Dokken frontman Don Dokken was recently interviewed by Mitch Lafon from Rock Talk with Mitch Lafon and he spoke about his 1990 released solo album ‘Up From The Ashes’ and what he might have done differently.
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As transcribed by Blabbermouth with slight edits, Dokken stated: “I felt pressured. Here I’d come out of this world-famous band, and now the band’s broken up. There were some legalities — I couldn’t use my last name. It was a legal issue. ‘Up From The Ashes’ should have been released as Dokken, but I couldn’t, so I had to call it Don Dokken. It wasn’t a solo album; it was just another incarnation of Dokken.
“It was a great album, but it’s timing. That album came out right when the whole grunge thing was hitting, and the musical styles were changing. I had done what I thought was a classic, straight-up rock and roll record, and I think we got a little stigmatized — ‘Oh, Dokken, ’80s guys, they’re a hair band.’ I hate that term, ‘hair band.’ So we kind of just couldn’t survive the change in taste.
“It did good — sold almost half a million copies — but it didn’t sell multi-platinum like the previous Dokken records, and the reason we didn’t continue was because I got despondent. I just felt like, ‘The hell with it.’ I put a lot of blood and sweat and tears into that record, and I just figured, ‘What’s the point?’ So I took a break. We all kind of went our separate ways.”
