Showing posts with label Dokken. Show all posts
Showing posts with label Dokken. Show all posts

CD Review: Lynch Mob – Rebel

CD Review: Lynch Mob – Rebel
Frontiers Music srl
All Access Rating: B+

Lynch Mob - Rebel 2015
What exactly is Lynch Mob rebelling against? Like Marlon Brando in "The Wild One," Oni Logan and former Dokken shredder George Lynch might answer, "Whaddya got?"

On their upcoming release, the ruggedly heavy, riff-mongering Rebel, Lynch Mob comes out fighting against social and economic injustice, as Logan pulls no punches in fiery diatribes against "Dirty Money" and the "Kingdom of Slaves" such inequality creates. His heart is in the right place, as he passionately pounds the pulpit to deliver these righteous tirades with a husky, bluesy wail that's soulful and commanding.

Those rough-and-tumble vocals get a workout in Rebel, brawling with and sweating through the sunny, metallic funk of "Pine Tree Avenue" and "Jelly Roll" in sweltering, grungy Southern-rock heat – all of which is also found in the snaking grooves of "Dirty Money." The slow boil of opener "Automatic Fix," an ode to the spiritual power of rock 'n' roll, heats up Rebel, before Lynch Mob gets down and dirty in the burning blues of "Between The Truth and a Lie."

On the other hand, the dark carnival of "The Hollow Queen" is rather dreamy and surreal, revealing a more gothic side to a quartet that includes the veteran rhythm section of ex-Dokken bassist Jeff Pilson and drummer Brian Tichy (Whitesnake, Billy Idol, Slash). Similarly cast, "The Ledge" is unexpectedly lush and pretty, standing as a contrast to the weighty, ponderous stomps of Rebel and its occasionally awkward and mechanical labor. Nevertheless, Rebel is good and meaty rock 'n' roll with strong songwriting that is doing more than merely getting by on its attitude, honesty and heart. And it doesn't hurt that Lynch clearly isn't resting on his laurels, his searing soloing as razor-sharp as ever and his inventive riffs gassing up Rebel, due out on Frontiers Music srl, for a hell of a ride.
– Peter Lindblad

CD Review: Sweet & Lynch – Only to Rise

CD Review: Sweet & Lynch – Only to Rise
Frontiers Music Srl
All Access Rating: A-

Sweet & Lynch - Only to Rise 2015
It is 2015, isn't it? Seemingly from a different era, when glam-metal was king and Michael Sweet and George Lynch were lords of the Sunset Strip, Only to Rise is a debut album of towering melodic hard-rock spires from Sweet & Lynch.

While unabashedly raising a toast to the good ol' days, it's Sweet's penchant for yearning, grandiose melodies that makes this set actually seem timeless and not at all dated. Still, in many ways, Only to Rise certainly could be considered a time capsule from the mid-1980s.

Pairing a very busy Stryper front man with the equally hard-working ex-Dokken guitar shredder, Only to Rise soars on clarion vocals, generous hooks and sugary guitar crunch from Lynch, his riffs solid as bedrock, while he solos like a heat-seeking missile – all of it lending these songs the blazing thrust of NASA booster rockets. Adding more force and muscular drive to Only to Rise is the top-notch rhythm section of bassist James Lomenzo (Megadeth, White Lion) and drummer Brian Tichy (Whitesnake), two names that probably deserve some mention on the marquee alongside Sweet & Lynch.

Aside from the dreamy, if slightly schmaltzy, ballad "Me Without You," Only to Rise has big rock aspirations, building skyscrapers out of bittersweet anthems like "The Wish" – suffused with nostalgia for the Hollywood they remember – and "Dying Rose" in a matter of minutes, and doing likewise with "Recover," where Sweet nails difficult high notes like a champ.



With its juxtaposition of smoldering, bluesy verses and radiant, psychedelic chorus, "Divine" opens up the shutters and lets in a stream of light, while tracks like "Rescue Me," "Love Stays" and "Time Will Tell" build to amplified crescendos, flowing together beautifully like wild, swollen rivers that bring arena-rock floods somehow contained by the sandbags of superb songcraft and emboldened by strong, modern production values that bridge the present with the past. Had the '80s produced more of this, that party might have lasted a little longer. http://www.frontiers.it/
– Peter Lindblad

Best of 2014 in Metal and Hard Rock – Part I

Starting a countdown of the best albums for this year
By Peter Lindblad

Separating the wheat from the chaff from 2014's heavy metal and hard rock is not really difficult, demanding work, but it does call for the kind of stupid courage that comes from drinking heavily.

These are dangerous times in the blogosphere, a wild west where expressing a harmless opinion is likely to set off gunfights of moral outrage and blistering condemnations. This is music, though, a thing that is said to soothe savage breasts and all that. Of course, talking about it can be akin to conversations about politics or religion.

In the spirit of throwing gasoline on a fire, here's a best albums list for 2014, starting with Nos. 6-10. The rest come later. You've been warned.

Cavalera Conspiracy - Pandemonium 2014
10. Cavalera Conspiracy – Pandemonium: What do you want from Max and Igor Cavalera at this point? A reunion of the classic Sepultura lineup? Jake E. Lee has a better chance of getting Sharon and Ozzy to give him writing credits on "Bark at the Moon." Just give Cavalera Conspiracy's Pandemonium a chance. It is devastatingly violent aural chaos, a mad, multi-layered symphony of thrash-metal ferocity and rusted-out, punishing industrial grind for frustrated children of the digital revolution that'll make your head explode.

Judas Priest - Redeemer of Souls 2014
9. Judas Priest – Redeemer of Souls: Not ready just yet to fly off into the sunset on sad wings of destiny, Judas Priest confounded expectations with this monstrous beast of a record. They sound as hungry as ever on Redeemer of Souls, an unholy communion of epic, expansive melodies with menacing, rugged riffs and electrically charged solos and dual-guitar flights that scream like tortured souls bound for hell. God bless this Priest.

California Breed - S/T 2014

8. California Breed - California Breed: Nobody knew Andrew Watt from Adam before hitching his wagon to Glenn Hughes and Jason Bonham – the drummer having bailed on the project just as it was gaining traction, only to be replaced by former Queens of the Stone Age punisher Joey Castillo –  in the vibrant new power trio California Breed. A young guitar slinger with great feel, fiery versatility and raw ability, Watt is the partner Hughes has been waiting for all these years, able to wring out soulful leads, tough riffs and blazing solos with ease on a debut album that pays off with surefire hooks, lean and mean Zeppelin-like stomp and swaggering groove, and some of the best singing of Hughes' career.

KXM - S/T 2014
7. KXM – KXM: Another trio, this one a supergroup made up of King's X front man dUg Pinnick, former Dokken axe man George Lynch and Korn drummer Ray Luzier, KXM came out swinging on their emotionally powerful eponymous debut. Just as happy grinding out rough-and-tumble, slow-burning riffs as he is reeling off sizzling solos, Lynch seems comfortable in the grungy world of KXM, where Luzier's complex drum patterns and Pinnick's grumbling bass provide a pulpit for spiritual profundities, damaged introspection and sharp socio-political commentary.

Revocation - Deathless 2014
6. Revocation – Deathless: Immensely talented, the technical death-metal outfit Revocation upped the ante with Deathless, showing off dizzying musical chops on a record that was both frenzied and brutally heavy. And yet, amid the controlled chaos there are strains of melody that somehow survive all the destruction and carnage going on around them. Down the line, they'll be using the word "seminal" to describe Deathless.

