GEORGE LYNCH On DON DOKKEN: 'He Has The Same Exact Personality Traits And Character As DONALD TRUMP, Except TRUMP's A Better Singer'

During an appearance on the latest episode of The SDR Show, legendary DOKKEN guitarist George Lynch was asked how he first met Don Dokken. He responded (as transcribed by BLABBERMOUTH.NET): "[My pre-DOKKEN band was] already bouncing around L.A. We were playing all the clubs, along with everybody else, all the bands in the area at the time, including VAN HALEN. But there was many other good bands too. And A LA CARTE was one of my favorites, and STORMER — there was a lot of bands. It was a very interesting scene at the time. So anyways, Don's band — I forget what they were called; it wasn't DOKKEN; it was something else — they'd play, and we played a few gigs with them.

"I remember we played a gig at the Starwood and we rolled up — I'll never forget this, like it happened yesterday — and we rolled up in our Pinto station wagon and were loading our gear. And we listened, and Don's band — AIRBORN, they were called — they were up there on the stage and they were playing what sounded exactly like one of our songs that we had played the last couple times we played with him. It was called 'Night Boys'. And he was playing the exact same thing and he was saying it was his song, so he plagiarized it. And we were, like, 'What the [fuck]?' So, shoot forward many decades after working with this guy and talking to lots of other people, he did this regularly all the time with lots of bands he ran into. He would just steal the songs. And I remember that night when he played, he also played a very deep track, a JUDAS PRIEST song, and announced to the audience it was his song, it was an original. So the balls on this guy is just crazy. I just [think], like, how does this guy lie like this and just get away with it? But he does. I mean, we have a president does the same exact thing. In fact, I say all the time, Don — and look, I live not far from Don, and he — whatever — says shit about me and I say shit about him. But it's a funny thing, as I always say that he has the same exact personality traits and character as [U.S. president Donald] Trump, except Trump's a better singer… Now I've said that a bunch of times in interviews, but you guys sound like you haven't heard that before. That's pretty cool. That's funny, right?!"

Asked what he thinks it is about his relationship with Don that people find so fascinating more than 40 years later, George said: "It's a classic dynamic of just human nature that everybody runs into in every relationship, or lots of relationships throughout the spectrum — politically, at work, neighbors, friends, family, everything. And it really comes down to our character and what it is that's important. I grew up a certain way. I believe a certain thing. He has a different belief system and a different way of conducting himself. The way he conducts himself has benefited me, my family, and has given me a career, but it's also something I abhor. So I'm conflicted. I will give him the credit for the benefits that we've received from it, but at the same time I could not behave in that way. I could not steal and cheat and lie. I mean, I have, but I try not to, and I'm not proud of it. So it's a weird thing. It's a weird push-pull dynamic."

George also commented on Don's recent suggestion for the classic DOKKEN lineup to reunite to write and record a new EP. Asked if there is any update on that from his end, Lynch said: "No… Well, I still do shows somewhat frequently with DOKKEN, and what that means is either LYNCH MOB will be the opening act and then I hang around and come out and do an encore, extended encore, with them, or I'll fly out, if it makes sense, and I'll just do a walk-on for three songs, three or four songs, at the end of the night, which is fun and I love doing it. And it works for everybody. It's a cool thing, and it keeps the relationship open. And Don lives about two hours away from me. So we're in the same state and we stay in touch.

"He hasn't mentioned any of this stuff about an EP or anything like that," George clarified. "But Don, if you're listening, really there's no point in doing an EP unless you're gonna tour on it. Touring is where the work is and the money is, and that would make it worthwhile. You could tour on the EP, but you have to have a commitment to tour to justify doing the EP. So that's all I would have to say about that, just on the surface, hearing it secondhand from you."

George previously spoke about Don's alleged dishonesty regarding the singer's contributions to the songwriting of DOKKEN's classic early material last November during an interview with Tone-Talk. George said at the time: "Well, I think people that are disingenuine [sic] and lie as part of their character, it's just part of who they are, the fabric of their makeup. I think that it serves multiple purposes. I mean, it's bad in a way, of course, because it breaks the rules that we all sort of agree to, to kind of make sure that we understand what reality is and so we can make good decisions and get along. So it's cheating in a way, but it's also — well, I've been the benefactor of his cheating due to his lying in a big way. We wouldn't be sitting here doing this interview if it wasn't for Don's lies. I mean, when he met us and we first got together, we would do shows and we were both, both in bands in Southern California. He was in a band called AIRBORN and we were THE BOYZ, which then became XCITER, and we were all playing around town with — VAN HALEN was around and A LA CARTE and lots of other bands. It was a really cool scene. And so he started approaching Mick [Brown, later DOKKEN drummer] and then came to us eventually at one point with an offer to join his band and go to Europe and make a record and everything. And so, yeah, he lied about everything, but ultimately he's such a great bullshit artist that he made it happen. [That's the] bottom line. I would've never been able to make [it happen], 'cause I'm not capable… I'm not saying it's good or bad or I'm a good person, I'm just saying I am not capable of doing that. And that's maybe not a good thing as far as propelling your career. But he's willing to go to places that I wasn't willing to go and most people aren't. And I think that's the main reason why he's successful. So it's kind of a back-handed compliment."

