Jake E. Lee said he’d once been offered a bribe of $500 plus benefits to change one note on a guitar solo – but refused.
The incident took place while he was working on the 1989 self-titled debut of Badlands, the group he formed after leaving Ozzy Osbourne’s band.
In a recent interview with Guitar World the guitarist said he’d been desperate to escape the restrictions of his previous role, and had a good reason to place an unusual sound on the track “Winter’s Call.”
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“That’s the one where the first note in the solo is kind of off,” Lee said. “Paul O’Neill was the co-producer for that album, and he said, ‘Please, that first note, it just throws me for a loop!’ I said, ‘I don’t want to change it. That’s why I like that note so much! I think that note’s perfect.’
“He tried bribing me with money. He said, ‘I’ll give you 500 bucks right now out of my wallet, and tickets to see Cats, and I’ll buy you dinner at the finest restaurant.’
“And he said, ‘I’m not even saying we’ll use another one, I just want to hear one where it’s not that weird note.’ I said, ‘Nope.’ I knew if I recorded another one, somehow, that would end up being it.”
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He explained why the note was so important to him: “I wanted it to be kind of psychedelic-sounding. It’s kind of out of tune, but I liked it so much … I was doing all these things to try and sound like I took acid in the ‘60s!”
Lee also outlined the restrictions he’d come to resent in Osbourne’s band. “I always like a hard rock edge to whatever I’m playing, but I wanted to experiment a little more,” he explained.
“When I was writing new stuff for The Ultimate Sin record, a lot of times Ozzy would say, ‘What’s that? That’s not Ozzy, that’s jazz.’
“I’d say, ‘It’s not jazz, but it’s branching out a little bit.’ Ozzy would say, ‘No, This isn’t Frank Zappa, this is Ozzy Osbourne. Go back and write me something else.’”
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Gallery Credit: Ultimate Classic Rock Staff
