DON DOKKEN: New Material Sounds Like 'Tooth And Nail'

Don Dokken has posted the following message to DOKKEN's official web site:

"Hi everybody, it's been a long time since I've posted a note. As you know we've been on tour almost a year and a half, and a lot has happened during that time. Member changes tough tours and law suits to boot! After Friday our tour is done, we've been to Europe and the US twice. Now it's time for a new LP. [Guitarist] John Norum [ex-EUROPE] decided to go back to doing solo LP's. It seems John is not a big fan of touring. It's a tough life and some people are not cut out for it. Which brought Alex DeRosso into the picture, it was great playing with Alex and I'm sure we will work together again. Unfortunately he lives in Italy and us here.

"It was impossible for us to work on a new LP being so far apart. After 9/11 it's very difficult to get a visa for any length of time in America, so now we are working with John Levin, the ex-guitarist from WARLOCK. The Rockfest tour was fun at times but it had a lot of problems, mostly unprofessional promotion and production. The SCORPIONS tour was a breath of fresh air, fun, professional, and we were able to play with great bands like WHITESNAKE and the SCORPS. They treated us very well and we all had a blast.

"There are many rumors that our kind of rock is coming back, time will tell and I think that's up to the fans of our brand of music to make it happen, time will tell. I want to thank all of you that came to our shows. I hope you had a great time. I had a lot of back problems during our tours and just had surgery recently. Hopefully I'll be right as rain soon. I look forward to doing a new CD. We've already written a lot of material and I can say it's heavy, somewhat like 'Tooth and Nail'. I hope you like it. It should be out sometime in January 2004. Our 'Live from the Sun' is being re-released with the CD included in Oct. Also a live DVD of the original line up filmed in Japan in '95 and CD will be out in Sept, so that should hold you over until our next one. Our European tour was a great success. Sold out every night and we hadn't been there in over 14 years, it was a blast. I will be posting photos of the tour soon. As you all probably know [bassist] Barry [Sparks] has been on tour with TED NUGENT, so we had Greg Smith [RAINBOW, ALICE COOPER] fill in until Barry is ready. He's off to Japan for a few months while I finish writing new songs. Hey we all have bills to pay! If everything goes well we'll all be back together for a spring tour.

"The lawsuit with [former DOKKEN bassist] Jeff [Pilson] should be over soon [see previous coverage: story#1, story#2—Ed.], I hope for his sake. In lawsuits only the attorneys win, I'm still not sure what it's all about, August 12th I will find out. After that its write write write I HOPE! If I can trust people to be responsible on the message board I will reopen it soon. If people don't have anything good to say they shouldn't say anything. A lot of groups don't allow a message board for that simple reason, there's always a punk out there to talk shit. You don't have to talk about DOKKEN. It's about rock and roll, your experiences at concerts meeting groups and so on. I hope it works out this time, it's a shame a few people screw it up for everyone else. Well that's it, after the 15th, we're home until January so I should have lots of time to respond to your posts. I know I've been flaky in the past. I'll try to be better in the future. I wish you all the best."