George also addressed Don's comment from a couple of years ago that splitting the money equally between the four DOKKEN members was a "stupid thing to do", with Mick having made "millions of dollars" even though "all [he] had to do was spend a couple of weeks [in the studio] playing drums." Lynch said: "Yeah. You can divvy it up any way you want. Why are we re-litigating stuff from 35, 40 years ago? I don't know. Who cares? I mean, we've all done okay. We're all fine. We're still alive, we're still breathing, we're still making music. I'm good with everything, the way everything worked out. Was it fair? No. Life's not fair. But so what?! But Mick, no, he didn't have a lot of direct contribution to the songwriting. He did on 'Tooth And Nail' — he had some concrete contributions with the lyrics of 'Tooth And Nail'. Some of that was him, and probably some other songs.

"But here's the way I always looked at it," George continued. "I was the proponent of the quarter splits for the band because I feel that that was really healthy because it kept the less capable writers out of the mix from forcing their bad ideas on us. You know what I mean? So, if you have a weak-link writer and they're going, 'The only way I'm gonna get paid is if we use my songs,' and your songs suck. So, it's the best thing for the record, I think, is to just pay everybody equally. Like, 'Mick, just go play pool, ride your motorcycle and pop in once in a while, check in. And we got it. And it'll be a great record, and we'll have fun. Every time we make a dollar, everybody makes a quarter, and we'll all make money.' Don was the complete other way of thinking. He wanted it to be all about him, but he wasn't willing to put out the work and his work wasn't the best work, so that wasn't fair. So neither one is fair, but I'm more of a band guy and Don is less of a band guy; he's more of a kind of 'him' guy."

Back in December 2023, Don explained why he and his DOKKEN bandmates decided in the beginning to split their songwriting royalties equally between the four members of the group, telling the On The Road To Rock With Clint Switzer podcast: "DOKKEN was a very unusual band. When I formed the band, even though I'd been DOKKEN for years and years before I met George and Jeff [Pilson, former DOKKEN bassist] and Mick — I'd already toured Germany twice — but when we finally came together, I said, 'Let's make it simple. You write a hit, you write a hit, you write a hit, we'll just split it four ways. It doesn't matter who writes what. May the best songs win.' And that's how it was. Now, looking back, I could say it was a stupid thing to do, because I wrote a lot of the hits and I gave up 75 percent to the three of them. So instead of me getting four bucks, I got a dollar and Mick got a dollar and George got a dollar and Jeff got a dollar and the management took theirs and the accountants took theirs, and I thought, 'Jesus.' I go, 'I lost millions' writing 'In My Dreams' and 'Just Got Lucky' or 'Alone Again'. I mean, I can name a bazillion songs that I wrote by myself on the guitar and wrote all the music. But that's the deal we made. We were nobody. We weren't famous. Hey, if George wrote a hit, I get money. Jeff writes a hit, I get money. Mick's the one that scored. He didn't write. We rehearsed the songs for a week, go into a rehearsal studio, flesh it all out, pick the 12 best songs, Mick comes in the studio for four or five days, knocks out his drums and he goes to the drug dealer and then he heads off for the Rainbow [Bar & Grill in West Hollywood]. I said, 'Mick, you scored. You made millions of dollars and all you had to do was spend a couple of weeks playing drums.'"

A decade ago, Lynch spoke about the breakup of the classic DOKKEN lineup in 1989, telling Guitar Interactive magazine: "Here's the things that happens in a band… especially in our era, in the '80s, and I don't know, even now probably… But if you have a record deal, or a master deal, for a certain amount of time, and you have increasing record sales, and then you get to the point where the deal ends, your managers come in and renegotiate and you get paid. Then you're set for life — possibly. That's when everything changes. That's what you worked for for those however many years. This is where all your… Everything you've invested in time and energy, you get paid back for. And the singer [Don Dokken], at that point, decided that he wanted it all, he didn't wanna share it with [the rest of] us, and he let us know that. So after this [Monsters Of Rock] tour [in 1988 with VAN HALEN, METALLICA and SCORPIONS], where we were gonna go out and play in front of hundreds of thousands of people and get paid lots of money, [he basically said] 'I'm gonna try to take the whole thing and run with it, and you guys are gonna get left in the dust, and if you're lucky, I might hire you [to play in my band].' And you have to go on stage like that."

He continued: "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 I fought for that. And by Monsters Of Rock, when Don announced that he was gonna, basically, try to grab the negotiation brass ring and keep it to himself, that backfired on all of us. Financially, it backfired on all of us, 'cause we didn't get that massive… At that point, I think, that year MÖTLEY CRÜE got a 25-million-dollar deal, ANTHRAX got a 12.5-million-dollar 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."

DOKKEN's current lineup consists of Don alongside bassist Chris McCarvill, guitarist Jon Levin and drummer BJ Zampa (HOUSE OF LORDS).

DOKKEN's 13th studio album, "Heaven Comes Down", came out in October 2023 via Silver Lining Music. The follow-up to "Broken Bones" was produced by Bill Palmer and Don Dokken and was mixed by Kevin Shirley (AEROSMITH, IRON MAIDEN).

Image credit: Melvin Zoopers