Badlands

Jake E. Lee recalls the making of Badlands' long-lost debut album

- ANDREW DALY

ALTHOUGH HIS PLAYING on Ozzy Osbourne's Bark at the Moon (1983) and The Ultimate Sin (1986) is beloved, Jake E. Lee pulls no punches when it comes to what he feels was his finest hour: 1989's Badlands.

“I thought it was perfect,” Lee tells Guitar World. “There was nothing wrong with it. I didn't know if it would sell, but I knew it was something I would be proud of for the rest of my life.”

Lee's love for Badlands isn't singular. There's a legion of devotees who feel it was his best work. The album's greatness doesn't just come from the sum of its parts, aka the great songs carried out by Lee, vocalist Ray Gillen, drummer Eric Singer and bassist Greg Chaisson, but because Lee's musical aspiration had been pent up.

“I was getting a little frustrated,” Lee says of his latter days with Ozzy Osbourne. “But with Badlands, I could do whatever I wanted. And at that point in time, I was getting really into the blues. And Ray Gillen, when we met up, he wanted to do the same thing. We just did whatever we wanted, and it ended up being more of a blues-rock band.”

Unless you were Stevie Ray Vaughan, Jeff Healey, Robert Cray or Eric Clapton, the blues was less popular than hard rock and Hollywood metal in the Eighties. But Lee wasn't interested in diving deep into hair metal and felt that taking a chance on a blues-driven record would give him the creative freedom he sought.

Lee's need for sovereignty was one thing, but he also was brimming with confidence, leading to a record that oozes six-string-driven machismo. “I don't think a player ever really gets to the point where they think, ‘Oh, this is it. I'm it. This is me. I don't need to go any further,' you know?” he says. “You always think you can be a little better.”

Most players might never get there, but with