Jake E. Lee had some pretty big shoes to fill back in 1983 when he took over the lead guitarist spot from Randy Rhoads who died tragically in a plane accident. He not only filled those shoes, but he also cemented his own legacy in becoming a guitar hero for a whole generation of fans who were learning about Ozzy via MTV. You see, back then, the channel actually showed music videos around the clock. Jake’s work on Bark at the Moon and The Ultimate Sin influenced many a guitar player who are currently shredding venues today. His run with Ozzy was a short one, but it was a very profound and lasting one. He then went on to form Badlands and that band also experienced a short creative run. Then, Jake seemed to disappear into the sunset.
Rumors spread like wild fire over the years about what had happened to him, but he kept a very low profile. Suddenly, after fifteen years of being out of the spotlight, Jake is back and creating new music. His new band is called Red Dragon Cartel and their self-titled debut album is set to be released in Europe on January 24 and on January 28 here in the US. The album features appearances from Robin Zander of Cheap Trick, Maria Brink and Chris Howorth of In This Moment, former Iron Maiden frontman Paul Di’Anno, Sass Jordan and many others. I had the pleasure of talking to Jake recently about the new album and what lies ahead for the band.
Hey Jake, how’s it going man?
I’m alright, but my voice is actually starting to give out. I’ve been doing about four hours of interviews so far, so you better have some goddamn good questions for me (laughs).
Yikes! No pressure! Well , I’ll try to make this as fun and entertaining as possible for you. It’s usually a good thing when you have so many people wanting to talk to you.
I’m just messing with you; it’s just that I’m not used to talking so much. My voice is like what the fuck?
I guess you’re used to letting your guitar do the talking for you. Speaking of talking, your name has been popping up a lot over the last year in interviews that I have done. I’ve interviewed Chris (Howorth) and Maria (Brink) from In This Moment as well as Sass Jordan from S.U.N. (Something Unto Nothing) and you came up in our talks, so it really cool to get this chance to bring all this info full circle.
Oh wow, I love all of those people, that’s pretty cool.
Let’s talk about this kick-ass album that you are about to unleash on your fans, who by the way have been anxiously awaiting this for over fifteen years. It’s a solid album from beginning to end that sounds like classic Jake E. Lee, without sounding dated.
Thanks man, I appreciate that. There are certain songs on there that grab you right away like “Feeder” and “Deceived”, but there are other songs that seem to grow on you and I’m really happy about that with this album. The song that Paul Di’Anno sings on (“Wasted”) isn’t one of those songs that grabs you right away, at least to me it isn’t. I gave a copy of the album to a friend of mine not too long ago and he texted me back and said that he used to gloss over that so he could listen to the songs that he knew he liked, but now it’s his favorite song on the record. If there was audio version of the movie Bad Lieutenant, that was it.
Di’Anno is part of a might impressive roster of who’s who on this. I’m a long time Cheap Trick fan and I think Robin Zander was the perfect voice for “Feeder”. Did you reach out to these people or did they contact you? How did some of these collaborations come together?
It was pretty much half and half. When I first agreed to even think about doing this whole project, it was very non-committal on my part (laughs). Kevin (Churko) and Ron (Mancuso) asked me if I wanted to do something and I told them not really, but I asked what they had in mind. I agreed to write some songs with Ron because I had fifteen years worth of ideas. The first song we wrote was “Feeder” and Ron sang the vocal melody and he’s a god awful singer (laughs). The song sounded good and he asked me what I thought of the melody. I told him that I thought it was good, but it was kind of hard to tell with his shitty voice. Off the top of my head I said that Robin Zander would sound awesome on this song. Ron looks at me and said that he knew Tom Petersson (Cheap Trick) and that he would give him a call and see if Robin would do it. Robin said he’d love to do it and we sent the song over to him. He recorded his vocal track in Florida and sent it back to us in Vegas and we mixed it in. To hear Tom on bass, Jeremy (Spencer) from Five Finger Death Punch on drums and Robin singing on a song that we had just finished writing maybe a week earlier was really exciting for me. I had not felt that excited or happy musically since Badlands, it was a pivotal moment for me. I went from saying, yeah I guess I can work on some songs to fuck yeah, let’s do this fucking thing! You know what I mean; you’re a Cheap Trick fan.
Oh yeah, it had to be pretty surreal for all of that to come together for you. I mean, it wasn’t just anybody singing your track, that was Robin Zander, a man whose voice definitely meant something to you.
Exactly, to have somebody that I grew up listening to singing on one of my songs was definitely a high point of my life. I mean, I hadn’t even met the met at that point. He didn’t do the track because he had to; he did it because he wanted to.
Red Dragon Cartel – Feeder Lyric Video (Official / Feat. Jake E. Lee – Robin Zander on Voice)
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So, why did you choose to name your project Red Dragon Cartel? Why not just go by Jake E. Lee?
Well, because I don’t have a big enough ego (laughs). You know, I guess it could have been like that with Badlands too, especially back then coming right out of Ozzy. I’ve always liked being part of a band and, truth be told, I’d rather just come out as Red Dragon Cartel. Some people do know my name and by tagging it on there, we can get more ears to listen to it rather than be one of 500 bands who happen to release a record that week. To me, it’s a band effort and I just don’t need that ego boost.
You know, I played “Feeder” for quite a few people who loved it and they had no idea that you were connected to the band. That just goes to show you how strong of a song it is.
Oh wow, that’s awesome. I guess by having my name attached to it that it could work either way. Some people may see my name and have pre-conceived notions about it and hate it without even hearing it.
