Don Dokken Says METALLICA Kicked DOKKEN’s A*s on ‘Monster Of Rock’ Tour; Talks Fight With George Lynch

In a new interview, Don Dokken talked about the famous 1988’s Monsters of Rock tour with Van Halen, Scorpions, Metallica, and more.

As reported earlier, Dokken disbanded due to fights in the camp which to this day is due to George Lynch & Don Dokken. 

When asked about the lineup, Don said:

“Well, I would say it was the pinnacle of rock ‘n’ roll in ’88-’89. It was the biggest tour ever put together up to that point. We were doing 100,000 people a day – that’s a lot of people! And it was five of the biggest bands in the world.

“So, it was exciting that I’d come from playing clubs on the Reeperbahn, and here I am in stadiums.

“It was pretty scary, and the only thing I didn’t like about that tour was that Metallica went on before us, and they kicked our a*s every day! [Laughs] They did – I can be honest about that.

“Playing after Metallica was a very, very hard thing to do. They were heavier, and even though we’d had more hits and we were on MTV and people saw us as being more famous at the time than Metallica, they kicked our b*tts.”

On the end of Dokken after the tour, Don said:

“No. I think if we had made one more record after the stadium tour, we could have gone out and done a world tour, headlining, because by then we were famous enough to go out and play headlining.

“So, we should have done one more record and at least gone out and done a full world tour, and that would have been a good way to go out. And that was the plan.

“The plan was another record, a tour, headline, do the whole world for a year and a half, but, as you know, there was just too much in-fighting in the band.

“There was too much arguing, too much arguing, and I just didn’t have the stomach for it. I was just so tired of seven years of fighting for every record, and fighting for every song, and arguing about what songs to do.”

That conflict was mainly with George Lynch.

“George and I just could not see eye to eye on which direction we were going. And I admit, I’m more of a melodic guy; I sing very melodic, I’m not a heavy metal guy. George wanted to go more heavy.

“He was listening to bands like Monster Magnet and bands like this, and I like those bands, but I just kept saying to the boys, ‘This is not what Dokken’s about.'”