Former Osbourne guitarist Jake E. Lee opens up about the feud between him and Mick Mars
Former Osbourne guitarist Jake E. Lee has revealed that Motley Crue planned to fire Mick Mars and hire him as the band’s new guitarist. He also added that this may have prompted Mars in making racist comments against him.
In a recent interview with Tone Talk, Lee candidly spoke about the time when he was fresh out of heavy metal band Ratt and was going to Motley Crue’s gigs. He went on to say that Nikki Six and Tommy Lee, the founding members of Motley Crue, were keen on replacing Mars with him, and that it was understandable. “I was f***ing better looking and f***ing better playing," he bragged.
According to Lee, the fact that Mick’s brother-in-law was funding the band saw that the odds of him playing for Motley diminished. He said there was even the conversation about having two guitar players in Motley Crue, but he wasn't entirely on board with the idea. "Whether somebody denies it or not, that's what started the rift between me and Mick," the axe man claimed.
Lee also admitted that Crue might not have been so successful if he'd been part of the lineup.
A couple of years later, Motley Crue ended up supporting Ozzy on a tour to North America, where Lee remembered Sharon Osbourne asking him about his thoughts on Motley opening for her husband. “I think they are the next big deal,” was what Lee had told her. “So Motley Crue is opening for us now. At one point, I’m out partying with… I think it was Tommy… It might have been Vince [Neil]. Who knows? Whoever Mick’s roommate was.
According to alternativenation, Lee also shed light on the feud between him and Mick when the latter called him a ‘slant-eyed Japanese b*****d.’
“I did not like that — did not like it. I hadn’t heard it, actually, since I was in grade school — the whole ‘slant-eyed Japanese’ thing. And it pissed me off. I walked over. I was going to beat the f*** out of him. And it was Robbin Crosby, who was six-five, he came up to me, picked me and said, ‘C’mon, Jake. None of that shit matters.’ And he carried me out of the room.”
While the duo did make up later on, Lee still felt that his advantage over Mars -- young, better-looking and being the better guitarist, prompted Mars to be racist in his remarks, “I still believe that this was the only reason he could have been so racist.”
“What would Motley Crue have been if I was the guitar player? I’m not even necessarily saying it would be better. Nothing against Mick. [He had] great tone, good rhythm. [He] probably was what they needed to be big. They wouldn’t have been as big with me. Musically, they might have been better.”
Responding to Lee's interview with Talk Tone, Crue's bassist Nikki Sixx felt that this was Lee's shot to get attention in 2019 and termed him desperate.
Isn’t it funny how the has been’s,never was’s, washed up long ago small career people all started coming outta the woodwork around the movie? I guess it’s their only way to get attention in 2019. God bless them. They must be desperate.
— :waving_black_flag::skull_and_crossbones: xxıS ıʞʞıN :waving_black_flag::skull_and_crossbones: (@NikkiSixx) April 19, 2019
Jake is currently promoting 'Patina', the second album from his Red Dragon Cartel project, which was released in November.