During an appearance on Rock Talk With Mitch Lafon, Dokken guitarist George Lynch looked back on the band’s history, while also discussing his musical upbringing and guitar heroes.

When you talk about being in a band or in a brand – people love George Lynch in Lynch Mob and people love George Lynch in Dokken – did you spread yourself too thin?

Is there a point where you damage the brand by doing so many different projects?

“Absolutely. In that sense, it is damaging, and it isn’t smart-business at all.

“It probably is better to be more economical with your output and make people wait for it, work it, go out, tour every record that you do in support of it and that kind of thing.

“That’s the way to do it but, you know, having said that, I did that for most of my adult life. I did all the annual album cycles with my one band and almost did all the support, took a little break, did it again, again, again, over and over, and over again for decades.

“And at the point now in my life, where I’ve kind of gotten off that wheel, I’m just not going to be a slave to that anymore because it’s too confining and I really want to enjoy what I’m doing.

“And I enjoy playing with other people and being challenged because it helps me grow, not just as a guitar player, but as a writer, as a composer, and as a person.

“It’s enjoyable, it’s fun to mix it up and do different things and keep my brain hopefully operating at a little bit higher level so I can produce better songs and better music.”

Being in a huge, established band, do you think that, had the personalities worked out, that you could’ve worked Dokken into that kind of a band that could tour and do reunion shows and be part of stadium shows with Motley Crue?

“I’m not saying this in an accusatorial way or anything, or even in a negative way, it just is what it is, a decades-old story now.

“But we’ve all gone on and been fine in our careers and so forth, but Don [Dokken, vocals] took a gamble and gambled that he could disband the group and take off on his own and, you know, keep that momentum going that we had built over roughly 10 years.