CD/DVD Review: Dio – Live in London: Hammersmith Apollo 1993

CD/DVD Review: Dio – Live in London: Hammersmith Apollo 1993
Eagle Rock Entertainment
All Access Rating: A-

Dio - Live In London: Hammersmith
Apollo 1993
Four years after the death of Ronnie James Dio left the heavy metal community in a state of profound mourning comes "Live in London: Hammersmith Apollo 1993," the first-ever video release of a professionally shot classic concert from, what was at the time, a newly reconfigured Dio touring the Strange Highways album.

Looked at by some as the start of a downward spiral for Dio and applauded by others as a much-needed change of lyrical scenery, Strange Highways was made with new parts, as the legendary singer and longtime collaborator Vinny Appice, having left Black Sabbath after Dehumanizer, revived Dio with former Dokken bassist Jeff Pilson, new guitar slinger Tracy G and Warrant keyboardist Scott Warren in tow.

Gone were the trappings of medieval fantasy that had fired his imagination in the beginning, as Dio started exploring matters of a more contemporary nature. Not everyone was onboard with the shift in emphasis, but at the Hammersmith Apollo on this December 12, 1993 evening, Dio made amends to those who accused him of heresy. Raining down fire and brimstone as only he can with his extraordinary vocal firepower, Dio led the band on a blazing march through his gloriously sinister past and a defiant charge into the band's then-current material, breathing fresh life into the churning title track, the dark and impossibly heavy "Hollywood Black" and a ferocious version of "Jesus, Mary & the Holy Ghost."

Without the distractions of mechanical dragons and castle ruins cluttering up the stage, Dio brawls with favorites from his Sabbath days, attacking "The Mob Rules," "Children of the Sea" and "Heaven and Hell" with vim and vigor. The heightened drama of "The Last in Line" soars, while the powerhouse anthems "We Rock" and "Stand Up and Shout" throws their fists in the air and race recklessly ahead. Mystical and melodic, "Don't Talk to Strangers" is both pretty and poisonous, while the gnarled hooks and animalistic growls of "Holy Diver" and "Rainbow in the Dark" raise the dead.

More than capable as a guitar shredder, Tracy G rips through hot-wired solos and wrenches tough, smoldering riffs from his instrument, as Pilson and Appice pound away rhythmically, their teamwork during Appice's drum solo causing seismic tremors. Edited to capture the breathtaking pace and excitement of a band playing with urgency, passion and energy, the crystal-clear "Live in London: Hammersmith Apollo 1993" boasts stellar camera work, shooting from a wide range of angles and with an innate sense of when to go close on Dio and his talented henchmen and when to pull back and gauge the crowd's reactions. Add a vintage "Hanging with the Band" featurette that provides an enjoyable glimpse into life backstage before and after the performance, and the package becomes even more vital.

Available on DVD, Blu-ray and as a two-CD set from Eagle Rock Entertainment, "Live in London: Hammersmith Apollo 1993" is also impressive sonically, a fitting tribute to an artist whose work will live on well after his passing.
– Peter Lindblad

CD Review: KXM – KXM

CD Review: KXM – KXM
Rat Pak Records
All Access Rating: A-

KXM - S/T 2014
For his last solo record, the rocky, almost impassable, road that was the decidedly downcast Naked, dUg Pinnick turned inward to explore depression, an affliction the King's X front man has long battled.

A heroic attempt to illustrate, in stark and rather ugly tones, its effects on his art and his life, Naked was an emotional bloodletting, with stories and darkly soulful melodies that rarely let in any light.

Working with Korn's Ray Luzier and former Dokken guitarist George Lynch in the new supergroup KXM has, at least for now, brightened his disposition somewhat. An inspired collaboration, KXM welds gnarly guitar riffs to eclectic, but hard-hitting, drumming and some of Pinnick's toughest, and most tenacious, bass lines on the trio's grungy, groove-laden self-titled debut for Rat Pak Records.

Redemption songs like "Rescue Me," "I'll Be Okay" and "Faith Is a Room" are life-affirming expressions of belief and vulnerability, these almost religious awakenings that borrow a cup of King's X's sunnier psychedelia to bathe them in dirty radiance. A flashlight shines on the dark subject matter of "Sleep," exposing domestic abuse to the light of day in soulful, slow-burning build-ups that add emotional weight to every lyrical line, while "Do It Now," "Love" and "Burn" are similarly paced, prowling in the bushes or surging ahead rather than running full out, with the angry, in-your-face first single "Gun Fight" – this provocative defense of Constitutional and human rights – blazes with intensity and digs its hooks into you. (See the video for "Rescue Me" here):



More concerned about the riff than ever, Lynch balls them up into meaty, wicked fists of sound, while still tearing off searing, agile solos. And while Pinnick's vocals are captivating and passionate, it's Luzier's stick work that's the real revelation here. Freed from Korn, he explores a wide variety of textures with KXM and displays surprising skill, all while making the songs move at whatever gear they want to shift to. And while a couple of songs do not coalesce as tightly as they should, the great majority demand attention and keep it. Looking for a "Gun Fight" of the sonic variety? You'll get one from KXM.
– Peter Lindblad


CD/DVD Review: Ted Nugent – Ultralive Ballisticrock

CD/DVD Review: Ted Nugent – Ultralive Ballisticrock
Frontiers Records
All Access Rating: A- 

Ted Nugent - Ultralive Ballisticrock 2013
Ted Nugent makes some people … well, uncomfortable. More than that, actually, Nugent, so willing to fan the flames of controversy every chance he gets, inspires outright hatred from the Left and utter devotion from the Right, and there's hardly any middle ground to walk. Whether for or against him, it's hard deny the Nugent's messianic passion, be it for hunting, the Constitution or hot-blooded American rock 'n' roll and R&B. 

A believer in the "no guts, no glory" ethos, Nugent goes for the throat on "Ultralive Ballisticrock," which is about as good a description as any for this thrilling double CD/DVD lightning bolt from Frontiers Records. The "balls to the wall" energy of this recording is off the charts. Words like "soul" and "spirit" are invoked in what amounts to a fiery sermon on the need for getting back to what is primal, what is unspoiled and what is real about screaming guitars, propulsive bass and blasting-cap drums coming together to create a life-affirming racket. This is communion for Ted, and everybody can eat of his body or drink of his blood, or they can leave well enough alone. 

Invoking the image of Christ is not without precedent when it comes to Nugent. Who can forget that iconic image of Ted in nothing but a loin cloth and all that frizzy hair spilling out all over the place. It certainly comes to mind when watching or listening to this recording Nugent performing in 2011 alongside Derek St. Holmes on rhythm guitar/vocals, Greg Smith of Rainbow fame on bass and Mick Brown (Dokken) on drums at Penn's Peak in Jim Thorpe, Pennsylvania.

Cussing up a storm, they launch into bubbling proto-metal boils "Free For All," "Wango Tango," "Just What the Doctor Ordered" and "Wang Dang Sweet Poontang" on the first disc like a pack of wild dogs, with mangy, tenacious riffs chomping at the bit and Nugent, perfectly at ease in the spotlight, tearing off savage, biting solos that attack like hungry predators and are as sharp as knives used to field dress a deer. There is no letting up on Disc 2, where the sonic powder keg that is "Motorcity Madhouse" simply explodes, sending chords and notes everywhere like emptied shell casings. Snarling and pacing back and forth, Nugent and crew turn "Cat Scratch Fever" into a caged animal that is too dangerous to ever be released, while the slithering grooves of "Stranglehold," that great, almost hypnotic riff sounding more vicious than ever, coil around simmering rhythms like smoke.

