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Clean and sober, Dokken is on the road for summer tour

BY KEITH RYAN CARTWRIGHTKeith Ryan Cartwright is a Colorado-based freelance entertainment journalist.

PROVIDED

Dokken will play the Music Farm Wednesday

Two decades removed from the height of success, a retooled Dokken lineup is hoping lightning indeed does strike again.

With a new album, "Lightning Strikes Again," and a new tour, Dokken will spend the summer on the road with Poison and former Skid Row frontman Sebastian Bach. Dokken will also be headlining one-off shows like the one here in Charleston at the Music Farm on Wednesday night. The band has, of late, received favorable reviews for it having a similar soundscape to that of the band's early years.

More importantly, the Dokken's namesake is in as healthy a state of mind as he's been since the late '80s and, for the first time, he wants to tour instead of feeling as though he has to go back on the road.

"I'm looking forward to it and hoping to sing the best I have in a while," said Don Dokken, in a message he posted at www.myspace.com/dokken on July 2. "I recently had surgery on my sinuses.

"I've had problems with my voice for a long time and it was driving me nuts, the smoking didn't help either. It turns out I've had a sinus disease for years and, no, it wasn't from doing blow."

But that doesn't mean Dokken didn't have a drug problem.

He recently completed a rehab stint at the Las Encinas Hospital, made famous as a facility used by Dr. Drew in the VH1 reality series "Celebrity Rehab." More recently, the rehab hospital made headlines when Aerosmith frontman Steven Tyler checked in.

While neither Dokken or Tyler are part of the second season of "Celebrity Rehab," which will feature original Guns N' Roses drummer Steven Adler, Las Encinas is more than reality series: it's become a real life celebrity retreat of sorts.

"Seems it's getting really popular there," Dokken wrote. "Steven has been the poster child for living a clean life for so long, I (was) shocked to hear he was coming my way. It is so true that addiction is a life long struggle."

"Rehab was scary and painful, but worth it.

"I don't recommend trying to get clean on your own if you have a serious drug problem," Dokken continued. "My problem was ... I didn't think I had a problem. I was wrong."

It was 17-year struggle for Dokken.

According to the singer, songwriter and producer his wake-up call came during a co-headlining with Queensryche in which the two bands shared a tour bus and he was, as he put it, "a mess."

Not only had his drinking and drug use affected the tour, but the band — Mick Brown, Jon Levin, Barry Sparks and Dokken — spent three years trying to record "Lightning Strikes Again," because Don was "wasted all the time."

According to Dokken, his low point when he was wandering around the rehab facility "in my bathrobe for a month looking and feeling like a homeless person." It was then that Dokken decided that, along with his drug addiction, he would deal with his drinking problem.

Afterward he not only had a much better vision of what the band meant to him, but also what he wanted the album to sound like.

"Our goal was to create an album that was our best since our heyday," Dokken said. "This music is as good as any we did in the '80s."

Formed in 1978, the seminal line up — founding members George Lynch, Mick Brown and Dokken along with Jeff Pilson (who now plays bass with Foreigner) — released its debut album, "Breaking the Chains," in 1983.

Throughout the rest of the decade the band released a trio of commercially successful albums: "Tooth and Nail" ('84), "Under Lock and Key" ('85) and "Back for the Attack" ('87).

By the end of the '80s the band was headlining arenas in large part because of MTV, but that didn't keep them from disbanding in late 1988 because of creative differences between the temperamental two-some of Dokken and Lynch.

They briefly reunited in 1993. Two years later, the band released "Dysfunctional." Dokken then released four other rarely-referenced albums: "Shadowlife" ('97), "Erase the Slate" ('99), "Long Way Home" ('02) and "Hell to Pay" ('04). The band has gone through a series of guitarist in recent years that includes Alex DeRosso, John Norum, Reb Beach and, most recently, Levin.

So it comes as little surprise that even this year's touring version of Dokken will be without current members Brown, who had long since committed to touring with Ted Nugent prior to Dokken booking a summer tour, and Sparks, who indefinitely returned home to Europe to be with his wife and family.

Instead, the summer lineup will consist of Levin, who is also Dokken's attorney, Chris McCarvill (House of Lords), Jeff Martin (Racer X, Badlands) and, of course, Don Dokken.

"So, here I go with a clear mind, repaired vocal chords and some great new songs to sing from 'Lightning Strikes Again,' " Dokken concluded in his recent post. "Enjoy your summer and if you see me drinking on stage it's just ice tea, honest."