JAKE E. LEE After I quit Ratt, they were looking for another guitarist and I recommended Warren, who was a friend from San Diego. He was nineteen and he was a great player. And I remember he was thinking about going to college. But I called him and talked him into coming up to L.A. instead. I said, “You can always go back to college if that’s what you want to do. But right now, there’s this thing happening up here and I think you want to be a part of it.”
WARREN DeMARTINI (guitarist, Ratt) The deal was I had to move up to L.A. that day, because there were Ratt shows that weekend. And you know, canceling a show at that point in your band’s career was just an impossibility. You just could not do it. You would never get another job.
JAKE E. LEE I was living in an apartment with my girlfriend, and I let … well, my girlfriend let Warren live with us for a month or so.
WARREN DeMARTINI I basically moved to L.A. with my equipment and the chords to “Round and Round.”
JAKE E. LEE And I was writing the riff to “Bark at the Moon,” which was originally for Rough Cutt, the band I joined after Ratt.
WARREN DeMARTINI Jake and I, we’re both night owls, so, you know, a typical night at that time was us at twelve, one in the morning, sitting on the floor and leaning back against a couch that’s got the stuffing coming out, and there’s a black-and-white TV with stations going in and out but we’re not really watching it, and we’re both playing unamplified guitar, just working on these two songs.
JAKE E. LEE Then I got the Ozzy gig …
WARREN DeMARTINI One day Jake said to me, “Oh, you’ll never believe this, but I got a call from Ozzy’s manager and I’m going to try out.” And what was weird was that, not long before that I was on the phone with George Lynch and he’s like, “Yeah man, I’m pretty sure I got the Ozzy gig…” That was a strange thing because at that moment I think I was probably the only person that knew what was going on, you know?
DANA STRUM When I first found Randy for Ozzy, George Lynch was actually my second pick. And when Randy died in the plane crash in Florida, I was the person that held the auditions and brought Jake and George in.
GEORGE LYNCH After Randy died, Ozzy had Brad Gillis from Night Ranger playing guitar for him for a little bit. And I left Dokken for a minute and toured with Ozzy. I never played onstage during a live show, but I would go up and play at soundchecks and at rehearsals. They were grooming me, basically. Then we did rehearsals in Dallas for a week or two, and then I flew back to L.A. to do more rehearsals at SIR. And that’s when they got Jake.
DANA STRUM I was put in a bad position because I was told, “Dana, we’re going with this other guy.” And I was like, “But this guy quit his job! He’s got his bags here!” And then Jake had the gig.
JAKE E. LEE George was there for my audition and, um, yeah … that sucked. Because I knew who he was; he was part of the scene. And after my audition I’m packing up my gear and I’m by the exit door, and nobody has said anything to me. So I just figured I didn’t get the gig. And that’s when Sharon Osbourne walked up to me and said, “We think you’re the guy.” And then Ozzy walked up next to her and he said, “Do you want the fucking gig?” “Yeah, I do.” And at that moment, George came over and stood next to us. And he says, “Hey guys, what’s up?” And Ozzy turns to him and goes, “You lost it! It’s his now!” And he walks away.
Then it’s just me and George standing there looking at each other. It was just a very awkward moment.
GEORGE LYNCH I gotta say, it was pretty coldhearted and really hit me hard. Because I pretty much had nothing at the time. My wife and I had two little kids and we had an apartment. I was even working a side gig delivering liquor down in South Central. It was a dangerous job. And so when the Ozzy thing came along we thought, This is it. This is really going to change our fortunes.
SHARON OSBOURNE (manager, Ozzy Osbourne, Lita Ford) Everybody took it for granted that George Lynch would get the gig. But Ozzy wasn’t like, “Oh my god, I have to have this George Lynch, this is the guy for me.” It wasn’t a done deal. And then came Jakey, and everybody was like, “Yeah, this is the one.” Jakey came in and was just … he was phenomenal.
OZZY OSBOURNE George Lynch is an excellent guitar player. But Jake was a more tasty guitar player to me.
JAKE E. LEE If you ask George, he’ll say I got the gig because I had better hair.
SHARON OSBOURNE Of course he had better hair! He had better everything than George.
GEORGE LYNCH I think their big thing with me was that I had cut my hair short. I didn’t have that big rock look. But, hey, I could’ve worn a wig. Ozzy was bald at the time!
WARREN DeMARTINI That whole thing was a shocker. Because everyone that was hanging around in L.A. in that circle thought for sure that George was gonna be the next guitar player in Ozzy.
GEORGE LYNCH The Ozzy thing happened over the course of what was probably a couple of months, and when that ran its course and didn’t work out for me I thought, Okay, well … So one night I went to see the Dokken guys at the Whisky, they were there hanging out or something, and I go, “Are we putting this back together?” And they were like, “Well, we don’t know, George…” I remember even Mick saying that to me. What? Really? I think they actually had Warren in the band for a second.
“WILD” MICK BROWN During that period when George was running around with Ozzy we thought he was leaving. So we said, “Well, we’ve gotta get somebody…” And everybody was emulating George at the time. But then here comes Warren DeMartini! I don’t think he ever did a gig with us, but we had claimed him as the guy.
DON DOKKEN George had quit the band. And in this interim I was going to do one more showcase for Elektra to try to get them to keep us on the label. Juan Croucier was on bass. And I had met Warren DeMartini. He was kind of in Ratt, but Ratt hadn’t really made it.
GEORGE LYNCH Ratt and Dokken rehearsed in the same facility. And I think Warren came in and was jamming with them for a while. So I went over and started jamming with Ratt!
WARREN DeMARTINI I rehearsed with Dokken once. Maybe twice.
DON DOKKEN And in the middle of all this Warren and Juan are playing with Ratt at the same time. Everybody was kinda playing musical musicians. But Warren and Juan decided to go with Ratt and that was the end of it.
GEORGE LYNCH At some point Warren and I ran into each other in the hall and I go, “What are we doing? Why don’t we just go back in our respective bands?” So that’s what we did. It was kind of funny.
“WILD” MICK BROWN I remember looking at Warren one day and telling him, “Listen, dude. Don’t go with Ratt. You’ll never go anywhere with that band. They don’t have any songs!” When I hear myself say shit like that … Warren and I are still friends, and we laugh about it when we’re drunk. Like, Wow, how wrong can you be?