Want to know the origins of stoner metal? It all starts here, and when these versions climax, they do so with volume and emotion. Let's not forget that Nugent absolutely worships the MC5, and those all-consuming, fiery stage shows they used to kick out in hard-scrabble Detroit left an impression on a burgeoning young talent who saw a bit of himself in them. What storming rhythmic section support he has, too, with Brown's full-on percussive hammering and Smith's bass providing thunder and relentless momentum.

The sound is magnificent, cooking both the fat and lean sinew of Nugent's performance into a tasty dish, and it is vividly filmed with multiple cameras that seem to stalk and gravitate toward each member of the band at just that right moment when they are ready for their close-ups. Nugent isn't getting older. He's becoming more intensely driven, and that's a good thing for rock 'n' roll.
– Peter Lindblad

Into the fire again with Don Dokken


Singer tells all about state of the band, ‘Broken Bones’
By Peter Lindblad
Dokken 2012
George Lynch and Jeff Pilson are out, drummer Mick Brown is still in, and Don Dokken is firmly in charge of one of the biggest bands to ever come out of the ‘80s glam-metal scene. Joined by guitarist Jon Levin and bassist Sean McNabb, the singer – and guitarist, having recently picked the instrument back up – has the good ship Dokken pointed in the right direction, with a new album in Broken Bones that might just be the best record the band’s made since Under Lock and Key, or even Tooth and Nail.
Mysterious and reflective at times, Broken Bones is immersed in luxuriant, yet impactful sound, and the intoxicating melodies – always present in everything Dokken’s ever done – are disarming, even as Levin launches into the kind of heavy, thermonuclear riffing and dynamic, agile solos that Lynch would be proud to call his own. It is still Dokken after all, with Brown’s brawling drums and McNabb’s flexible bass forming a pliable backbone in support. Though far removed from the heady days of platinum records and sold-out arenas, Dokken isn’t dead yet, and Broken Bones seems to have breathed new life into the band, with Don, singing more soulfully than he has in a long time, penning some of the most provocative and mature lyrics of his career – see the apocalyptic imagery and utter futility in the raging, anti-war lead single “Empire” for proof of his convictions.
Never afraid to speak his mind, Don Dokken unloads about a variety of subjects in this recent interview, conducted close to the release date for Broken Bones, which comes out Sept. 25 on Frontiers Records. Downloading, the making of Broken Bones, his own difficult recovery from vocal surgery, his thorny relationship with Lynch and the family tragedy that spurred his interest in charitable causes – all of it is fair game for a singer who is determined not to go down without a fight.
While the new record definitely has elements of the signature Dokken sound, it seems smokier, even exotic at times. Call me crazy, but it sounds Zeppelin-esque, especially on “Victim of the Crime.” Do you agree?
DD: Look at “Waterfall,” that weird drum beat … I’ve never done anything like that, or have a timing change in the middle of a solo – I’ve never done that in my career. But yeah, Jon and I wrote the record, and I just finally said, “I know what everybody wants, and they want the same thing we did last year or a few years ago, which sounded very ‘80s like.” And I just said, “Jon, I can’t keep painting the same picture.” I mean, what’s the point? I hate it when people say, “I wish this record was like Tooth and Nail.” Ok, then go buy Tooth and Nail.
Was it tough for you to do that last record, knowing that Jon wanted you to go back to that old Dokken sound?
Dokken - Broken Bones 2012
DD: Anytime somebody wants me to go back to anything, I say, “I’m not really down with that.” But, we did it. It was fine, but when they told me to do the same thing [this time], I said, “I refuse.” I mean, I was really being a dick about it. I didn’t want anybody near the music. I didn’t want the record company to hear one iota of the music until it was done. I’m not going to have some guy sitting in an office tell me what he likes or doesn’t like. I don’t think [French impressionist painter Claude] Monet, when he sat out in the garden painting in France, had some guy standing over his shoulder saying, “I think that needs some more blue or a little more yellow. Now it’s got too much light in there.” It doesn’t work that way, man. I think a song is a painting, you know. I don’t think that it’s right. I understand where our bread is buttered and Dokken fans and all that, but you know, we’ve done all that. I said what I had to say as far as that. I want to stretch my wings out a little bit, that’s the only way I can put it. I wasn’t trying to make a throwback record. I just wanted to put some ‘60s kind of harmonies on there. I love Cream and those Zeppelin kind of grooves … I just like that. I can’t help it. I’m getting old, man.
We all are …
DD: I’m still the singer, so it’s going to sound like Dokken, so what’s the problem? I didn’t write differently to be different. It’s just what was coming out of my head.
You produced the new record, which is something you also did with XYZ. Is it easier producing your own band, as opposed to another group?
DD: No, it’s much harder. I produced Great White’s first record, and I found them in a garage. So, I discovered that band – Great White and XYZ. And it’s easier when you’re on the outside because you can just say, “Hey, try that,” or “Try this.” And if it doesn’t work, “Try this.” But when you go to actually play it or sing it and listen back, you go, “Uh, I don’t know.” I mean, honestly, this record, we were getting ready to go to Florida to mix it, and the last day the album was completely finished, and I told my engineer, “Um, three of the songs, I’m not happy with the lyrics.” He said, “You’re kidding.” I said, “No, I can do better than that.” And at 4 o’clock in the morning I was changing shit. And it turned out better, you know. If you have a problem with that stuff, after so much time goes by, I have to make changes and no one will say that it’s better. So, I had to get away from it, and I was glad we were touring that weekend, so that I could get out and get away from the record for those two days and come back to it fresh. I had that luxury this time, you know. After a while, I just wanted to be done with it.
It seems like you’re feeling that you’re free of the expectations people have of you and free of the Dokken sound of old. Do you feel that way?
DD: I mean, Jon did some solos that were kind of Michael Schenker-ish at times, and I told Jon, “You can’t live in the shadow of George Lynch, and I can’t live in the shadow of the millions of records that I sold 30 years ago.” I can’t do it anymore. I can’t live in this box. I’ve said what I had to say and I want to move on to some new and interesting music. And I said, “We’re taking a chance.” And if people say, “Oh, it doesn’t sound like Dokken,” so be it. I took my chance, and there are some classic-sounding Dokken songs on there. Obviously, I must have done something right, because I haven’t had many bad reviews yet.
I think it’s a great Dokken album in that there’s a great variety on it. I don’t know if it’s because some of the atmospheres are different. I was also thinking that Levin seems to have such a great feel for grooves, and that’s especially prevalent on “Best of Me” and “Blind.” Did that have an effect on this record?
DD: Well, I’ve been coaching him for a long time to let him find his own way. He’s not just trying to emulate George. And then I kind of tried to educate him, because he was in high school when Dokken came out, and Dokken was one of his favorite bands. But I gave him a CD and I go, “Listen to Led Zeppelin II. Just put this in your car and listen to it. Now, listen to Houses of the Holy. Check that out. Listen to ‘Kashmir’ …” You know, “Listen to this, listen to that, check out some of these songs,” just trying to ingrain a broader spectrum of writing. And I told him, I said, “Jon, there is not one Dokken CD in my car.” “That’s weird,” he said. Well, I don’t need to listen to it. If I listen to it, I’ll start plagiarizing myself. It infects you, you know.
