In a recent interview with Shawn Ratches of Laughingmonkeymusic, Don Dokken spoke about the possibility of a new DOKKEN album to follow up “Heaven Comes Down”, which came out in October 2023. Regarding the positive reactions to the band’s latest effort, he said (as transcribed by BLABBERMOUTH.NET): “Yeah. [There’s been a] good response. I mean, that first video we put out, ‘Fugitive’, got a million views, and I went, ‘Wow, a million.’ These days people click on something for 10 seconds and they move on to the next video. We got a million on ‘Fugitive’ and I think that ‘Saving Grace’ is kicking ass too. And we did two other videos, ‘Gypsy’ and ‘Over The Mountain’, the animated ones. So it seems people [like the album], and record sales are up, and I’m, like, ‘I guess we made a good record.’ It took us two years.”Elaborating on why it took so long to complete “Heaven Comes Down”, Don said: “It had to do with COVID. We had all that downtime to write 20 songs and narrow it down to the 10 best, so we didn’t have to what I call — we didn’t wanna put any ‘B’ songs on the record.”I get disappointed sometimes when I hear some of my peers, and there’s the one song they put out, and then I listen to the whole record and download it or buy it, and I think some of the stuff’s not up to par,” he continued. “That’s just my opinion. It’s, like, ‘Well, that’s a good song. That’s a good song. And that’s not a good song. That’s not a good song.’ So it just sounds like some people, they get their strongest tracks and then just throw the rest of it together ’cause of the timeline. But COVID, yeah, definitely put the kibosh on me and all of us.”On the topic of the likelihood of another DOKKEN studio album, Don said: “We probably won’t make any more records, which is unfortunate, that I can’t make any more records. ‘Heaven Comes Down’ is probably our last record. I wish I could keep making music, but I can’t because of my right hand being paralyzed. So I can’t play guitar anymore… Luckily a lot of the tracks we did on this album started two years ago. We just had a lot of time. And sometimes I’d go in the studio to sing or before play guitar before my arm got paralyzed, and I had good days and bad days. And my producer would come over and I’d say, ‘I don’t know if I can cut this tonight.’ So we’d give it a shot. I’d warm up and looking out over the mountain range and the city lights below my house and say, ‘Not tonight, man. I’m just not feeling it.’ So we’d go to another track and I’d try to analyze it and say, ‘Can I make this bridge better?’ Or is the chorus, do I have something better in me? You Then I’d go to something else and sometimes I’d get something better. And I think that’s what happened with this album. I just said, ‘Let’s just really push the envelope. We’re not in any hurry.’ I’ve done 13 records and I don’t crank ’em out like cotton candy; I just don’t.”Asked if there are any previously unreleased songs that could be grouped together and made available as a new record, Don said: “We have three songs that we wrote for ‘Heaven Comes Down’. And I really liked them. And actually I was playing guitar on those, so that was kind of cool, before I lost my hand. But the record company thought they were too dark — I don’t even what that means, dark — and they held them back. So we’ve got three songs in the vault there. Jon [Levin, DOKKEN guitarist] had a couple songs he held back. So, yeah, there’s stuff, but not much.”After Ratches suggested the possibility of a new DOKKEN EP, Don said: “Funny you said that. I was talking to [former DOKKEN guitarist George] Lynch. He’s been playing some shows with us as special guest, and he comes on stage and plays two or three, four songs at the end of the show. And he said, ‘You sure you don’t wanna do another record?’ And I said, ‘Well, I really can’t. I’m limited.’ And I said, ‘But maybe if you came up with a couple of song ideas that I could write lyrics to. Yeah, I’d take a stab at it.’ But it would probably be an EP.”The follow-up to 2012’s “Broken Bones”, “Heaven Comes Down” was produced by Bill Palmer and Don Dokken and was mixed by Kevin Shirley (AEROSMITH, IRON MAIDEN).In August 2023, DOKKEN released the music video for the album’s first single, “Fugitive”. The clip was directed by Chris Eyre (“Dark Winds”, “Smoke Signals”) and was filmed at the popular immersive arts venture Meow Wolf in Santa Fe, New Mexico.DOKKEN released an album called “The Lost Songs: 1978-1981” in August 2020 via Silver Lining Music. Featuring sleeve art by renowned U.S. artist Tokyo Hiro (MOTÖRHEAD, MOTLEY CRÜE),the effort contains material written and recorded by a hungry young Don Dokken as he embarked upon a journey which started in Southern California and Northern Germany.DOKKEN’s classic lineup of Dokken, Lynch, bassist Jeff Pilson and drummer “Wild” Mick Brown completed a short Japanese tour in October 2016, marking the first time in 21 years the four performed together.A DOKKEN concert DVD focusing on the band’s reunion tour, “Return To The East Live (2016)”, was made available in 2018.At some of the recent DOKKEN shows, Lynch has been rejoining the band on stage to perform three of the classic DOKKEN songs: “Kiss Of Death”, “When Heaven Comes Down” and “Tooth And Nail”.[embedded content]
