Jake E. Lee, the guitarist who’s best known for his recordings with Ozzy Osbourne and Badlands, was shot multiple times in Las Vegas early Tuesday morning. Lee’s rep confirmed the shooting in a statement to Rolling Stone, saying he is “expected to make a full recovery.”
“Lee is fully conscious and doing well in an intensive care unit at a Las Vegas hospital. He is expected to fully recover,” the statement continued. “Las Vegas authorities believe the shooting was completely random and occurred while Lee took his dog out for a walk in the early morning hours. As the incident is under police investigation, no further comments will be forthcoming. Lee and his family appreciate respecting their privacy at this time.”
A spokesperson for the Las Vegas Metropolitan Police Department confirmed that officers responded to the report of a shooting at approximately 2:42 a.m. and responded to a male victim suffering from apparent gunshot wounds but did not identify Lee as the victim. “No arrests have been made at this time,” the spokesperson said. “This is an ongoing investigation.”
“It’s been 37 years since I’ve seen Jake E. Lee, but that still doesn’t take away from the shock of hearing what happened to him today,” TMZ reports Osbourne as saying. “It’s just another senseless act of gun violence. I send my thoughts to him and his beautiful daughter, Jade. I just hope he’ll be OK.”
In the past decade, Lee recorded with hard rockers Red Dragon Cartel, which released a self-titled album in 2014 and a follow-up, Patina, in 2018. In recent years, the guitarist suffered from wrist pain, which has held him back from performing live. In a recent interview with Tone-Talk, he explained how what he initially thought was carpal tunnel syndrome turned out to be a lack of cartilage in his right hand. He’s been focusing on pain management and physical therapy as he gets back into performance shape.
“I am playing again — I have been for about two months maybe — and I wanna go out and do a tour,” he told Tone-Talk, according to Blabbermouth. “I wanna finish doing the Patina tour, which got canceled because of Covid. I would like to go out and do that [with] Red Dragon Cartel, focus on the Patina record and do some more recording.”
After stints in early lineups of Ratt, Rough Cutt, and Dio, Lee achieved immediate guitar-hero status as Ozzy Osbourne’s sideman in the early Eighties. Lee joined Osbourne’s band for the writing and recording of Osbourne’s Bark at the Moon album. Osbourne fired Lee in 1987 over intrapersonal differences with other band members following the recording and touring for a follow-up album, The Ultimate Sin.
Lee then formed the blues-rock band, Badlands, with another former Black Sabbath singer, Ray Gillen, and released three albums between 1989 and 1998. Lee has also released three solo albums and played guitar on Enuff Z’nuff’s 2009 album, Dissonance.
This article was updated at 7:41 p.m. ET on Oct. 15 to include Osbourne’s statement to TMZ.
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