So, we just started listening to a lot of stuff from way back, ‘60s and ‘70s, just thousands [of songs], and as a producer, I slip in different stacks of harmonies and different arrangements, different time signatures. I just wanted an album where I wanted all the songs to kind of stand alone. And I think I accomplished that, but if I didn’t, I at least tried. I gave it my best shot. I like an album to be [good from] top to bottom, and not have it be like, “Well, that’s a good song,” and then the next song you’re starting to fast forward, and then, “Oh, this song is pretty good, but I don’t like the chorus – fast forward.” I hate that. I do it, I’m guilty of it. I hate it when you hear a killer song on the radio, and you buy the CD, and there are like two good songs and the rest is a bunch of filler. That really annoys me. I can think of a lot of bands that are doing that these days.
It doesn’t seem to be an album-oriented world anymore.
DD: No, I understand. The world has changed. There are no more platinum or gold records on your walls, because people can’t sell those amounts of records anymore because as soon as a record comes out, it’s on file-sharing. I understand that. It still doesn’t mean you should write crappy shit. At the end of the day, when I’m dead and gone, at least I can leave a legacy, a body of music that people will love.
With this one, you’ve done that. I really like “Empire,” the lead track and the first single. It’s got those familiar searing guitars Dokken fans are used to, and some not so optimistic lyrics. Explain the inspiration behind that song and how the music for it was conceived.
DD: Well, you know, we wrote like fast, burning kind of riffs, but we were at the house here, the guesthouse on my property in the country, and it has a studio. And I have this flat screen on the wall, and every day, I’d take a break, watch some TV for a while, and it was just the Syrian government is slaughtering their own people, and Pakistan was bailed out, and we got rid of Muammar Gaddafi, but they hate our guts and they’re murdering our own soldiers, and I just got so pissed. That was why I came up with the line, “What do you have in the end? You’re burning empires.” So, you’re going to destroy your own country and your own people, so that way in the end, what do you got? You got nothing. You’ve got nothing left. It doesn’t make any sense to me. It’s mind-boggling. So it inspired me to write it.
I don’t write political songs usually, but “Empire” is just about, “You guys have lost your minds, you know?” They’re killing everybody. In the year 2012, you’d think we’d be a little more spiritually enlightened by now. Sadly, it seems like we’re going backwards, and all we do is keep coming up with new ways of killing each other. And this morning, they killed the U.S. ambassador [Chris Stevens]. They just blew him up. And the point of that was? It frustrates me. I guess when I was younger, we got famous, you get caught up in the limousines and the girls and you’re staying in four-star hotels, you’ve got a private jet … it’s narcissistic. To be famous, there’s some narcissism in there and ego and you don’t really concern yourself with all that crap going on. You’re just wrapped in your own little rock star world. But when I got older and you have children, you start realizing there’s some crazy shit going on out there.
You’ve definitely touched on some different lyrical subject matter on this record that you haven’t addressed in the past – “Blind” being that way as well.
DD: “Blind,” too. Yeah. Like I wrote that first line in “Empire”: “I sit above and watch below as we burn this city down” – it’s actually a metaphor of somebody standing on a hill watching their town annihilated, and for what? And the line that says, “A child only sees the gun as the trigger of disease.” Well, it is. Children are innocent, but it just frustrates me, so I had to write about it and get it out of my system – “Blind” and all that stuff. It just seems that it’s getting worse, and it just frustrates me. I could just ignore it all and go, “I’m just going to sit up here at my estate in Beverly Hills and it’s not my problem.” But I can’t do that. I feel morally responsible to at least voice my opinion and my outrage and frustration to people, and what’s a better vehicle than to do it through music.
Did you want the music to reflect that as well?
DD: No. I mean, it’s weird. Sometimes I write … the way I write, I just write stories. And I have a tape recorder. Everyone has always told me that, “Your stuff is always on that tape recorder,” and they call it the “Book of Don.” And I’ve got literally hours and hours and hours of me just babbling into a tape recorder. Like, I’ll get up in the middle of the night to go pee – and I hate that when you’re half asleep – and I always get inspired about 3 o’clock in the morning. I asked my doctor about that once. I said I usually get inspired when I’m half asleep, and he goes, “That’s what’s called a pure stream of consciousness.” You’re not thinking about your kids or the car loans, and your relationships or your bills. You’re just kind of in a pure stream of consciousness, like in a meditative state, and that’s when the ideas come.” Wherever they come from in the universe, God or whatever you want to call it, your mind is wide open to receive the information.
The problem is you start to think, “Oh, that’s a killer riff.” I hear this guitar riff in my head and I think, “That’ll be awesome. I’ll remember that in the morning.” And you’re like, “How did that go again?” I hate that, and Jon does that, too. So, for this album, I said to Jon, “Okay, now Jon, we’re going to both buy little tape recorders, we’ll put them next to our beds, and if you have an idea, just blurt it out. I don’t care if it’s just a little riff …” So, Jon had his guitar in his bedroom and this little amplifier, and he’d plug it in at 3 o’clock in the morning and wake his chick up, and he’ll turn the tape recorder on and say, “I’ve just got to bang out this quick little riff.” The next day, he’ll call me on the phone and say, “Hey, check this out.” And sometimes I’ll say, “Eh, that’s all right.” But for a couple of songs he wrote like that, I said, “Hey, that’s a really killer riff, except I wrote that 30 years ago – that song ‘Sleepless Nights’ on Tooth and Nail.” I have to say, “Jon, stop listening to those Dokken records. They’re brainwashing you.”
Sometimes you get something down that late at night and you wake up the next morning wondering, “What the hell is that?”
DD : Yeah, I went to bed thinking, “That’s brilliant.” And then I wake up and listen and I go, “Ugh, what was I thinking.” It’s a long process. We wrote 30 songs for this record, and we just narrowed it down to the 12 best. It’s a real hard call to figure it out, because the record company says we have to take one song off for a bonus track in Japan, and my opinion of bonus tracks is that they’re always the leftover songs that aren’t any good. And they call it a bonus, and I said, “I don’t want a shitty bonus [track]. I’m happy with all the songs. So how do we take a good song and take it off the record? I’m not happy about this.” And we ended up taking a song called “Can’t Touch This Love,” and it’s really a classic … kind of like “Just Got Lucky” meets “The Hunter.” It’s pretty cool, but we had to take it off the record. And it’s a shame. People can buy it if they want the Japanese DVD – we did a “making of” film while making this record. So that’s a bonus track, and you have to put a bonus track in Japan because the records over there cost $8 more than in America.
Did you ever have a song like that on any of the older albums from Dokken that you had to leave off?
DD: Yeah, it was “Dancin’ the Irish Song” and there was something else. I put two bonus tracks on Japanese albums a couple of years ago on one of my records. I can’t remember what it was. It might have been Erase the Slate. There are a couple of killer songs that we had to take off and use them for bonus tracks, and that was a bummer, because they’re never going to hear these tracks here because they’re never going to buy the import. But you have to do it, because records are still too expensive, $15, $17 in America and a record costs $25 over there. So, to encourage the fans not to buy the American version and save $8, you’ve got to give them bonus tracks. It’s just business, you know. 
