Dokken's gravy train derailed by 'greed'

George Lynch recalls Dokken’s classic line-up splitting in 1989 because of frontman Don Dokken’s greed.

The former Dokken and current Lynch Mob and KXM guitarist says the band was all set for a multi-million dollar deal, but that it collapsed when Don Dokken renegotiated the existing equal-split policy of the group ahead of the 1988 Monsters Of Rock tour.

Lynch tells Guitar Interactive: “The singer, at that point, decided that he wanted it all, he didn’t wanna share it with us, and he let us know that.

“The reason that we were on fire before that — we were so dedicated, we kept persevering — was because we were all working for something. It wasn’t even for the money, it was just to get to that point.

“And success on all levels — musically and financially, so we could be secure, and all these things, for all the right reasons. And we took care of each other, and we were an equal-split band.

“And by Monsters Of Rock, when Don announced that he was gonna try to grab the negotiation brass ring and keep it to himself, that backfired on all of us.

“I think, that year Motley Crue got a $25million deal, Anthrax got a $12.5-m deal, we would have been fine. Basically, we had a lot of leverage. We were gonna be a free agent, so it was really a shame. It just didn’t go right for anybody. So I went on to form Lynch Mob, which did pretty well.”

Lynch recently confirmed he will release an album with singer Michael Sweet under the banner Sweet & Lynch. Only To Rise is out on January 27 via Frontiers Music.

Stef wrote close to 5,000 stories during his time as assistant online news editor and later as online news editor between 2014-2016. An accomplished reporter and journalist, Stef has written extensively for a number of UK newspapers and also played bass with UK rock favourites Logan. His favourite bands are Pixies and Clap Your Hands Say Yeah. Stef left the world of rock'n'roll news behind when he moved to his beloved Canada in 2016, but he started on his next 5000 stories in 2022.