JOE HOLMES, OZZY OUTCAST

To clarify my comments on Jake E. Lee yesterday: I wasn’t attacking  Mr. Lee’s technical skill. But, with all due respect to my man Vince, I’m not a fan of “Bark at the Moon” or anything else from the Lee era, for that matter. Yes, it sucks that Sharon fired him by telegram, but I actually think Zakk got it worse – ’cause Zakk’s humiliation was public. Just sayin’.

ANYWAY, I don’t make apologies for my slight to Joe Holmes. Holmes replaced Zakk Wylde after the release of Ozzmosis ’cause Zakk was off chasing a potential gig with Guns N’ Roses (Somewhere there are demos of a GN’R featuring co-leads by Slash and Zakk, and although I’m sure that music had guitar-masturbation overload, I’d still love to hear them some day. Fat chance, I know.). The big stink about Holmes at the time was that he’d been a student of Randy Rhodes and was therefore supposed to be the second coming or something.

No such luck – poor dude stayed with Ozzy until Zakk returned in 2000, and never even got to record with Ozzy… actually, as far as I know, he’s the only person to be in Ozzy’s band for so long and not get to make an album. He did get to play on the song “Walk on Water” from the movie Beavies and Butthead Do America, and worked on Down to Earth – in fact, several songs he co-wrote remain on that record, although none of them are memorable (and Earth pretty much blows, although I blame producer Tim Palmer as much as anyone).

I never saw Holmes live with Ozzy, but I did manage to find this video of him playing “Perry Mason” on Ozzfest. It’s edited all to fuck but it does give you a sense of what Holmes must’ve been like live. He’s a scrawny motherfucker, but otherwise seems to have “the look” down, at least. Also, the video has some boobies as an added bonus.

Side note: Holmes also played with Lizzy Borden for awhile, but, if I’m not mistaken, never got to play on a Borden album. It’s like the dude was cursed or something.

-AR