You had vocal surgery in 2010. Your voice seems to have come through it remarkably well. What kind of rehabilitation did you have to do and how would you compare it now to what it was in the ‘80s?
DD: Well, you know, I’ll never be able to sing as high as I could back then. I mean, I could name a dozen singers who can’t sing like they did back then. It’s like a car. You put 100,000 or 200,000 miles on it, it doesn’t run like it did when it was brand new. I’ve done 7,000 to 8,000 shows in my career, but yeah, I tore my vocal cord in Germany. It was my fault. You know, most bands are two days on, one day off or three days on, two days off. We ended up doing 27 shows in 34 days I think, and I started having this funny taste in my mouth, like iron. And I realized it was blood. And I went, “Oh, shit.”
You know, I was in Germany and I went to the hospital, and the doctor went to an EMT guy, and he looked at my throat and he said, “You tore your vocal cord.” And I still had 10 shows to go, and he said, “Stop.” And I didn’t. I kept going, and that was it. And I thought, “Okay, I’ll just heal. I’ll just stay here.” But it just got worse and worse and worse and worse, and I had the surgery, and I thought, “Okay, three months from now, I’ll be good.” And I started playing again, and I was singing like crap. And people on the Internet were going, “Boy, Don can’t sing anymore,” or “He’s lost it,” and well, I can’t deny it. So, I was really struggling to try to hit any of the notes, and people see it on the Internet, on YouTube, and “Ish … he ain’t what he used to be.” It’s depressing. It’s like saying, “Here’s a guitar. It’s out of tune. Now go play.” So I just told the band, “We have to stop.”
On this record, which we started writing last September, I didn’t sing a note the first six months. I mean, I had to go back to my old vocal teacher, warm-ups … I had to put three humidifiers in all the rooms of my house to keep the house humid all the time – warm up for an hour, do scales, keep my mouth shut, quit smoking … blah, blah, blah. You know, don’t talk a lot. I’ve got more at stake, so I’ve been doing press for four days straight, six hours a day and I’m horse from doing it. And sometimes, we get together and I go to sing a song, and I say, “You know, guys, I can hit the note, but my voice will have a little too much buzz in it.” And some days, Jon will go, “Wow. Your voice sounds like it did on Tooth and Nail. Your voice is nice and clean and clear.” And I go, “That’s the way I like it.” But it is hit and miss – sometimes you have good days, and I’ve had bad days where I couldn’t figure out why [my voice] was doing what it was doing and it wasn’t good. The insanity of the thing is after I spent tens of thousands of dollars on my voice, it turned out to be hit or miss because I was snoring. I was overly tired, because we were working 14-hour days, flying to gigs, getting two to three hours of sleep and going to Europe. We flew 16 hours to Bulgaria, and we did the M3 Fest where we had two hours of sleep. We sucked at that show, but when you’re really tired, you snore. And when you snore, it’s like … haven’t you gone to a club and you’re trying to talk to somebody over a loud band, and you wake up the next day and your voice is all raspy?
Yeah, absolutely.
DD: And you wake up and you’re hoarse, and you try and talk loud for conversation. Well, that’s what snoring is. So I had to go get sleep studies done, with the cameras on me watching me sleep, and as it turned out, I was snoring with sleep apnea and that was trashing the cords, too. So, that bites. But, I don’t snore anymore.
I didn’t realize that was something that could damage your vocal cords. Did you at all think back to when you sang rehearsals with the Scorpions for Blackout while Klaus Meine recovered from his vocal surgery?
DD: Yeah, it’s like I went through the same thing. And you know, when I sang on that, I was young. I mean, I was in my 20s and my voice was fresh and golden, and I hadn’t toured. I was a nobody, you know? And I had a virgin voice, basically. It had low miles. And the surgery Klaus had, he had like two or three surgeries in his career. Tom Keifer, he didn’t sing for three years.
Could you ever imagine taking that long off?
DD: Yeah, when we could play again, I was shocked. We played with Cinderella a year ago, and I said to Tom, “You sound exactly like you did in the ‘80s. What did you do?” He said, “Oh, man. I had to have surgeries, I couldn’t talk, I had to re-train my voice and sing differently” – he went through a whole thing for like seven years. And now he sounds awesome, better than ever. There are always people that are blessed – the Glenn Hughes’s of the world, the Bruce Dickinsons, the Ronnie James Dios. Those guys are blessed. They just open their mouths and it comes out and it sounds awesome. But, I don’t think I was blessed with that. I have my tonsils still. Most people don’t have their tonsils. I have my tonsils, I still have my adenoids, I have some bad sinuses, and the doctor said, “You’ve got everything a singer shouldn’t have. Your tonsils can get infected, you’re flying, you’re dehydrated, your sinuses are dripping, and your vocal cords get inflamed.” He goes, “You’re just getting hit every way – every direction, you’re getting hit and it disturbs your voice, and we just have to knock out the problems one at a time.” It took a long time.
What did you learn from working with Tom Werman and Roy Thomas Baker on Tooth and Nail and Neil Kernon on Under Lock and Key and Back for the Attack that you’ve incorporated into your own production work?
DD: Um, I was like a real “Dennis the Menace.” When I was working with Michael Wagener [producer for Dokken’s Breaking the Chains, Skid Row’s first album and Ozzy Osbourne’s No More Tears, he also mixed Metallica’s Master of Puppets], I’d ask, “Why are you using that mic? Why are you putting the mic there? Why are you doing that? Why are you putting the overheads over there?” And [Geoff] Workman, God rest his soul, he was a great engineer. He just passed away [2010]. With all these great guys, I just picked their brains. I’d go, “Why are you doing that? Why are you doing this? Why are you putting the mics there? Why are you using that mic?” I just learned over 30 years, and I owned my own recording studio for 10 years. I mean, besides other things, I produced the Dysfunctional album and recorded it in my studio and just did everything – recorded everything and put the mics on myself, and like I say, just years of experience to learn why, because I had all these great people telling me why … you know, “How come you can’t put this microphone on the kick drum?” And Michael would say, “Because this microphone has a lower register, and it picks up the kick drum better and it’s a tighter sound.” And I’d say, “Oh, okay. How come you’re using this?” And Michael would tell me, “Most people will put a mic on top of the snare drum.”
Michael always put one on top and the bottom to get the track, but the problem with two microphones that close together is they go out of phase and it sounds weird. And he showed me how to fix that by putting one out of phase, and putting the snare back in phase. It’s just decades and decades of all these tricks I learned. I think this album has a killer guitar sound, killer drum sound, great bass – it’s just a punchy record, you know. I wanted it punchy. I wanted it powerful. I wanted it loud.   
How did having Bob St. John [Extreme, Duran Duran, Collective Soul] and Wyn Davis [Black Sabbath, Dio, Whitesnake] do the mixing and Maor Appelbaum [Halford, Yngwie Malmsteen, Sepultura] as the engineer affect Broken Bones. How did the three of them affect the final product?
DD: Well, Wyn and I have been best friends for like 30 years, through the Dokken stuff and then my solo record, Up from the Ashes, which I love – it just came out at the wrong time. And my recording studio was literally a thousand yards from his recording studio. So we were always going back and forth from my studio to his, and then we started the record and we started working together, but then I was taking such a long time with the record. I kept pushing him back – like, “Okay, next month we’ll finish it,” and then, “No, I’m going out on tour. Okay, next month.” And then Wyn got booked.
