Had we had the right management and had we been on a label that better understood what it was we were doing and not try to make us into Skid Row, I think we would have been more successful.”
There have been many theories as to why the first two studio albums by Jake E. Lee’s first post-Ozzy project, Badlands, have not been made available for streaming or purchase for years by this point. In fact, Lee himself recently discussed the topic with Guitar World.
But listening back to the group’s 1989 self-titled debut, there’s no denying its exceptional quality. Also, the fact that it did not fit neatly into either one of the two most popular metal styles at the time: hair metal or thrash metal.
So… Why exactly is a band whose music has certainly stood the test of time better than a lot of their peers not better known? One theory is how they were marketed.
Ties to Sabbath and Ozzy
Although the group had heavy (no pun intended) ties to Black Sabbath, singer Ray Gillen and drummer Eric Singer were former members of the band. At the same time, guitarist Lee was a member of Ozzy’s solo band. Bassist Greg Chaisson auditioned for Ozzy; the group did not contain one iota of Sabbath in their sound, but it still retained an unmistakable ’70s vibe.
Also admirable was their look, in which they “dressed down” and avoided many of the hair metal fashion faux pas of the day. In fact, the quartet resembled a southern rock band more than a glam rock band.
Despite “Badlands” being an impressively consistent listen from start to finish, it did not match the success that the band and their label, Atlantic, probably anticipated: peaking at only #57 on the Billboard 200.
“I think we would have been more successful”
The reason why an album as strong as Badlands’ debut didn’t chart higher and sell better? Perhaps it had something to do with the fact that the band was promoted somewhat as a “hair metal band,” as evidenced by touring on a bill in 1989 that also included Great White and Tesla.
Which makes you wonder if the album would have fared better if it was marketed more in line with such soon-to-be-fast-rising “retro rockers” as The Black Crowes and Lenny Kravitz.
“Yes and no,” Chaisson once told me for the 2024 book “Led Clones: The Led Zeppelin Imitator Craze of the ’80s…and Beyond.” “You’ve got to figure, that first Badlands record sold 480,000 copies or whatever it is. And probably the bulk of those people would have been people that were into the ‘guitar hero thing’ and Jake.”
“And also, the people that were into the hair metal era, even though that was kind of the tail end of it, if we had been marketed strictly as a ‘retro band,’ maybe we would have lost some of that. Maybe we wouldn’t. I don’t know.”
But there was no denying that Badlands had a different look than, say, your Poisons and your Warrants of the day. Which was, again, more of a throwback to the ’70s.
“I mean, you can look at a picture of Badlands and know we weren’t your typical hair metal band,” Chaisson added. “And I think that helped us. Had we had the right management and had we been on a label that better understood what it was we were doing and not try to make us into Skid Row, I think we would have been more successful.”
“As good as it ever got”
Unfortunately, the promise of Badlands’ debut didn’t last long: Singer would soon exit the group to join Kiss, and their sophomore effort, 1991’s “Voodoo Highway”, was not as strong as its predecessor.
As a result, by 1993, the band was kaput, although a set of demos for a possible third LP, entitled “Dusk,” surfaced in 1998. And any chance of a future Badlands reunion was snuffed out on December 1, 1993, when Gillen died from AIDS-related complications at the age of 34.
To this day, at least one of Badlands’ surviving members is proud of their work together. And in particular, their aforementioned ’89 debut, which spawned a pair of singles and popular music videos: “Dreams in the Dark” and “Winter’s Call”.
“The high point of my musical career, really, was Badlands,” Lee confessed to Guitar World in 2025. “I mean, it was also Ozzy because I was thrown into it from playing clubs and into Ozzy, which was wonderful. But with Badlands, as far as creativity, working with other musicians, and having a band unit, that was as good as it ever got.”
