DON DOKKEN Says There Are No Plans To Play More Shows With Classic Lineup Of DOKKEN

Don Dokken says there are currently no plans to play any more shows with the classic lineup of DOKKEN.

The singer, guitarist George Lynch, bassist Jeff Pilson and drummer "Wild" Mick Brown launched a short Japanese tour last October in Osaka, before heading to Fukuoka, Tokyo for an appearance at the Loud Park festival and continuing on to Hiroshima, Aichi and finally, back to Tokyo for the final concert.

Speaking to LA Weekly about how the reunion gigs went, Don said: "We played in Japan with George, but that was a one-time thing. Five shows. Never say never, but as far as right now, I'm not planning more shows with Jeff and George. There's no point. They all have their various projects. It just happened to be a moment in time when the stars aligned. Plus Jon [Levin, current DOKKEN guitarist] is an underrated monster."

A new DOKKEN concert DVD focusing on the band's reunion tour is tentatively due before the end of the year. The set will feature footage from two of the Japanese shows — including Tokyo — as well as the band's very first comeback gig, which was held on September 30, 2016 at Badlands Pawn Guns Gold And Rock 'N' Roll in Sioux Falls, South Dakota.

Don previously told Billboard that the main reason he doesn't want to continue with the classic DOKKEN lineup is that "loves" the band he has now — which features Brown, alongside Levin and bassist Chris McCarvil. "We've been together for thirteen years, and I don't want to hurt that franchise," he explained. "Plus if we were to continue with [the classic] lineup, old wounds might be opened, and I don't want to revisit that. I don't think any of us wants to. It's all great when a marriage fails and you say, 'I'm gonna get back with my ex' — for a week, maybe. Six months into it, the wounds come back. I don't want to experience that. It's just not part of my life anymore, and I think the other guys feel the same way."

Pilson told "Trunk Nation" that the Japanese tour was "very, very drama-free; I was kind of surprised — very pleasantly so. It was a great time," he said. "We actually had a lot of fun. We connected on a friendship level that I wasn't really expecting, to be honest with you, and it was great. I mean, it was really, really fun — much more so than I was expecting."

Lynch echoed those comments, saying that DOKKEN's brief 2016 reunion was "went well" but admitted that "it wasn't without its challenges." He told AntiHero Magazine "It was a lot of work. We were kind of just thrown into the maelstrom. We didn't really prepare like we should've. It was kind of put together a little strange. I think we would all agree to that. We were all starting to talk about that recently about how we were just kind of… [we] kind of did it backwards. But despite all that, when we were up there playing, for the most part, it was the same band that we were thirty years ago, same personalities. I mean, you saw us all looking at each other, and we're in a room, a dressing room, we're hanging out whatever at the hotel and it's funny how nothing had changed. We're all just the same distinct, funny personalities. And, both on and off stage, it was great. Ideally, it would be nice to rehearse it a little more if we do it again, get a little tighter, and try to figure it out, but it was cool for what it was."