DON DOKKEN Performs Acoustic Set At Whisky A Go Go (Video)

Video footage of DOKKEN frontman Don Dokken's December 14 acoustic performance at the Whisky A Go Go in West Hollywood, California can be seen below.

In a recent interview with Legendary Rock Interviews, Don stated about his decision to go out and play acoustic shows: "[Having fun is] the whole reason I do it. We do it every year; I go out and play a few acoustic shows just for fun. I'm taking out Mark Boals (ex-YNGWIE MALMSTEEN vocalist) and he's doing harmony vocals and we're both playing guitar. I did 40 shows with QUEENSRŸCHE a couple years back the same way just myself and an acoustic guitar. We're going to be playing the DOKKEN stuff but also a lot of other stuff like BEATLES songs, THREE DOG NIGHT, stuff like that. It's interesting because a lot of songs, without the pomp and volume don't really work or stand up, but these DOKKEN songs are really stripped down to the way they were originally written with acoustic guitar and vocals."

Asked how he thinks his voice has held up over the years, Don told the Phoenix New Times: "For three years, my voice was crap; it was terrible. I lost my voice in Germany four years ago and tore my vocal cords [after] we did 27 shows in 32 days. I had to have surgery and learn how to re-sing. I quit smoking, no Jack Daniels, and I don't talk a lot. I was snoring and I had sleep apnea and my voice was trashed. I talked to Tom Keifer from CINDERELLA who couldn't sing for three years. When I was on tour with him, he sounded as good as ever and I asked him what he did. He told me he went to a vocal coach and had to learn to re-sing and not push as hard. It's like anything: if you put 100,000 miles on a car it's not going to run as good as it did. That's the bad thing about vocal cords, 'ya can't change them and as a vocalist you're screwed. There are a million singers that can't sing like they could when they were 28."

On the topic of whether there is a chance that the classic DOKKEN lineup will ever reunite for for an album or tour, Don said: "I'd love to play with Jeff [Pilson, bass] and Mick [Brown, drums], and I'd do it with George [Lynch, guitar] too. I'd love to put an exclamation point on DOKKEN and make another record. I think that George is at such a place in his life that he can't be a team player to make a good record. I don't want to make a record for the money, because it will be a bad record. If you just crank out a bunch of songs for the money, the fans are just going to be disappointed, so what's the point? What people don't realize is that in our heyday, George and I never wrote a song together — ever; there isn't one song. It was always Jeff, Mick, and George writing songs and I wrote my songs by myself. George and I just couldn't be in a room together and write. Whenever we'd try to write together we were on two opposite side of the planet as to where the song was going. The bummer about making those records is that it was always a fight and a struggle. If a band gets along, they have a long career."