Dokken
Dokken is an American metal band formed in Los Angeles in 1978. It split up in 1989 and reformed four years later. The band has had several singles that charted on the Billboard Hot 100, such as "Alone Again", "In My Dreams", and "Burning Like a Flame", and has sold more than 10 million albums worldwide. The live album Beast from the East was nominated for the inaugural Grammy Award for Best Metal Performance in 1989.
The classic Dokken line-up consisted of founder Don Dokken on vocals, George Lynch on lead guitar, Mick Brown on drums and Jeff Pilson, who replaced the Ratt-bound Juan Croucier in 1983, on bass; this line-up remained stable from 1983 to 1989, and again from 1993 to 1998, and briefly reunited in 2016. After several personnel changes on guitar, Dokken's attorney Jon Levin stepped in to fill the role in 2004. In 2001, Barry Sparks replaced Pilson on bass. In 2009, Sean McNabb replaced him, and was then replaced by Chris McCarvill in 2015. As of Mick Brown's retirement from the band in July 2019, Don Dokken is the only remaining original band member. Brown's vacancy was filled by BJ Zampa of House of Lords fame.
In 2020, Jeff Mezydlo of Yardbarker included them in his list of "the 20 greatest hair metal bands of all time".
Band history
Early years (1976–1983)
Don Dokken's first band formed in 1976, named Airborn. He played shows at clubs in the Los Angeles area, including the Starwood on Sunset Strip. Airborn included Bobby Blotzer on drums and Juan Croucier on bass, but Blotzer and Croucier left the band in 1978 to form FireFoxx. Don Dokken was unable to keep the Airborn name because another band named Airborne had already acquired a record deal. Bringing in Greg Pecka on drums and Steven R. Barry on bass, Dokken recorded a 7" single, "Hard Rock Woman" b/w "Broken Heart", released in 1979 under the band name Dokken, produced by Drake Levin, best known as the guitarist for Paul Revere & the Raiders.A Dokken line-up consisting of Don, guitarist Greg Leon, drummer Gary Holland, and bassist Gary Link toured Germany in 1979 where the band met an up-and-coming producer named Michael Wagener, also the live sound engineer for Accept, who would follow Don back to Los Angeles for a short vacation, a move that became permanent shortly thereafter. The '79 touring line-up quickly fell apart with Leon taking over Randy Rhoads' spot in Quiet Riot and Holland joining Dante Fox, later known as Great White. A Michael Wagener-produced Hamburg recording of the '79 line-up surfaced in 1989 under the title Back in the Streets, released by the German label Repertoire Records without the band's consent. Dokken toured Germany again in 1980, this time with Croucier back on bass.
In early 1981, Don Dokken returned to Germany trying to get a record deal with a new band in tow, guitarist George Lynch and drummer Mick Brown, who had been playing in the band Xciter at the time, with Croucier remaining on bass. After recording demos with Wagener and with the help of Accept's manager, Gaby Hauke, a deal was secured with Carrere Records. Recorded between July and September 1981 at Studio Stommeln with Wagener and Dieter Dierks, Breaking the Chains was initially released under the name "Don Dokken" before it was changed to simply Dokken on subsequent pressings. While in Germany, Don would also demo songs with the Scorpions for their Blackout album as the band's vocalist Klaus Meine was forced to undergo surgery on his vocal cords and his return was uncertain for a time. Dokken did eventually perform backing vocals on the album. Meanwhile, Lynch, Brown and Croucier ended up working as studio musicians for German singer Udo Lindenberg on his 1982 album Keule, playing on four songs: "Urmensch ", "Ratten ", "Zwischen Rhein Und Aufruhr ", and "Gesetz ". Promotional activities for the European release of Breaking the Chains included a German TV appearance as Dokken performed a 40-minute live set on the Beat-Club as part of a Musikladen Extra which aired on January 4, 1982.
Back in the United States, Dokken were now managed by Cliff Bernstein who got the band signed to Elektra Records for a stateside release of Breaking The Chains, remixed for the American market. Dokken played a couple of shows with Warren DeMartini on guitar when George Lynch briefly left to rehearse with Ozzy Osbourne's band while on tour. The band did an arena tour in the U.S. with Lynch back on guitar supporting Blue Öyster Cult in 1983, but when the tour was over the band was left with little money and was nearly dropped from the label due to the album's lack of success.
While the band was very popular in Europe during this time they had not yet made commercial progress in the US. Magazines such as Kerrang! publicized Dokken in the UK.
