at Birmingham’s Villa Park Stadium, Back to the Beginning featured a massive lineup, Metallica, Guns N’ Roses, Slayer, Gojira, and Mastodon among them. Lee joined an all-star band with David Ellefson (Megadeth), Mike Bordin (Faith No More), and Adam Wakeman, performing ‘The Ultimate Sin’ with Lzzy Hale and ‘Shot in the Dark’ with David Draiman.
It was Lee’s first major appearance since surviving a shooting in Las Vegas in 2024, which left him with lasting nerve pain and forced him to retrain his picking technique.
Tragically, Ozzy passed away just 17 days later, on July 22nd at his Buckinghamshire home. Lee’s tribute was simple but heartfelt, “The finality of it hits me in waves.”
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