Drugs, alcohol and ego. They are a bad mix
– Don Dokken
Key Takeaways:
- Don Dokken’s journey reflects the challenges of fame, including the negative effects of drugs, alcohol, and ego.
- The path to rock stardom is filled with struggles, showcased by Dokken’s rise from the club scene to a successful hard rock act.
- Dokken’s band demonstrated resilience through multiple comebacks despite personal and professional setbacks.
- The dynamic relationship between Don Dokken and George Lynch highlights the complexities of creative partnerships and clashing egos.
- Albums like “Tooth And Nail” and “Under Lock And Key” marked significant milestones in Dokken’s evolution and success.
- Solo projects and band hiatuses showed individual pursuits and challenges faced by band members.
- Attempts at band reunions reveal the challenges of maintaining relationships in the ever-changing music industry.
- Dokken’s legacy and potential reunions remind us of the twists and turns possible in the rock world.
- Don Dokken’s experiences offer insights into fame’s complexities, creative partnerships, and the determination required in a music career.
It is, as Bon Scott once warned anyone that would listen, a long way to the top if you want to rock and roll. And no one knows the truth and wisdom of that adage more than Don Dokken.
He’s a man who understands the true price of fame and the pound of flesh that it demands from those whom it bestows its favors on. He knows the sacrifices that they need to make to reach their goal.
Dokken cut his teeth in the heart of the hardest rock and roll scene – the Sunset Strip in Los Angeles. It was a time when nothing was taboo, and amplification and degeneration walked hand in hand.
And he not only lived to tell the tale. The band that bore his name became one of the biggest and most successful hard rock acts of the eighties and nineties.
Forty years of tumultuous highs and personal and professional lows haven’t dampened Dokken’s ardor for the limelight. The call of the crowd and the lure of the stage remains strong. The band who once reigned supreme as the Kings of the Rainbow Bar & Grill, are still doing what they always did better than anyone else.
Turning the volume up and writing, recording, and playing the infectious songs that made a generation want to break their chains. They’d hurl themselves headlong Into The Fire whenever they heard the band on the radio or saw them on MTV.
Going Airborn
Don Dokken wasn’t an overnight success, and he spent most of the late seventies playing the club scene in Los Angeles with a band named Airborn.
After a couple of years, Bobby Blotzer (drums) and Juan Croucier (bass), who would later join the successful rock band Ratt, left the band Airborn. They discovered that another band, which was already signed and backed by their label’s legal department, had already claimed the name Airborne. Consequently, Don Dokken formed the first early version of Dokken.
Following the release of their debut single, Hard Rock Woman, the band Dokken toured Germany early in 1979 with a new line-up. They returned a year later with Juan Croucier firmly back in the fold.
At some point during the first two German tours, Dokken came to the attention of Michael Wagener, who would later record the demos that secured the band their first record deal in 1981.
By the time Dokken landed that record deal, the band included longtime drummer Mick Brown, and Don Dokken’s writing and sparring partner, guitar virtuoso George Lynch.
Breaking The Chains, the first Dokken record was initially released as a Don Dokken record following the singer’s stint with the Scorpions while their frontman Klaus Meine recovered from vocal surgery.
Recorded in Germany with Dieter Derks at the helm between July and September of 1981, their debut record somehow found its way to manager extraordinaire Cliff Burnstein. He promptly found the band a home at Elektra Records, which issued a remixed version of Breaking The Chains for the domestic market.
And as 1983 rolled into view, Dokken took the stage as the main support to Blue Oyster Cult on a nationwide arena tour.
With their hard-touring schedule paying off in Europe, they were starting to become a name to watch for those in the know. This was thanks in no small part to the UK Heavy metal bible putting their considerable weight behind the band and promoting them whenever they could. Unfortunately, things weren’t as great for them in the States.
The tour with BOC wasn’t the launching pad that they’d hoped it would be. Breaking The Chains wasn’t selling the sort of numbers that the band and their label had assumed it would.
Fighting Tooth And Nail
Fearing that the band was about to be dropped by Elektra Records, Juan Crocier left Don Dokken in the lurch for the second time in 1983. This happened mere weeks before the band was due to film the music video for Breaking The Chain.
