JEFF PILSON Is 'Thrilled Beyond Belief' With 'Phenomenal' New Album Featuring Three-Fourths Of Classic DOKKEN Lineup

Bassist/producer Jeff Pilson (DOKKEN, FOREIGNER) has confirmed that recording sessions for the new album featuring three-fourths of the classic DOKKEN lineup and vocalist Robert Mason (WARRANT, LYNCH MOB) have been completed. Just don't ask him about the name of the group, which was originally reported to be SUPER STROKE.

"The band does have a new name that I cannot tell you, or I'd have to kill you," Pilson recently told writer Clay Marshall. "We're going to wait to make a big announcement, but we do have a new name that we're very, very happy with, and we even have a name for the record. The record is done and recorded. It has to be mixed, yes, but I am thrilled beyond belief with the music and how it's come out. I'm really proud of this record — the songs and the playing and Robert's singing and everybody else's background singing, and George [Lynch] is playing at his peak. It's just a phenomenal record, and I can't wait 'til it comes out."

Pilson said the album will likely be released in April of 2019 via Frontiers Music Srl.

Earlier this year, Mason told the "Talking Metal" podcast that working with Lynch, Pilson and Mick Brown has "given all of us a renewed sense of what it was like to be creating together and maybe even playing together. Jeff and I get along great," he said. "Jeff produced 'Louder Harder Faster', the new WARRANT record. He and I have always been kind of friendly but didn't really know each other until that project, and we got on so well in the studio and elsewhere that it was a real easy tie-in for those three guys to call me up and say, 'Hey, man, we wanna do this record. We don't know what we're gonna call it, but it'll have the DNA of our bands, and it'll be us, but we want it to sound a little different. What do you think?' I was all over it."

Asked if the new project is musically similar to DOKKEN, Robert said: "I don't think it sounds like DOKKEN with me stapled on to it. I honestly didn't want… And it's no disrespect to anything, because I love what they did, and I was a fan — I still am. That wasn't something that I wanted to do. And thankfully, when Jeff and George started playing me demos and their early ideas, it doesn't sound like that. And Mick Brown [told me the other day], 'I'm so stoked about this. The cool thing is it sounds like us, but it doesn't sound like us.' It's Mick's way of saying that, I think, the DNA is there and you hear the influences and you hear who it is and what it is, maybe. We're just making music and having fun, but we are having fun being creative with each other again. And I pray that that translates into the final product and that people will just embrace that."

Last November, Pilson told Glide Magazine about the group's musical direction: "There's definitely some DOKKEN in there. There is a little bit of the straight-ahead LYNCH MOB-ness in certain aspects but then another aspect we get quite musical. It's not progressive but very musical. Some of the songs are pretty epic in their musicality. George is playing his ass off. I mean, the whole band is playing great, I got to say. And Robert is just an amazing singer and it's so much fun. Robert is in WARRANT right now, and he was the second singer for LYNCH MOB. There's a lot of connections in there."