Metal Shock Finland (World Assault )

Jimmy Kay and Giles Lavery from The Metal Voice recently interviewed Don Dokken about Dokken’s upcoming new album ‘Heaven Comes Down’ set for release on October 27, 2023 (Silver Lining Music).

When asked about the new album ‘Heaven comes down’‘Every song is killer on this record. They’re all (songs) are different, ‘I Remember’ or ‘Gypsy’ or ‘Like a rose’. Dokken always used to end our records with a big fast double bass burner. But I ended this record with one guitar and me singing about my journey from L.A. to New Mexico you know (the song) Santa Fe. A great song, very simple, this guitar is just a vocal. I wrote this record in my comfortable range and it still has the Dokken harmonies and you’ll notice on the record there’s no real songs about love and love loss and love found, which used to be me kind of go to. These (new) songs are like stories, like ‘Gypsy’, ‘Fugitive’. ‘I remember’ is probably the only one that’s kind of uh, reminiscent of I was thinking about my past and my life and I wrote the song I remember but they’re all (songs) Still rocking.”

When asked about making music videos for his new album “We did the video for ‘Heaven comes down’ and my record company, no offense to them but they gave me like a tiny little budget and I said I want to make a great video. It’s my last record. My hands paralyzed. I can’t play guitar anymore. I shipped my piano to my daughter, it’s over and I said but it’s gonna be a great video that people are interested in. And the money they gave me (not much), I said so you want me to film this video on iPhones okay? (Laughs). I’m not doing that. Back in the 80s we were using film and get it developed and we had to edit it and you know no special effects. Now you have AI you can look at the new Queensrÿche video. It’s all AI, it’s crazy animation, it’s amazing but I said nope uh-uh I’m gonna do something different. It’d be very simple for us to just rent a stage. Go on stage lip sync make a video with three cameras done nope not gonna do it. So we filmed ‘Fugitive’ (song) and it’s a very cool and interesting video, it’s got over a half a million hits and it’s only been out for six weeks. And now our new video came out ‘Gypsy’ and I said okay we did that and we only got we only got away with that video because I had people that are famous directors editors directors of Photography there were fans of Dokken and they said Don we’ll fly to Santa Fe and we’ll do it for free we just want to we just want to make a great video.Tom Strickfaden (director) dragged all his 5K cameras he does football now these are movie cameras that’s why it looks so amazing. I was talking to John Levin (guitarist) . He was very good friends with Tommy who manages Extreme (band) and he says you know Extreme plans on doing a video for every song on their record so they can keep the album alive for a year. And I said we should do that. Let’s make 10 videos, be It Animation, AI, film, GoPros whatever so we plan on doing that. I’m already working on the next song, ‘Is it me or is it you’ we’re working on that video right now.”

When asked Don to further elaborate if this was Dokken’s last album

“Yes (it is), I feel guilty because I said that after Broken Bones (album) but yeah it’s that’s it, we’re done. We’ve made our statement in Rock and Roll history uh you know we’ll continue to tour. I mean my problem now is when we tour we’d had so many hits and they only want you to play 90 minutes. What songs do we kick out of the set and add . I came to a very Revelation two years ago when I got paralyzed that I spent my whole life, my whole career to keep the fans happy, to be on the road for a year and a half no life. I had a son and a daughter and I didn’t watch him grow up. I’d come home and they’d sprouted a foot and I said you know I don’t have any obligation to the fans to keep going on. I do it because we love to play but I would like to play songs that are near and dear to my heart so that’s what we’re gonna do right now. Maybe I’m speaking too soon, I was at the airport with John (levein) we landed in Dallas. I said John , you want to do another record? And he says I don’t know if I have it in me and I said well let’s just work on ‘Heaven comes down’, we’ll talk in a year about it and John goes I have eight songs I’ve written and I still have four or five songs that are finished. Never Say Never.”

Track Listing:
1 –  Fugitive 
2 –  Gypsy
3 –  Is It Me Or You?
4 –  Just Like A Rose
5 –  I’ll Never Give Up
6 –  Saving Grace
7 –  Over The Mountain
8 –  I Remember 
9 –  Lost In You
10 –  Santa Fe

DON DOKKEN – Vocals
JON LEVIN – Guitar
CHRIS McCARVILL – Bass
BJ ZAMPA – Drums