Even though he’d later find fame with Ratt, Crocier was wrong about Dokken. The video, filmed with the bass player’s replacement Jeff Pilsen, went into heavy rotation on MTV. This came just in time for the release of their sophomore album, Tooth And Nail, which landed in record stores in September 1984.
Tooth And Nail was a huge hit for Dokken, gave them their first Billboard Top Fifty hit, and sold a million copies. In less than six months, Dokken had gone from being the most likely to be dropped after a disastrous first album launch, to genuine rock stars.
Whatever promises George and Don had made to the God of Metal, they worked. Three tracks from Tooth And Nail, Just Got Lucky, Alone Again, and Into The Fire carried them to the top of the Billboard Rock Charts. Fire would also later bring the band to the attention of a whole new eager legion of rock devotees when it appeared on the soundtrack for Nightmare On Elm Street 3: Dream Warriors in 1987.
Open The Lock And Throw Away The Key
Eager to capitalize on their success, between the release of Tooth And Nail, and their third album, Under Lock And Key, Dokken hit the road. They became the mains support for Judas Priest, Dio, KISS, Aerosmith, and AC/DC which ensured that Lock was another Platinum smash, selling over a million copies. This gave the band another two, In My Dreams and The Hunter Billboard Rock Top Thirty hits for the band.
Lock And Key also made sure that when The Scorpions arrived in the US for their 1987 tour, there was only one band that they wanted as their opening act. That was the hard-rocking crew led by the man who’d helped them out when their own singer had been laid up in 1981.
The tour with The Scorpions raised the band’s profile even further. It led to them recording the title song for the third installment of the Nightmare On Elm Street franchise, Dream Warriors.
The film was a box office smash, and as ticket sales for the latest installment in Freddie’s slash-a-thon increased, so did Dokken’s record sales. It was the perfect partnership, hard rock, and horror.
Back For The Attack And The Beast From The East
Their relentless recording and touring schedule had taken its toll on the members of the band. They decided to take some time off from playing to write and record their fourth album, Back For The Attack.
Proving the old adage that absence really does make the heart grow fonder when it was released in November 1987, Back entered the Billboard Album Charts at Number Thirteen. It became Dokken’s third consecutive Platinum record. Then once again three of Back’s thirteen tracks hurtled straight into the Billboard Rock Chart top thirty.
Dokken was on top of the rock and roll world and it felt like nothing could stop or slow them down. If you tuned into your favorite rock station or switched Headbanger’s Ball on in 1988, Dokken was there. They were everywhere.
Their studio success opened the door and laid down the red carpet, to The Monsters Of Rock Tour. Once again Dokken found themselves on the road with The Scorpions, along with Metallica, and Van Halen. They played what was at the time, the biggest heavy metal festival in the world, Castle Donington in England.
And when a band reaches those sorts of dizzying heights of fame and fortune, there’s the only thing that they can do. To make sure that the fans who couldn’t get to see them didn’t miss out on the full-throttle Dokken show, they recorded a live album.
But Dokken being Dokken didn’t just record any live album. They decided to follow the lead of the band that their destiny seemed to be inextricably linked to, The Scorpions. They then chose to record their live album on the Japanese leg of their World Tour.
Released in the closing moments of 1988, Beast From The East entered the Billboard Chart at Number Thirty-Three. It was certified Gold before the end of the year.
Beast From The East wasn’t their most successful record. No one expected it to be. Generally, only Iron Maiden breaks live album sales records. Beast From The East only served as a stop-gap, allowing the band to regroup before their next album studio recording.
Fate was about to deal Dokken’s fan’s an unexpected and decidedly unwelcome blow. Beast From The East marked the last time that all four members of the band would appear on a record together for more than half a decade.
Slippin’ Away
As Don Dokken has readily admitted, one of the worst things about success is the effect that it has on a musician’s ego.
And the band’s success caused its two principal songwriters to continually bump heads. They’d get into the sort of arguments and fights that there’s no coming back from. Then in March 1989, accentuated by the months that they’d spent on the road, George Lynch and Don Dokken ended up at each other’s throats. This led the band, that they’d driven to multi-Platinum success, to come to a grinding halt.
In the aftermath of the band’s split, Don Dokken would record his first solo album, Up From The Ashes. He initially wanted to release it as a Dokken record, but was prevented from doing so by the other three members of the band. They had the legal right to determine what could, and couldn’t be recorded and released under the name, Dokken.