(laughs) I know exactly what you’re talking about. It’s a time for all of the pussies to tough talk and not get punched in the face. It amuses me a bit because back in the day, if we had a bad show, you’d just forget about it and it got swept under the rug and there wasn’t a video the very next day for people to watch.
For those not in the know, there were some issues at that show and your lead singer Darren stepped up and issued an apology and the very next show was amazing. Yet, the people who slammed you so quickly for the bad show didn’t seem to come back with anything nice to say for making it better at every show since then.
In the end, it’s my fucking fault because I’m a mellow, take a back seat if I can, kind of guy. When these shows came up, it was kind of a surprise to me. My management told me that we had this show at the Whiskey and we didn’t have much time to prepare for it. We had to get work Visas for the two Canadian guys and it was five days before our first show ever and that’s not the way that I imagined it would go down. We could have used two to three weeks of casual rehearsals to get our shit together, instead we had five days to cram it all in. I accept responsibility for all of that, but the people online were brutal and not all of it was thrown at Darren. There were people saying what the fuck was Jake thinking and that was just stupid. I’ve been doing this a very long time and probably longer than most of the people who feel the need to comment on it have been alive. What was I thinking? Well, it obviously wasn’t what I was thinking that first show should have been like. It’s not like Darren did that when I asked him to come down and audition and I said yeah, people will like this, you’re hired! (laughs) It was the culmination of a bunch of bad shit turning out the worst it possibly could. That wasn’t a great show, but on the plus side, this band has had its worst show possible right from the get-go and we’re never going to have another show like that again, I can promise you that. That second show was a lot better and anyone who cares enough to check out the footage can see that.
I’ll admit that I went looking for it the day after your second show to see how it went. Yet, as great as that second show was, there weren’t nearly as many posts made about how well it went.
That’s ok too because I don’t do this to please other people and that’s a little bit different than what a lot of musicians are like. You know, during that whole 15 years or so that I was absent, friends were constantly asking me if I missed it, being on-stage and having people cheer for me. I really didn’t miss it, I’m a very laid back guy and I don’t like the spotlight on me. I don’t need to be somewhere with a bunch of people looking at me, if anything it makes me uncomfortable. What I missed was playing with other musicians and reaching that certain point where everybody is in sync and reaching this musical nirvana. The reasons that I do this are very selfish because music makes me feel alive, I love music, it’s my goddess and I love how it makes me feel. I like what it does for me and how it makes me feel. If we play somewhere and they hate it, oh well, but if other people feel what I feel, then that’s a plus.
I had a fan submit a question and I was also curious to this as well. You played the solo on “You’re Gonna Listen” off of In This Moment’s Blood album and then you brought in their lead singer, Maria Brink, to sing on “Big Mouth” which is on your album. Jason wanted to know what it was like to work with them on those songs.
That was a lot of fun and Chris and Maria are both such really good people. I got to hang out a while with them before we even started working on anything together and they’re both so cool. They asked if I could to do the solo and I thought of course, especially if it’s something that you want. They were doing their thing at Kevin Churko’s studio and we were literally next door at Ron’s studio and Maria heard one of the tracks that we were working on. She said she wanted to do something with it and I thought sure, here’s the track let’s see what you do. When I heard it back, it was so fucking cool! On the track “Big Mouth”, Chris and I trade riffs at the end and that was a lot of fun. That’s the only time on the record that there’s another guitar player.
I’m sure that was a great moment for Chris to be able to trade riffs with someone as influential as you. Another great track on the album that was a total “whoa” moment for me was the last track “Exquisite Tenderness”. It’s an instrumental on piano and a very beautiful composition. Is there a story behind it?
I started playing piano when I was six and that song was the first song that I ever wrote. I played piano from six to sixteen and it was all classical music. I discovered the guitar at twelve after hearing “Purple Haze” for the very first time, but I had to keep playing piano because of my parents. To keep myself interested in it, I started to mess around and see what I could write and “Exquisite Tenderness” is what I came up with. I always shad it, but I never knew what to do with it. The first record that I did was with Ozzy and it didn’t feel like an Ozzy song, and then came “Badlands” and it didn’t fit there either. The studio that we were recording at is connected to The Bootlegger Restaurant and they have a jazz lounge in there. Ron and I went in one night to have a few drinks and I saw a piano there and I sat down and started playing that song. Ron said ‘what the fuck’s that?’ and I told him about it and he suggested that we put it on the record. It’s a very different way to end a rock record and I’m glad that after 41 years that I was able to do something with it.
Your parents introduced you to the piano. I’m curious to know if your daughter is musically inclined in any way.
I remember when she was 12 and she told me that she wanted to be a singer. I love my daughter and I didn’t want to hurt her feelings, but my first love was music and I wasn’t going to fucking lie to her. I remember telling her ‘I love you so very much, but that was horrible’. She has no musical inclinations at all, but she did go to all of my martial arts classes with me and she’s pretty tough, so you definitely don’t want to mess with my daughter.
Well, Jake I think our time is about up. I really do appreciate you taking the time to talk to us today. I’m a long-time fan of yours and it’s so great to see you back and making music again. The self-titled debut album from Red Dragon Cartel drops on January 28 and I do want to let the readers know that it’s pretty fucking amazing.
Hey, I appreciate you wanting to talk to me and I enjoyed it. We’re doing some live dates here in the U.S. in March and then the Monsters of Rock Cruise. We’re going to be going overseas and playing as well. There will be more dates announced on Facebook and our website, so be on the lookout.
