Onetime Ozzy Osbourne guitarist Jake E. Lee has been hospitalized after he was shot while walking his dog in Las Vegas on the morning of October 15
The guitarist was shot several times. He is reportedly fully conscious and doing well. He remains in the ICU unit of a hospital in Las Vegas and is expected to make a full recovery.
TMZ.com, which first reported the shooting, said investigators believe the incident was random. Lee was walking his dog around 2 a.m. when the episode occurred. Las Vegas Metro Police say no arrests have been made.
Osbourne told TMZ he was shocked by the news, calling it “just another senseless act of gun violence.
"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,” Osbourne wrote. "I send my thoughts to him and his beautiful daughter, Jade. I just hope he’ll be ok."
Lee briefly held the guitar spot in Osbourne’s band following the death of guitarist Randy Rhoads, who had been guitarist and co-songwriter for the singer's first two solo albums following his departure from Black Sabbath. Lee performed on Osbourne’s 1983 album, Bark at the Moon and its 1986 follow-up, The Ultimate Sin. Beyond his talents as a shred guitar virtuoso, Lee brought songwriting skills to both albums. In addition to cowriting "Bark at the Moon," he cowrote all of The Ultimate Sin with Osbourne, with the exception of the hit "Shot in the Dark."
Lee's main electric guitar during his Osbourne stint was a blueburst Charvel Strat, which was later the model for his Charvel Jake E. Lee USA Signature Model. During that time he was seen using a Marshall JCM800 2203 guitar amplifier.
Following his 1987 departure from Osbourne, Lee went on to form the blues-based hard rock band Badlands with vocalist Ray Gillen. In 2013, saw him launch the hard-rock group Red Dragon Cartel, which released its self-titled debut album in January 2014 and subsequently issued Patina in 2018.
The group has not been active for since 2019. Lee’s former Badlands bassist Greg Chaisson said earlier this year that the guitarist has been suffering from carpal tunnel syndrome in his right wrist and has been waiting to have surgery.
However, on October 9 Lee told Tone-Talk that the diagnosis was incorrect and that an appointment with a wrist surgeon revealed damage to cartilage in his right wrist. “Apparently I don't have any cartilage left in hand,” Lee reported. “So it's all bone on bone, rubbing against each other, and that's agitating it.”
Lee said he has been responding well to cortisone shots and physical therapy. “It's about pain management now.”
“And it is better,” Lee added. “I am playing again. For four or five years, I just really didn't play that much, unless I had a song idea, which always happens when you're falling asleep. And then I pick the guitar up and put the idea down. So I do have a bunch of ideas. I've been playing. It doesn't hurt as much. I feel like everything's getting better, so I'm not gonna get surgery.”
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