GEORGE LYNCH Confirms STRYPER's MICHAEL SWEET Will Front T&N On Upcoming Tour

John Parks of Legendary Rock Interviews recently conducted an interview with guitarist George Lynch (DOKKEN, T&N, LYNCH MOB, SOULS OF WE). An excerpt from the chat follows below.

Legendary Rock Interviews: George, we are set to talk about your new project TOOTH AND NAIL, or T&N, as it's officially known. Your former lead singer has been making the rounds in interviews saying the project is already dead in the water so I really wanted to start by having you address that.

George: Which former lead singer?? [laughs] There have been a few…

Legendary Rock Interviews: True… It was Don Dokken.

George: Oh, Don said that. Well, that's sort of self-evident where that's coming from; he's the spinmaster. No, there is no truth to that whatsoever. T&N is very active. We obviously have this record which is finished and released and we are promoting but Jeff [Pilson, bass/vocals], Mick [Brown, drums] and I are also already working on the second T&N record. We're pretty far into the second album. We've recorded all the DOKKEN stuff. It will be the same balance of new material and re-worked DOKKEN stuff as the first record. We've got all the DOKKEN stuff done and have a few new originals written for the second album. We're going to release the second album next year and release it in the summer and go out and tour heavily to support both releases.

Legendary Rock Interviews: Were you surprised to hear that Don was going to stop making DOKKEN albums?

George: I hadn't heard that until just recently, but I don't know… It's hard for me to say why people do what they do or say what they say or how they think, just like I'm sure it's hard sometimes for people to understand what I say or do or think. That's why it's kind of my job to just shut up and play guitar. [laughs] That's all that really matters and everything else is just superfluous and meant to distract or call attention to oneself or even be a cry for help.

Legendary Rock Interviews: Is it true that Michael Sweet of STRYPER will be the touring singer for T&N when you tour?

George: Yeah, that was the decision we all collectively came up with. We thought he was really the right choice. LYNCH MOB has done quite a few dates with STRYPER and we know Michael as a man and he's just such a wonderful guy, which is important at this stage in the game. I've learned that lesson the hard way over the years and now it's to the point where you just wanna work with people who want to work with you and are dedicated, honest, transparent and have a good work ethic. Michael is obviously talented, we all knew that, but he is also just a good person who has all of those qualities and architecture and is a solid guy, but more importantly, his voice is really suited to what we are trying to accomplish live, which is to recreate the DOKKEN stuff faithfully. Jeff's voice is not necessarily ideal for all of that, because he has a bit of a raspier, harder edge, which is better suited to the original music that T&N has done, Jeff will do some of the DOKKEN stuff, but then Michael will come in and do some of the material that he's better at. The other advantage we have with Michael Sweet, other than him being just a great human being, is that he's a really good guitar player and really suited to playing the rhythm parts we have, which is something we really need collectively in this band and for this material. There's a lot of guitars on this record and we wanna reproduce the record faithfully. Plus, he's not a bad-lookin guy either!

Legendary Rock Interviews: I was really hoping it was true because I am a huge fan but kind of got the feeling that Michael didn't want me to formally announce it. His mother put it out there on Facebook. [laughs] Is it formally announced? Is it alright for fans to officially plan on this?

George: I guess we just announced it. [laughs] It's something that we held back on only because of the fact that the tour isn't going to happen for a few months. Like I said, we are going to finish this second album and then tour behind the both of them. We just have so many other touring commitments, and Michael has STRYPER, so the timing has to be just right, but we are looking to have that in place for summer of 2013.

Legendary Rock Interviews: There are also a great many people who are under the impression that your band LYNCH MOB is also over and broken up, which is partially because of Robbie Crane talking about his leaving the band. The last EP was probably the best thing you've ever done. Is there any future for LYNCH MOB?

George: We have half a record, which is just on the shelf. It's something we've been working on for quite a long time and it's beautiful, and I would really hate to see the record not be heard, but at this point it's only half done and I don't know exactly when we will be getting back together to finish it, if at all, but I am hopefully optimistic. [laughs] We all have a lot of other things going on though and I understand that, Robbie's got some other project, Oni [Logan, vocals] is doing DIO DISCIPLES, and I have two or three very heavy projects going on, with the T&N thing, the movie and associated band, SHADOW TRAIN, which is working on the soundtrack to the movie, and then the album I am making with Doug Pinnick of KING'S X and Ray Luzier of KORN.

Legendary Rock Interviews: I had heard about that, You, Doug and Ray, that is pretty amazing-sounding on paper…

George: Yeah, we are doing a power trio thing and have been writing. We're getting through the initial stages of the album and have completed a few sketched out song ideas, which are pretty exciting to me and are hitting it really hard this winter. We're gonna see where this goes.

Read the entire interview from Legendary Rock Interviews.