GUITARIST GEORGE LYNCH ON A DOKKEN REUNION: “I WOULD LIKE TO SEE IT HAPPEN…BUT, I’M NOT HOLDING MY BREATH”
Rock Revolt spoke with guitarist George Lynch about his current project KXM, with with dUg Pinnick (Kings X) and Ray Luzier (Korn) and his former band, Dokken. Excerpts from the interview appear below.
Rock Revolt: Is there any chance KXM, [Lynch’s project ], will be doing any touring to support the album?
George Lynch: Yeah. We are touring, I think it s going to be in July and August (part of those two months.) The idea behind what we want to do is sort of do like an unannounced tour of specific dates all around the world which we then film and record, and put those out at a later date for people who were not able to go see the band live, to experience the band live in that context, because we are limited in the amount of time we can tour, at least for now. I like the idea of the secret, magical mystery tour I heard about Paul McCartney doing in the Wings days, when he would just show up in a van, show up at a college or a school or something and say , “Hey! I m Paul McCartney we just want to set up and play!” I think that’s beautiful. It’s not the way we’ll do it exactly, but something kind of mysterious. We create this mystique around the band where you kind of have to search and reach out and discover things about us, without having us shoved down your throat.
Rock Revolt: Is there any likelihood that there would ever be a Dokken reunion?
George Lynch: Well, it’s always a possibility. What it really comes down to is Don being agreeable to doing equal splits financially. That’s been a stumbling block all along. Despite all the other obstacles that we have for a reunion happening, that is actually the 800-pound gorilla problem. He feels he’s entitled to special financial treatment if we do that, which is ludicrous and was never the way the band was built. The band was always built as a shared band, and I think that’s one of the reasons it survived as long as it did and why it worked. The only person who ended up not liking that arrangement was Don and it is really heavily why the band broke up. We were up for re-negotiating our contract with Elektra in the late 80′s, which is a wonderful position to be in (that’s when you get paid and you’d kind of be set for life). But we all worked many, many years to get to that point, and Don decided, ”Well, you know what? I gotta take a chance here, and I want it all.” He wanted us to be hired guns, and he would get the multi-million dollar re-negotiated deal. That’s what it was all about. And that’s still what it’s about. So, unless he can come around and say, “Hey guys! We’re all important. We all worked equally hard. There’s enough money to go around – don’t need to be greedy here, just split it up equal, put that aside, put it in the file cabinet. Let s go to work and make a good record.” I have aspirations, but I don’t have any sense that it’s really going to ever happen. I wouldn’t be opposed; I would like to see it happen. But honestly, just to have some nice closure, make a nice bookend to our career, and make the fans happy and make a little bit-a-dough, it would be nice to see it work in a healthy way after all we ve been through, but I’m not holding my breath.
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source: rockrevoltmagazine.com
 and Ray Luzier (Korn) and his former band, Dokken. Excerpts from the interview appear ... )
Seemed very honest in his answer. Ball in your court Don.
It should never be about the money its about the music..play have fun and enjoy that people like what you do.
If its never about the $$$ then bands would play for free…do you work for free? If you worked hard to put yourself in a great financial position only to have a co-worker screw it up for you, I venture to say you would think differently….
Do you work for free Randy?
I have to agree with these guys Randy, as much as I can appreciate your sentiment if there’s not enough money they really can’t do it. Let me put it in context – we’re not talking about guys who had Van Halen or Bon Jovi levels of success – they never got big enough to do a major US headlining tour and the time at the height of their popularity was relatively short. Even if they managed whatever money they did make wisely, I doubt they made enough to last the rest of their lives. These guys have had to keep working to make a living, they’re lucky enough they’ve been able to do it by continuing to play music. It’s one thing when you’re 18 or 20 years old and chasing your dream to put up with crossing the country in a van with a bunch of other guys, but when you’re in your 40’s or 50’s with a family and a mortgage you have to make sure the bottom line is covered first. People don’t buy music the way they used to, so touring is the only way bands really make anything anymore unless you’re a superstart act backed by corporate America. Consider the lodging, food, transportation, equipment, and other costs associated with bringing a rock band all over the country (or the world), and don’t forget you need to pay the guys on the crew, you might not end up with as much money at the end of the tour as you’d think.
At this stage in Don’s career (vocally), he should be jumping at the chance to do a reunion tour. I find it hard to believe he wouldn’t make more money with the original Dokken on a reunion tour (even splitting the $ equally) than the current version of Dokken (where Don likely makes most of the money.) Don’s about seven seconds away from retirement anyway, so why not have that nice bookend that George referred to?
Well said Ken, and I totally agree with you. I hope Don wakes up to this reality while there’s still fans who care, before it’s too late.
Even in his prime, I always thought of Don Dokken as the weak link in the band. His voice was alway a little thin – not very metal at all.
Dokken was never dokken w/o it’s original members in the band.george lynch is a HUGE piece of dokken
I agree, the music should be about having fun and enjoying playing together. Money is always the root to the end of most bands. We’ll just have to wait and see. The KXM album is awesome by the way!!!!