DON DOKKEN Blames The Government For Not Keeping Coronavirus 'More Under Control'

Don Dokken laid out a sobering view of the current state of the world in a new interview with KNAC.COM. He said (hear audio below): "The world is a scary place right now. We've got an election [in the United States] coming up in four months. COVID viruses are spiking. People are dying all over the world. Some places worse — in Brazil, it was over a million cases [of the novel coronavirus]. It's terrible. I put a lot of blame on our government for not keeping it more under control.

"In Japan, they have, like, five or 10 deaths a month, and we're having 10 thousand cases a day," he continued. "It's because people are not wearing masks, people are not going by the rules. You see pictures in Japan — everybody's wearing a mask, everybody. And the COVID there is almost nothing.

"They say if everybody wore a mask, we could get this under control within a couple of months, but for some reason, people — I guess mostly younger people — think they're invincible, and they're not. I talked to Mikkey Dee from SCORPIONS a couple of weeks ago — he caught it. And he said he was sick as a dog a couple of months ago. He beat it. Him and his wife both got it, and he said it's really awful. You don't wanna get it. So I just wish people would pay more attention. This isn't the flu.

"The world's changed — with the riots, the marches, the protests, COVID," Don added. "It's a crazy time. It's given me a lot of things to write about on the new record."

DOKKEN played two "socially distanced" concerts last weekend in Virginia and Arkansas, but will likely stay off the road until a treatment for the novel coronavirus is developed. In the meantime, DOKKEN will continue to write and record material for a new studio album, tentatively due in early 2021. The follow-up to 2012's "Broken Bones" will be released via Silver Lining Music, the label owned by Thomas Jensen, one of the founders of Germany's Wacken Open Air festival.