He goes, “I’m booked solid, I can’t do this record.” So, I said, “Well, I guess I’ll do it myself.” And I was like, “Oh, shit. Now I’m really going to put pressure on myself.” So I ended up doing the record by myself, recording everything that was left at my house. And then we went to Bob St. John because Jon is good friends with the guys from Extreme, and he’d done Extreme, and Jon knew him. So he said, “Yeah. Meet me in Florida.” So I decided to go down to Florida to meet with him, and I decided to be the producer, and then with St. John, I wanted to get something new. I’m always using the same people over and over and over again, so I listened to Maor Applebaum’s records, and he seemed to know what the hell he was doing as far as making records loud. He does a lot of the heavy bands, or heavier, like Sepultura and bands like that. And I thought, “Well, with these songs, we’re not thrash metal or a speed-metal band. Our music is melodic hard rock, but I want the aggression from the mastering that he gets from these kinds of heavier bands. I thought it would be a good combination to get Applebaum to do the mastering, just as he approaches these bands like Sepultura.       
Why did it not work out with George and Jeff for a return to the classic Dokken lineup?
DD: Well, do you want the lie or do you want the truth? We’ll there’s about 20 versions from George – ‘I’m just an asshole, I want all the money and I’m hard to deal with.’ Well, that’s just about the stupidest thing I’ve ever heard in my life. I mean, Mick will tell you that … and Jeff. We got together. We were going to do it last year, and we were excited to do it, and it was going to be great, and we thought it would put the exclamation point on our career. We had an offer to make an extreme amount of money to do it, so that was nice. And the truth is we got back together and Mick flew down, we all met, and Jeff said, “I want to do this, but I’m committed to Foreigner for two years.” And I said, “Two years? That’s the last of that.”
I couldn’t sit around waiting for two years, so that’s the truth. I know George posted all this shit that I held it up and I wanted too much money, and he didn’t want to be a hired gun and all that. I don’t know why George does all that stuff. There’s something wrong with that guy between the ears. He’s always been a little weird. Someone asked me when we started not getting along, and I said, “It wasn’t toward the middle. We didn’t get along from the day he joined the band.” He’s two different people, man. I mean, we played a couple of shows with him this summer, and he’s always nice to me, saying, “How are you doing, Don?” I said, “You know what George? You’re always, ‘Hi, hi. How are you doing?’ And then the very next day you talk shit about me on the Internet. What the f**k is that all about? Why do you keep this up?” And if you say something, he’ll lie. Just tell the truth. Practice what you preach. The truth will set you free. He’s just a different personality. I don’t hate. I don’t worry about it. And I gave up trying to defend myself on the Internet a long time ago. You get a guy, he goes to the show and then he blogs, “I saw Dokken and they sucked.” I just say to people like that, “Well, that’s your opinion, and don’t skimp on the avocado. If you think you can do better, here’s the microphone. Knock yourself out.”
The “Monsters of Rock Tour” in 1988 is such an epochal moment in heavy metal history. What was the most memorable moment for you?
DD: There were a lot of memories. It was the highlight of our careers. It was a tragedy, too, because we didn’t get to do another album, and we were going to go on a world tour, because we’d gotten to that level. We could have taken on the whole world … We couldn’t get to the stage without a helicopter bringing all the musicians in, and I remember the first day I thought I was going to throw up because we’re in this helicopter, and I see helicopters flying over the field and you see a hundred thousand people, and I was just going, “Oh, my God. This is the dream I’ve had my whole life.” I was so scared, you know. Even though we’d toured most the year, we were going up against Metallica, Scorpions, Aerosmith … man, we’d better step up to the plate. That was a lot of pressure on us, but it was a highlight just flying over that and seeing all those people and seeing my name up there on a 50-foot banner, it was pretty exciting.
Did it feel competitive, like everybody was trying to outdo one another?
DD: No, I didn’t feel any competition. It was really interesting, that tour. I thought there were going to be orgies going on backstage, like it had always been. I thought, “Well, a hundred thousand people, how many girls are going to be backstage? 300, you know?” But the truth was, by the time we got to it, I had kids, everybody had kids, everybody was married … Eddie had Valerie Bertinelli. And everybody had their wives. Backstage, it was really pretty chill, just barbequing, you had the catering, and you’d be barbequing steak one day and there were just kids and family around. There was no groupie stuff going on; it was really just chill backstage, just really low-key. It wasn’t what I expected, just a blowout going on every day. I mean, there were still drugs flying around pretty heavy on that tour. The road crews were under a lot of pressure, because they had to set up this massive amount of equipment, and I know we had 10, 15 semi-trucks – a pretty big operation. And I saw a lot of road crews who would be there one day and gone the next because they had just burned out on drugs and drinking and stuff. They’d let the pressure get to them. 
Were there things about that tour that you enjoyed and other aspects of it that you didn’t?
DD: Well, the worst part of it was going on after Metallica. I mean, we had the same manager [Cliff Burnstein] and even though we were making more money than them, and we were supposedly more famous, I kept saying, “Can you put them on after us, because they are kicking our ass.” I mean, they were. It’s pretty hard to go onstage and sing “In My Dreams” after they’d just closed with “Kill Them All.”
That is tough.
DD: It’s a different energy level. I learned a lot from Metallica, man, because I think we were getting complacent. We toured with Aerosmith that year, and all these other bands, like Judas Priest. I mean, we were on the road for 18 months, and we were really tired at the end. But, we were getting kudos, and we were doing really well, and then, all of a sudden … Metallica just had this attitude like, “Every show is our last show.” They just went out there, and they would slay it. People would rush the stage, and I think we were caught up in the rock star thing, where we said, “We’re Dokken, we’re cool, don’t worry about it.” And I kept saying to the boys, “We’ve got to step up our game a little bit, because we’re getting our butts kicked.” That was my opinion. And that was when we were finished.
Do you have any memorabilia from that era that’s special to you?
DD: I gave all my stage clothes and everything away in the last 15 years to charity. The only thing I have left that’s worth something is the sequined, velvet, long trench coat I wore in “Dream Warriors.” I had that custom made jacket with all these sparkly things on it that I wore for “Dream Warriors.” And I still have it. I tried to put it on about a month ago, and it doesn’t fit. I must have been a little skinnier. I tried to get my arms through it and I ripped it. I was about 30 pounds lighter, you know. So, I’ve still got that and I don’t know what to do with it. The Hard Rock [Café] wanted it. They wanted to do a Freddy Krueger/Dokken thing at the Hard Rock, but I thought maybe it’d be better to give it to a Cancer auction or something like that so the money can go to cancer research. I like doing that. The last show of this tour is a cancer fundraiser, and then I’m going to Washington D.C. in November to do concert in Washington that’s being put together called “Fallen Blue” [Nov. 10 at the Recher Theatre in Towson, Maryland] for officers that have been killed in the line of duty. I like doing those things to pay it forward. When anybody asks me to go to Fort Bragg or to go do a concert to play for the troops or to play for Iraq [War] veterans who’ve just gotten back I like to do it. We don’t get paid. It’s not about the money. It’s about paying it forward.
