JohnnyGtar
Well-known member
Ozzy was nuts to fire him. Zakk can't hold a candle to Jake.
Techdeth
RESIDENT ROCK PROFESSOR
I love Jake but I do like Zakk more . 1998-1992 zakk was so on fire .
GreatRedDragon
Well-known member
I think Ultimate Sin is so much better than Bark at the Moon that it's not even funny. Usually people say Bark is better and Sin was too soft and commercial, but I think the riffery and songwriting is so much stronger on Sin, and there's less focus overall on keyboards.
No one really knows why Ozzy (or Sharon) fired Jake. Ozzy once said something along the lines of "he started out alright, then he tried to take over." I've read an interview with Jake where he described the writing process on Ultimate Sin: While Ozzy was in the Betty Ford Clinic, Jake wrote and recorded demos of a bunch of new songs. When Ozzy got out of the clinic Jake presented the material and "about half of it made it on the album."
Ozzy, or, more accurately Sharon, was in a really scummy phase of his career. Bob Daisley and Lee Kerslake were fighting for their credits and royalties for Blizzard of Ozz and Diary of a Madman in court. All of the writing on Bark at the Moon was credited to Ozzy alone which Daisley and Jake had to fight as well - Jake refused to give Ozzy any new music for Ultimate Sin until he was guaranteed songwriting credit. Daisley wrote all the lyrics for the album but he was initially denied credit for that too. And Ozzy basically stole Shot in the Dark from Phil Soussan, who had written the song with his former band. The ensuing lawsuit over the song led to Ultimate Sin, Just Say Ozzy and Live & Loud (which all featured it) getting taken off the shelves, and Ozzy didn't play it live again until the Scream tour with Gus G (Gus, incidentally, is a huge Jake fan and convinced Ozzy to not only bring back Shot in the Dark but got Killer of Giants put in the tour's setlist as well, and Ultimate Sin was even played once).
In his book Ozzy says that after all this went down everyone who contributed songwriting was contracted upfront, which would explain why he never really had any legal problems from No Rest For the Wicked onward.
Honestly, I think one of the reasons Ozzy didn't get on well with Jake (other than being a completely dysfunctional alcoholic trainwreck with a scumbag manager) is because Jake was Randy's replacement.
Jake was great, but I do think his playing was... I think he did a lot of cool guitar things and trick moves, but the actual songs were very much in that hair metal vein. Good riffs and solos all over the place, but the style - and, I think, the recording - was definitely of a trend. Randy obviously fit into that trend too, but he was so explosively creative and innovative. Jake just seemed a little more "flash" than bang.
Zakk, on the other hand, was IMO a phenomenon. What a night and day difference in sound. His playing was meaty and solid and very aggressive, you can just hear how hard he's playing. His sound was very thick too, which helped break away from the hair metal shit and bring it closer to the thrash scene. In terms of technique, much simpler and more straightforward than Jake, which I think just helped make the songs sound that much more direct. Meat and potatoes, as Zakk says it. And he was fucking twenty years old. Then you get into No More Tears and suddenly the guy is on an even higher level, incorporating broader influences from outside the metal world: Southern Rock and Jazz Fusion. His further work in the 90s - Ozzmosis, Pride and Glory and Book of Shadows - demonstrated versatility that all kind of fused together into Black Label Society, which has been going for 25 years strong now.
With all that, it's easy to see why Jake's albums with Ozzy get a little forgotten, remembered as a bit of a slump in retrospect. But also worth noting, I think, is that period in the mid-80s is when Ozzy became a fucking superstar, and Jake was there with him for it.
No one really knows why Ozzy (or Sharon) fired Jake. Ozzy once said something along the lines of "he started out alright, then he tried to take over." I've read an interview with Jake where he described the writing process on Ultimate Sin: While Ozzy was in the Betty Ford Clinic, Jake wrote and recorded demos of a bunch of new songs. When Ozzy got out of the clinic Jake presented the material and "about half of it made it on the album."
Ozzy, or, more accurately Sharon, was in a really scummy phase of his career. Bob Daisley and Lee Kerslake were fighting for their credits and royalties for Blizzard of Ozz and Diary of a Madman in court. All of the writing on Bark at the Moon was credited to Ozzy alone which Daisley and Jake had to fight as well - Jake refused to give Ozzy any new music for Ultimate Sin until he was guaranteed songwriting credit. Daisley wrote all the lyrics for the album but he was initially denied credit for that too. And Ozzy basically stole Shot in the Dark from Phil Soussan, who had written the song with his former band. The ensuing lawsuit over the song led to Ultimate Sin, Just Say Ozzy and Live & Loud (which all featured it) getting taken off the shelves, and Ozzy didn't play it live again until the Scream tour with Gus G (Gus, incidentally, is a huge Jake fan and convinced Ozzy to not only bring back Shot in the Dark but got Killer of Giants put in the tour's setlist as well, and Ultimate Sin was even played once).
In his book Ozzy says that after all this went down everyone who contributed songwriting was contracted upfront, which would explain why he never really had any legal problems from No Rest For the Wicked onward.
Honestly, I think one of the reasons Ozzy didn't get on well with Jake (other than being a completely dysfunctional alcoholic trainwreck with a scumbag manager) is because Jake was Randy's replacement.
Jake was great, but I do think his playing was... I think he did a lot of cool guitar things and trick moves, but the actual songs were very much in that hair metal vein. Good riffs and solos all over the place, but the style - and, I think, the recording - was definitely of a trend. Randy obviously fit into that trend too, but he was so explosively creative and innovative. Jake just seemed a little more "flash" than bang.
Zakk, on the other hand, was IMO a phenomenon. What a night and day difference in sound. His playing was meaty and solid and very aggressive, you can just hear how hard he's playing. His sound was very thick too, which helped break away from the hair metal shit and bring it closer to the thrash scene. In terms of technique, much simpler and more straightforward than Jake, which I think just helped make the songs sound that much more direct. Meat and potatoes, as Zakk says it. And he was fucking twenty years old. Then you get into No More Tears and suddenly the guy is on an even higher level, incorporating broader influences from outside the metal world: Southern Rock and Jazz Fusion. His further work in the 90s - Ozzmosis, Pride and Glory and Book of Shadows - demonstrated versatility that all kind of fused together into Black Label Society, which has been going for 25 years strong now.
With all that, it's easy to see why Jake's albums with Ozzy get a little forgotten, remembered as a bit of a slump in retrospect. But also worth noting, I think, is that period in the mid-80s is when Ozzy became a fucking superstar, and Jake was there with him for it.
SpiderWars
Well-known member
Nicely done! Good player.
C
chris lykins
Active member
Yeah I hate to say it since I saw Randy live that I like Jake's solos better. However, I like the Randy era music a whole lot more. I think I need to learn some Randy solos to rekindle the love. I loved him as a kid but the impact seems to have faded with me overtime where my love for EVH, Schenker, Demartini, Lynch and Gilbert remains unchanged.