Chords for Don Dokken on Breakup of the Classic Lineup, "I was on the verge of a nervous breakdown" - Interview

_ _ _ _ [A] _ These excerpts were taken from two different Pool & Bloom interviews with Don Dokken.
Links to [Am] both interviews can be found in the description.
_ I remember George said he refused to play In My Dreams.
He just refused.
And so he said, OK, I'll play it.
And he would play it, but he would play it bad.
[N] And the song didn't sound good.
And I said, you got to come on, man, put some fire in it, put some lynch into it.
But he hated the song, so he just wouldn't play it well.
So finally I said, if you don't play it, I'm going to play it, because I wrote it.
And when I said that, then he went in and did a good job.
But I had literally threatened him that I was going to play the guitar on it, and then he
didn't want that.
So he finally went in and did a [Eb] decent performance.
_ _ _ I mean_
Like little trills in the sandbox, you [G] know?
All right.
Fighting over a fire trill.
I always thought, even as a kid, when you guys broke up, I remember thinking at that
time, whatever you guys released after Back 4 the Attack, that one was going to be the
one that did multi-platinum, you know?
I felt like you guys were one album away from blowing it up.
And we were.
We did Monsters of Rock Tour.
[Eb] Then Back 4 the Attack almost went double platinum.
And we barely survived the Monsters of Rock Tour.
There was a lot of inbiting, a lot of drugs, a lot of drinking.
[N] And I was on the verge of a nervous breakdown.
I mean, I really just couldn't take it anymore.
Who leaves their own band?
The very last show was Colorado.
And I said, that's it.
I can't take it anymore.
And I kept telling George, you know, if you don't stop with the constant harassing of
everybody, not just me, the road crew, the sound man, the bus drivers, like, I don't
know what's going on with George's life.
So the last show, we did it.
And we had a big meeting afterwards with our manager, Cliff Bernstein, and the president
of the record company, Bob Crasnow.
[Eb] And we had this big meeting about what to do.
And Cliff said, look, you guys are [Gb] one album away, one hit away, of being in a headlining
arena act next year.
A world tour headlining.
We were so close.
And I just said, I can't do another record with George.
You know, I can't do it.
And I told Jeff and Mick, we can go on as Dock and, but I keep, we got to get another
guitar player because I can't take it anymore.
And they said they didn't want to.
Mick wanted to go play with George.
As they grew up together, Jeff decided to go off and do a solo thing and be a lead singer.
And he did two albums, War and Peace and Flesh and Blood.
And they didn't do anything.
And I just told him at that meeting, I can't do it.
And that's why we decided to go to Japan was our last leg.
And that's, and so the record company said, well, I guess we'll do a live album.
And that's why we did the live album.
Here's another clip where Don and I talk more about the breakup of Dock and it's taken from
our second interview.
Links to both interviews can be found in the description.
Speaking of the Monsters of Rock tour, George came out.
I don't know if you saw that last month and he had talked about that.
It was a time where the label, you were going to renegotiate the contract and it was a big
payday coming up and you wanted to get rid of the entire [E] band and to take all the money for yourself.
But when I read that, I just thought that wasn't what [D] you told me.
You told me basically you told the other guys, let's just get rid of George and get somebody else.
Yeah.
I just said, I can't work with George anymore.
I had nothing to do with Jeff and Mick.
They, you know, Mick grew up with George, you know, through school.
So he went with George and Jeff wanted to strike out on his own, form his own band and
become a lead singer.
And so the band just dissolved.
But this whole thing about taking everything on my own, that was stupid because we got
a record deal on Monsters of Rock.
The President of the Record Company came out and gave us like a million dollars for a live album.
So we got the advance, split it four ways.
There was a lot of smack talking from George for many years about, I was greedy and I always
wanted the money.
And I said, look, the deal is four ways.
You know, so there's nothing greedy about it.
I get a dollar, you get a dollar, Jeff gets a dollar, Mick gets a dollar.
And that's the way it always was.
And it still is now.
Royalties, publishing, everything's four ways forever and ever and ever in perpetuity.
[Eb] So I don't know why he thought, you know, I want to take the money and all that.
It's what money I can't.
It's a four way split.
So we did the East and the East instead of a studio album because I said, there's no
way I can go in the studio with George and make another record.
I won't survive it.
I won't.
I'll have a nervous breakdown.
So I left.
How often does a person who forms a band leave their own band?
But I thought you bought them out at some point.
Years later, _ I lost my name.
They sued me and they took my name Dawkin away.
And I said to the judge, why don't you sue my father and my grandfather and my great grandfather?
It's my name.
I'm entitled to it.
And the judge didn't see it that way.
And so I had to call the DeKeppen album Don Dawkin.
And that really hurt that record because people saw it as a solo album and it really wasn't.
And I had this amazing all star band I put together.
Peter Balthus, John Norm, Billy White, Mickey D.
Of course.
We were a smoking band and a great record.
But, you know, people buy Bon Jovi, not John Bon Jovi.
People bought Van Halen, not Eddie Van Halen or David Ross Van Halen.
When you put your name, your surname in the front, people just perceive those records
as solo records.
And I knew I lost my name.
I was in deep shit.
So, you know, years go by.
I do the Don Dawkin thing.
I strike out on my own.
Took a few years off.
And then all of a sudden Jeff wanted to come back.
Mick wanted to come back.
And then we did Dysfunctional, signed to Columbia. _
[Am] And at the 11th hour, the album was completely done.
And George wanted to come back for obvious reasons.
So he came back and he did a few solos and some rhythms.
And that's the end of that.
But basically that album was written by Jeff and me.
And what about Up From The Ashes?
Did that one sell?
_ It did alright.
It just stalled right before Gold.
If it got up and said, it's too bad it wasn't called Dawkin, you probably would have done
two million because I was [A] riding high.
But that didn't happen.
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