And you’re a big contributor to the Los Angeles Children’s Hospital.
DD: Yeah, I mean, you what happened, how I got involved in that was unfortunately through a tragedy in my own family. My brother had a beautiful daughter, Michelle, and I loved her dearly. We used to take care of her a lot. She went to school right across the street from my house, and she’d hang out with her uncle Don. And she contracted cancer at 8 and passed away. And so, when I was going to the hospital to see her, and we were all there hoping she’d make it, I started seeing all these kids, you know. And I just thought they needed some cheering up. So that’s when I started donating my money and time. I spent Christmas Eve there. I spent Thanksgiving. I’d eaten cafeteria food at the hospital, no thanks to them, because I didn’t think the food was very good. So I would go to and buy turkeys and a bunch of dressing, pies – and I just put it in the back of a truck and hauled all this food down to the hospital, this awesome gourmet food for the kids and they got a kick out of it. And I gave them all Dokken stuff.
They must have loved it.
DD: Yeah, we had wheelchair races, and the nurses hated me. They’d say, “You can’t be doing that. These kids have got cystic fibrosis, and it could kill them.” I’d say, “Look, they’re dying already.” I mean, they were terminal, so what do you mean? I mean, Jesus, let’s have some fun. It’s a tough thing. It’s depressing. I would take a couple of my rock-star buddies along, down to the hospital, and they lasted about a half an hour, because it’s very hard. You’ve got to a have a … it’s hard. It’s sad. To be around 40 kids and you know they’re all terminal, it’s hard. And sometimes you’d go next year, and a couple of them would still be there, and I’d be like, “Awesome! You’re still here.”
Back in the early ‘80s, you approached both George and Jeff about being in the band, and you had this record deal in place [with Carrere Records, the German label that first released Breaking the Chains]. Why was it so important to you to get those two onboard?
DD: Well, actually, you know, Juan was the original bass player. Juan and I toured Germany in 1979 together as a three-piece. Juan Croucier [known more for being in Ratt] was the bass player, and if you look back on Breaking the Chains, Juan was on there, because that was before Jeff’s time. But, we had the same problems. Juan is a really mellow, nice guy, and he didn’t get along with George either. My skin was thicker, but Juan was like, “God, man. This guy is always complaining. He’s always just fighting with everything we want to do and get going. He’s just fighting us all the way.” And George quit the band, I think, probably three or four times the first year and a half. He was quitting like every other month, or at least every two months. I mean, Warren DeMartini replaced him for a while, and I wanted to keep Warren, and then Juan was playing with Warren, and Ratt was starting to get popular. And then when the LP came out, Juan just said, “I can’t play with George.”
And unfortunately, when he left, like two days later, we had an offer to do the Blue Oyster Cult tour, our first arena tour. We had no bass player. So I called Mike Barney, and he said, “There’s this guy, Jeff Pilson. He’s a singer and bass player.” And he was playing in some little bar with this chick singer, and he was just playing bass, doing like “Little Red Corvette.” And I went down and auditioned him, and that was it. I was desperate to get a bass player, and that’s how Jeff got in the band. Jeff got lucky. He was literally playing in a bar called the Shot of Gold for like 20 people, playing like Prince and we were going on tour in literally … we were making the video in like five days and touring in two weeks. I mean, we needed a bass player like right now. And we just grabbed him. He was in the right place at the right time. I didn’t know the guy.
What was the biggest difference between Breaking the Chains and Tooth and Nail? Did you sense that Dokken had taken a big leap forward?
DD: Well, we had to. Breaking the Chains came out. “Breaking the Chains” was one of the most requested songs in the country and nobody bought the record. The record stiffed. They call it a “passive hit” – like, “Yeah, I love that song. Buy the record? No.” Loved the song, didn’t buy the record. So the record company wanted to drop us, and I said, “Well, I guess it’s over.” The album only sold a hundred thousand copies, which these days would be a success. Back then, it was a dismal failure. And we basically – my managers and me – begged the label to give us one more chance. And that’s why I came up with the title Tooth and Nail. I said, “Boys, this is it. Tooth and nail. If we don’t bring it on this next album …”
When I met George to join Dokken, he was driving the Gallo Wines truck, driving Gallo Wine to liquor stores. And that’s the truth. He was driving, and he got kicked out of his house, he was living in the back of his car, and he was making a living driving Gallo Wine to liquor stores. So they had nothing going on. I had a record deal and no band. Went to Germany, got my record deal, and I always liked Mick. I thought he was an awesome drummer, I liked seeing him play in The Boyz, and Mick kept saying, “Why don’t you get George in the band?” And I said, “Well, I’m the guitar player, really. I’m the guitar player and the singer.” The manager said, “We think you should put the guitar down and front the band,” because when you’re playing guitar, you’re kind of stuck on the mic. And they wanted me to move off the mic. So, I thought, “Okay, George is a great guitar player. We’ll try it.” Unfortunately, it started out on the wrong foot and never got back on the right foot.
It’s amazing you made it as long as you did.
DD: Well, my manager said to me … he was the most famous manager in the country; he was with Metallica, Tesla, Queensryche – you name it. Cliff Burnstein is the like the guru of all managers. I remember him saying to me – and actually, the first band he ever signed, an American band, was us. Def Leppard and that was it. His partner was handling them in England, and Cliff’s first band to pick up was us before all those bands. I was with him the night he went to The Troubadour to see Metallica [in 1984], to pick them up [for Elektra Records and Q-Prime Management]. But, he said to me, “Don, you guys are famous despite yourselves.”   
With the state of the music industry, what are your hopes for Dokken going forward
DD: Well, you know, we’re in that strange situation – like everybody is – where you don’t make your living off selling records anymore. You make your living off touring, because nobody sells records anymore. Metallica is not selling 10 million records like they used to, or a hundred million, like the Black Album. Those days are gone because the Internet came along and changed everything. Napster changed the world. I was really proud of Lars [Ulrich] that he actually went to Congress and fought to get this thing stopped. People had this attitude like, “Well, what do you care? You’re making millions of dollars. What’s the big deal if a person downloads music for free?” Well, if you make a painting and spend 11 months on it, you pay for your brushes and you pay for it with your sweat and blood, and you go sell it to pay the bills, and the art gallery sells it to somebody sitting outside the art gallery and made 500 copies of it and posters of the painting, you’d be pissed. It’s your art. It’s your art!
This attitude of kids going, “Well, I’m not going to spend 10 bucks, even though it’s a bad copy and it sounds like shit, I’ll just download it for nothing” … Lars fought to stop that, and I respect him for it. And so now, it’s just touring. You have to tour. And somebody said, “Why are you making a new record?” It’s because it’s my love, it’s my passion. I don’t think painters or artists paint to make a living. If they make a living it’s a bonus, but they do it because they love to paint. If you can make money at it, that’s great. I never got into this business to get rich or to live in mansions. That wasn’t the point. I was a musician. My mom was a musician, my father was a musician, my brother’s a musician, my daughter is 25 and a classically trained pianist – it just runs in our blood, you know. It’s our family.

