In the latest episode of the ‘On The Road To Rock With Clint Switzer’ podcast, Dokken founder Don Dokken discussed the initial decision made by him and his bandmates to split royalties equally and acknowledged that the ‘stupid’ plan had significant costs for the band.

Describing the competitive songwriting dynamics in the band, Dokken explained:

“Dokken was a very unusual band. When I formed the band, even though I’d been Dokken for years and years before I met George [Lynch] and Jeff [Pilson] and Mick [Brown] — I’d already toured Germany twice — but when we finally came together, I said, ‘Let’s make it simple. You write a hit, you write a hit, you write a hit, we’ll just split it four ways. It doesn’t matter who writes what. May the best songs win.’ And that’s how it was.”

Dokken went on to express the ‘stupidity’ of the situation, which cost them millions of dollars, and outlined the distribution of tasks and duties within the band:

“Now, looking back, I could say it was a stupid thing to do because I wrote a lot of the hits, and I gave up 75 percent to the three of them. So instead of me getting four bucks, I got a dollar and Mick got a dollar and George got a dollar and Jeff got a dollar, and the management took theirs and the accountants took theirs, and I thought, ‘Jesus.’ I go, ‘I lost millions’ writing ‘In My Dreams’ and ‘Just Got Lucky’ or ‘Alone Again.’ I mean, I can name a bazillion songs that I wrote by myself on the guitar and wrote all the music.”

Despite the band’s plan to equally split the money, the rehearsals and recording sessions varied for each member. Dokken emphasized that the band made this decision when they were not famous:

“But that’s the deal we made. We were nobody. We weren’t famous. Hey, if George wrote a hit, I get money. Jeff writes a hit, I get money.”

Dokken reflected on Mick Brown’s success, noting that he scored big with minimal effort:

“Mick’s the one that scored. He didn’t write. We rehearsed the songs for a week, go into a rehearsal studio, flesh it all out, pick the 12 best songs, Mick comes in the studio for four or five days, knocks out his drums, and he goes to the drug dealer, and then he heads off for the Rainbow [Bar & Grill in West Hollywood]. I said, ‘Mick, you scored. You made millions of dollars, and all you had to do was spend a couple of weeks playing drums.’”