Commercial success (1983–1988)
Juan Croucier left Dokken in 1983 just prior to the release of the "Breaking the Chains" video to join Ratt alongside DeMartini. He was replaced by Jeff Pilson, who joined in time to film the video. The album Tooth and Nail was released on September 13, 1984. The album contained several hit songs including "Just Got Lucky", "Alone Again", and "Into the Fire", and sold over one million copies in the US alone, peaking at No. 49, while selling another estimated one million copies worldwide. On November 22, 1985, the band's third album Under Lock and Key was released. It also sold over one million copies with the singles "In My Dreams", "The Hunter" and "It's Not Love". During this time in the 1980s, Dokken opened for such bands as Judas Priest, AC/DC, Aerosmith, Dio and Kiss, among others. The 1986 documentary short Heavy Metal Parking Lot features fans of Dokken and Judas Priest tailgating before a concert in Maryland.Following a successful tour with Scorpions, Dokken returned to the studio in December 1986 to record "Dream Warriors", a song for the movie soundtrack A Nightmare on Elm Street 3: Dream Warriors. The track brought the band to the attention of many UK hard rock fans. The song was released as a single on February 10, 1987. After this release, the band took nearly six months off before recording Back for the Attack. The album was released on November 27, 1987, with the singles "Burning Like a Flame", "Heaven Sent" and "Prisoner" making the album the band's most successful release, reaching No. 13 on U.S. charts. It also included a remixed version of the single "Dream Warriors", and the accompanying music video featured band members interacting with the film's characters. Back for the Attack became Dokken's third record to reach platinum status.
After releasing Back for the Attack, the band toured as part of the Monsters of Rock Tour 1988 festival in the summer of 1988 along with Van Halen, Scorpions, Metallica, and Kingdom Come. Recordings from their April 1988 tour in Japan led to the release of live album Beast from the East on November 16, 1988, which went Gold in the United States and charted at No. 33. The album scored one studio single, titled "Walk Away" and a music video was made for it.
Split (1989–1993)
Dokken broke up in March 1989, due to creative and personal differences between Don Dokken and George Lynch as well as Don's desire to fire the rest of the band and hire new members before they signed their next record deal. Lynch and Brown then formed the band Lynch Mob and recorded two albums: Wicked Sensation in 1990 and Lynch Mob in 1992.Don Dokken also recorded what has been regarded as a strong album, titled Up from the Ashes in 1990 which spawned two singles, very much in the vein of previous Dokken efforts.
Bassist Jeff Pilson, switching to lead vocals and guitar, formed Flesh & Blood in 1989 and recorded a 5-song demo. Further recordings under the name War & Peace surfaced as Time Capsule in 1993, by which time the group had already disbanded. Pilson joined the McAuley Schenker Group for their 1991 album, M.S.G.. Afterwards, Pilson signed on with Dio for the Strange Highways album, reuniting with former Flesh & Blood bandmate Vinny Appice.
Lynch's first solo effort, 1993's Sacred Groove, reunited him with Don Dokken for the writing of the track "We Don't Own This World." Don Dokken was also supposed to sing lead on the track, however at the last moment, Don was unable to attend the studio session and was replaced by Matthew and Gunnar Nelson. Jeff Pilson also collaborated with Lynch on the album, co-writing the lyrics to "Flesh and Blood" and playing bass on "We Don't Own This World".
Reformation (1993–1997)
After releasing Up from the Ashes in 1990 Don Dokken wrote another solo album in 1993. Titled Dysfunctional, the album was recorded and produced in Don's studio. However, when John Kalodner wanted to sign him for the album, he suggested that George Lynch be brought back into the band so that the album could be marketed as a Dokken album, and not another Don Dokken solo effort. Despite the fact that the tension between Lynch and Don Dokken was the cause of the band's 1989 split, the two agreed to put their problems behind them for the time being. The band re-united in 1994 along with Mick Brown and Jeff Pilson, with Lynch re-writing and re-recording the guitar solos on the album, which were originally conceived by Don. Dokken was signed with Columbia Records and the album managed to sell 300,000 copies despite the decline in popularity of similar bands during this time.During the tour supporting Dysfunctional, old tensions between George and Don had resurfaced and the band began to split apart. During a Columbia promotion for the new album in which the band was scheduled to play live on 120 radio stations, Lynch unexpectedly left the studio and refused to re-enter. The record company was forced to air the rehearsal tape that had been recorded earlier and four days later the label dropped Dokken, presumably because of this and other similar incidents involving Lynch's behavior. One Live Night, a live acoustic album, was released in 1996 by a new label, CMC International, and was followed with Shadowlife in 1997. Don Dokken was dissatisfied with Shadowlife, an album in which Lynch took total control and even went as far as to replace the original Dokken logo on the album. Don alleges that Lynch intended to destroy the band with this album, reciting the following quote from him in an interview: "This is the perfect record. This is gonna be the end of Dokken, and that is what I wanted to accomplish."