* Photo by Devin DeHaven

CD Review: Dokken - Broken Bones


CD Review: Dokken - Broken Bones
Frontiers Records
All Access Review: A-
Dokken - Broken Bones 2012
Some Broken Bones never heal quite right, no matter how long they’re immobilized and allowed to set. Don Dokken is not a doctor, but perhaps he has finally concluded – after fairly recent attempts at reconciliation failed miserably – that he and guitarist George Lynch simply can never coexist together in Dokken, that their creative relationship is fractured beyond repair and that the book on the quarrelsome classic lineup that fought like hell and forged such ‘80s melodic hard-rock touchstones as the LPs Tooth and Nail and Under Lock and Key is permanently and forever closed.
As for the band that bears his name, the last chapter in the life of Dokken has yet to be written. In fact, if Broken Bones, out Tuesday on Frontiers Records, is any indication, Dokken, the sequel, could at least rival the original. With drummer Mick Brown the lone holdover from the glory days, and guitarist Jon Levin and bassist Sean McNabb filling the large shoes of Lynch and Jeff Pilson, respectively, Dokken hasn’t completely reinvented itself on Broken Bones, and yet, there’s something different about it that speaks to a subtle, yet perceptible, shift in philosophy.
Smoky and exotic, though fully engorged with the kind of hard-charging, testosterone-fueled guitar riffage and lightning-strike leads on “Best of Me” and the blazing lead single “Empire” that have always carried Dokken into battle, Broken Bones has more of a heavy blues feel than past efforts, with the weighty, groove-driven “Blind” and “Waterfall” owing a debt to late-‘60s/early-‘70s British rock royalty it cannot possibly repay. On the Middle Eastern-flavored snake charmer “Victim of the Crime,” Dokken manages to channel the spirits of both Led Zeppelin and The Beatles in a seductive, almost psychedelic attempt at reimagining “Kashmir” with kaleidoscopic vocal harmonies and slinky guitar. And they succeed.  
“Today” is even more of a departure, an enchanted, mysterious piece of boggy, candle-lit acoustic folk that could be a distant descendant of “Stairway to Heaven,” were it not for the gentle tape manipulation coloring the meditative mood in mind-altering, Hooka-sucking fashion. And just when it appears that Dokken is ready to slump down in its Lazy Boy and drift off in a sunny haze of golden guitar tendrils that curl around the intro to “For the Last Time,” Levin mounts a steed of stampeding power chords and spurs Dokken to ride deep into the night, where the decaying metallic beauty – interrupted by a searing Levin solo – of “Fade Away” awaits.
There’s a kind of heavy-metal yoga at work on Broken Bones, where limber melodies conform to pleasing, but unusual shapes – at least for Dokken they are. No longer able to soar to those high notes, after serious vocal surgery, Don Dokken drops to a lower register to add richness and body to these songs, soulfully delivering surprisingly affecting and powerful lyrics that express outrage over the stupidity of war and violence and heartfelt regret over lost love and bad choices. Too subdued in tone overall, Broken Bones would benefit from more attacking, vigorous rock workouts like “Empire.” But there’s more than enough of that on Broken Bones to please the old guard and new converts. No longer beholden to a commercially viable hit-making formula that major record labels would require them to reproduce on command, Dokken is branching out into new territory, while not entirely abandoning what made them famous in the first place. That’s a balance not everybody can maintain.
-            Peter Lindblad

Why did the Dokken reunion fall apart?


Don Dokken explains what really happened, talks new album 'Broken Bones'
By Peter Lindblad
Dokken - Broken Bones 2012
It was time to let bygones be bygones, to beat swords into ploughshares, to put the past in the past and start anew. Those masters of melodic glam-metal, Dokken, were getting the band back together – that is to say, a reformation of the classic lineup of Don Dokken, George Lynch, Jeff Pilson, and Mick Brown was afoot.
The first sign of a thawing of tensions occurred in November, 2009, when Lynch and Pilson joined Brown and Dokken for two songs at Dokken’s House of Blues performance in Anaheim, Calif. Jumping the gun before all the “i’s” were dotted and all the “t’s” were crossed, Lynch and Dokken went on “That Metal Show”in May, 2010, to share the joyous news with the world.
Sheepishly, in December of that year, retractions would be issued, and Lynch, Pilson and Brown later appeared again on “That Metal Show” to explain how their best-laid plans had gone awry. Everybody seems to have their own version of what happened.
Don Dokken has his, and in a recent interview, he was asked what ultimately scuttled the Dokken reunion. He responded with, “Well, do you want the lie or do you want the truth?”
Of course, we wanted the truth, and so Don continued, “We’ll there’s about 20 versions from George – ‘I’m just an asshole, I want all the money and I’m hard to deal with.’ Well, that’s just about the stupidest thing I’ve ever heard in my life. I mean, Mick will tell you that … and Jeff. We got together. We were going to do it last year, and we were excited to do it, and it was going to be great, and we thought it would put the exclamation point on our career. We had an offer to make an extreme amount of money to do it, so that was nice. And the truth is we got back together”
Everything was going swimmingly until, “Mick flew down, we all met, and Jeff said, ‘I want to do this, but I’m committed to Foreigner for two years.’ And I said, ‘Two years? That’s the last of that,’” said Don. “I couldn’t sit around waiting for two years, so that’s the truth.”
Not everyone seems to see it that way.
“I know George posted all this shit that I held it up and I wanted too much money, and he didn’t want to be a hired gun and all that,” said Dokken. “I don’t know why George does all that stuff. There’s something wrong with that guy between the ears. He’s always been a little weird. Someone asked me when we started not getting along, and I said, ‘It wasn’t toward the middle. We didn’t get along from the day he joined the band.’ He’s two different people, man. I mean, we played a couple of shows with him this summer, and he’s always nice to me, saying, ‘How are you doing, Don?’ I said, ‘You know what George? You’re always, “Hi, hi. How are you doing?” And then the very next day you talk shit about me on the Internet. What the fuck is that all about? Why do you keep this up?’ And if you say something, he’ll lie. Just tell the truth. Practice what you preach. The truth will set you free. He’s just a different personality. I don’t hate. I don’t worry about it. And I gave up trying to defend myself on the Internet a long time ago. You get a guy, he goes to the show and then he blogs, ‘I saw Dokken and they sucked.’ I just say to people like that, ‘Well, that’s your opinion, and don’t skimp on the avocado. If you think you can do better, here’s the microphone. Knock yourself out.’”
Whether Broken Bones, Dokken’s upcoming new record, due out Sept. 25 via Frontiers, will get such a frosty reception remains to be seen. Early on, however, it seems even factions of the metal community that haven’t always embraced Dokken’s brand of hook-friendly hard rock are ready to embrace Broken Bones, which features the band’s current lineup of Dokken, Brown, Jon Levin and Sean McNabb.
“Yeah, we’re getting even the diehard, hardcore metal [publications] … like Metal Hammer and all these people who don’t really like [bands], unless they’re thrash or something like that, gave us nine out of 10,” says Dokken. “We wrote 30 songs, but I just said, ‘Jon, I don’t know, but I’m going to take every fucking producing skill I have for this record and put it in there.’ I started hearing my peers – my peers – putting out these records – I’m not going to say who they are – and I just go, ‘Man, the shit’s boring.’ Same old shit, you know. People are like … I don’t know. They just get their advance and they just go and knock out a Pro Tools record, and it doesn’t have much production, it sounds kind of cheesy. I mean, I just heard that new TNN … that Pilson, Lynch, Mick did that TNN thing – oy, yoy, yoy. It’s been out three days and it’s getting crucified.”
As for Broken Bones, Dokken believes it shows a different side of the band, one that draws from a number of classic-rock sources while trying out a whole dazzling new range of tricks. 
“Look at ‘Waterfall,’ that weird drum beat … I’ve never done anything like that, or have a timing change in the middle of a solo – I’ve never done that in my career,” said Dokken, again playing guitar in the band with Levin, his longtime collaborator. “But yeah, Jon and I wrote the record, and I just finally said, ‘I know what everybody wants, and they want the same thing we did last year or a few years ago, which sounded very ‘80s like’ … and I just said, ‘Jon, I can’t paint the same picture.’ I mean, what’s the point? I hate it when people say, ‘I wish this record was like Tooth and Nail.’ Ok, then go buy Tooth and Nail.”
We’ll have more with Don Dokken in the coming weeks. In the meantime, visit Frontiers Records site to get the lowdown on Dokken’s latest record.

Check out Dokken videos:  Dokken's Official You Tube Channel