Album: Red Dragon Cartel (2014)
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Songfacts®:

  • Red Dragon Cartel is a Rock band featuring one-time Ozzy Osbourne guitarist Jake E, Lee, vocalist Darren "D.J." Smith of Canadian metallers Warmachine, drummer Jonas Fairley (Black Betty) and bassist Ronnie Mancuso (Beggars & Thieves), with the latter co-producing the disc with Lee under the pseudonym R. The band's name references the guitarist's Japanese roots.
  • This track, which features Cheap Trick's Robin Zander, was the band's lead single. Jake E, Lee told Guitar International that the creation of the song was a turning point in making their debut album, as he felt that Zander had the perfect voice for the tune. "I sat down, I listened, and heard Robin Zander and it was a surreal moment with a song I'd just written," he said. "It made me feel alive. It was the most alive I've probably felt in 20 years."

    Lee added: "I don't think I had missed doing it until that moment when I was listening to that track. I just said, 'Yes, yes, count me in. Let's do this s--t. I'm ready to go.'"
  • Lee recalled to Classic Rock Revisited the first time he met Zander: "I finally got to meet him when they came through town and they were opening for Aerosmith," he said. "I met him and I was like, 'Thank you, thank you, thank you so much for agreeing to sing on that song. I can't believe you would do that.' The funny thing was that he goes, 'Nobody ever asks me to do that. I was excited that somebody wanted me to sing on their song.' He is one of the most iconic rock singers of all time and the fact that he is not asked, left and right, by other artists to do that is weird."

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