It was a contentious issue and would prove to be one of the more insurmountable troubles that would continue to be a problem between Lynch and Dokken for the next three decades.
George Lynch and Mick Brown formed Lynch Mob after Dokken split. They recorded and released two incredibly well-received and commercially successful albums, 1990’s Sensation and 1992’s Lynch Mob.
Meanwhile, Jeff Pilson would become something of a journeyman. Following Dokken’s first split, he would go on to play with both the McCauley Schenker Group (MSG) and Dio.
Perfecting The Art Of Dysfunction
After recording his second album, Dysfunctional, Don Dokken found himself having to make the sort of choice that he never thought he’d be confronted by. Dokken was told by the label that wanted to sign him that if wanted Dysfunctional to sell, the best way to do it was by releasing it as a Dokken record.
And that meant having to put the band back together and work with George Lynch again. Pragmatism is a hard lesson that a lot of bands are forced to learn early in their careers. With Pilson and Brown agreeing to revive Dokken, George Lynch also returned to the fold, but only on the condition that he be allowed to re-record all the guitar parts for the record.
Dokken agreed, and the band signed with Columbia Records. In 1994, despite the rock and roll world going grunge-shaped, about to embrace punk rock for the second time, Dysfunctional sold more than 300,000 records. This was at a time when ninety-nine percent of hard rock bands were dead in the water.
Even with a resounding thumbs up from their audience, who seemed to adore Dysfunctional and turned out in force to see the band, George and Dokken couldn’t put the past behind them. The record’s title proved to be horribly apt, as their old rivalry took center stage.
Lynch’s antagonistic behavior during the press tour proved to be too much for Columbia Records, who dropped the band after a single album.
The fractious relationship between Lynch and Dokken came to a decisive climax after the band released Shadowlife in 1997. Dokken accused Lynch of deliberately trying to sabotage the album as a way to bring the band to a premature end. Interestingly, this accusation, that as odd as it sounds, Lynch has never publicly denied.
With Pilson and Brown firmly in his camp, Dokken fired Lynch after the album was released. The two musicians wouldn’t speak for nearly fifteen years, and wouldn’t share the same stage as each for another two decades.
Dokken – Then And Now
For most bands, that would have been the final straw, but Dokken isn’t like most bands. Following Lynch’s unceremonious departure in 1997, John Norum formerly of Europe, and Rob Beach from Winger both assumed guitar duties for the band. That is until Dokken finally asked the band’s former attorney, John Levin to join their ranks in 2003, a position he’s held ever since. In June 2003, the reorganized group then toured the United States with the band Poison.
Pilson followed Lynch and left Dokken in 2001, briefly rejoined Dio, and eventually became a full-time member of Foreigner. Meanwhile Mick Brown remained with Dokken until he finally retired in 2019.
But the story of George and Don’s strange relationship didn’t end in 1997. In 2010, both men appeared on The Metal Show and said that they would perform together again. They claimed that their “previous” antagonism had all been a publicity stunt that had gone too far, and had been taken far too seriously by both parties.
Less than a week after the show aired, Dokken then publicly stated in an interview that he would never play with Lynch again. This left the guitarist stupefied as he claimed that the muted reunion was something that he’d been working toward for years. According to Lynch, the only thing that was preventing it from happening was Don Dokken.
And then in 2016, the seemingly impossible happened. Don Dokken announced that Lynch and Pilson would both be returning to Dokken. They were set to play a series of Japanese dates, and one US show. Despite later stating that all of the dates were a one-off, the classic line-up of the band did record one song together, It’s Just Another Day. The song would later appear on the 2018 album, Return To The East.
While Pilson is no longer a member of Dokken and Brown has retired, Lynch is still as far as fans know, a member of Dokken. Until either he or the bands founding member state categorically that he is no longer in the band, we’ll hold onto hope. Hope that one day we’ll see one of the greatest rivalries in the history of rock at its dysfunctional best. To see them on a stage playing the songs that made their band one of the biggest hard rock acts in the world.
After all, stranger things have happened…
If you’ve got a bit of time up your sleeve, grab a coffee (or beer depending on the time) and dive into this epic Monsters Of Rock documentary below, featuring Don Dokken and many other juggernauts of the time!
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