DOKKEN has announced a series of tour dates for the first nine months of 2024.
The Don Dokken-fronted outfit, which is continuing to support its latest album, “Heaven Comes Down”, will play three shows in the U.S. in early March and early April before flying to Europe in early August for several festival appearances, including Germany’s Wacken Open Air.
Tour dates:
Mar. 01 – Aradia Theatre – St. Charles, IL
Mar. 02 – Medina Entertainment Center – Medina, MN
Apr. 06 – Ground Zero Music Fest – Bandera, TX
Aug. 1-3 – Wacken Open Air – Wacken, Germany
Aug. 1-3 – Skogsrojet – Stockholm, Sweden
Aug. 7-9 – Leyendas Del Rock – Alicante, Spain
Aug. 10 – Alcatraz Metal Fest – Kortrijk, Belgium
Aug. 15-17 – Rock Castle Open Air – Moravsky Krumlov, Czech Republic
Aug. 16-17 – Jailbreak – Faengslet Horsens, Denmark
Sep. 14 – Feather Falls Casino – Oroville, CA
Sep. 27 – Golden Nugget – Las Vegas, NV
In a recent interview with Shawn Ratches of Laughingmonkeymusic, Don spoke about the difficulties he has had preserving his voice as he gets older and the issues he has encountered trying to reproduce DOKKEN‘s classic material in a live setting. He said in part: “I’ve had a lot of complaints. I see fans, when I go, ‘The kiss of…’ [in the song ‘Kiss Of Death’] and I hit this B flat above A, this super soprano note, and I wouldn’t hit it, and you see people go, ‘Well, hey, you didn’t hit the note.’ I’m, like, ‘Dude, I’ve done, like, three thousand concerts. It’s like a motor car. It’s getting worn out.'”
He continued: “When you’re in your twenties, I don’t know if we’re gonna have another record or another hit or anything — I don’t know. So here I am just singing up [in the high register]. I was trying to copy [Rob] Halford [JUDAS PRIEST], or all those bands and Klaus [Meine, SCORPIONS by singing] so high, but you go on the road for a year and a half and do four hundred shows and five albums and then you start — like me, I’m husky today just from talking to everybody. And that’s just the way it is. And you get older. I’m 70, man. And some of these fans go… I’ve had people say, ‘Don needs to give it up. He can’t hit the high notes.’ I’m, like, ‘Let’s see you hit those high notes 24-year-old. Go ahead. Go for it.'”
Don went on to say there would still be the naysayers even if he sang “perfect like [he] did in ’83”. He added: “My daughter used to go on our web site and we used to have an open forum. So anybody could say anything they wanted. And a guy called Acorn, who didn’t even use his real name, and he made a comment when he goes, ‘I went to five DOKKEN shows this summer and Don sucked.’ And I went, ‘Then why’d you come to five shows?’ And my daughter would fire back. And we finally blocked him. And I said, ‘Sweetie, you’ve gotta remember, this guy works at Subway and he makes tuna sandwiches all day, and he has this new thing called the Internet and he can go on and post whatever he wants,’ ’cause I wasn’t censoring, ‘and that’s their way of getting attention.’ Then you get the people to say, ‘Screw you’ and ‘I agree with you.'”
Don said that he plans to “keep going until it’s not fun anymore”, and he had a special message to those DOKKEN fans who are disappointed that he can’t reproduce his vocal performance from four decades ago.
“If I can’t sing the way they remember me, then just don’t come to the show,” he said. “I’ve got no problem with that.”
Back in April 2022, ex-DOKKEN bassist Jeff Pilson addressed Don‘s vocal issues in interview with Tulsa Music Stream. He said: “Well, listen, to be fair, not all vocalists keep their range… You don’t have a lot of Glenn Hugheses and Ronnie Dios out there in the world, whose voices seem to just never get affected. I can’t sing like I could 35 years ago. So you’ve gotta keep that in mind.
“With that, I hope Don takes care of himself and I hope he can keep singing for as long as possible and I hope he has a little bit of a breakthrough,” Jeff continued. “I know he’s had a lot of health issues and he’s had — it’s just a lot of issues — so there’s a reason why he’s probably had some difficulties. But I wish him the best; I really do. I think he’s just got a wonderful voice, and when it’s working, it’s a unique, magical voice. So I hope he has less problems in the future.”
Don previously talked about his vocal issues in a 2020 interview with Antihero Magazine. At the time, he said: “Yes, it’s been a problem. We get older, and our voices are not like they were when I was 27 or 30 or 35 or 40. When you get older, your voice is not as high as it used to be, so you lose your high notes. And I know every singer in this business, there’s only a few singers that I know that when I see them live, I say, holy shit, they sound just as good as they did when they were 30, and now they’re 70. Klaus Meine still sings amazing. He’s got an amazing voice. He still sounds the same. So I guess it’s a God thing. Maybe God just gives people a gift.”
He continued: “You see Glenn Hughes go out and do DEEP PURPLE songs. And Glenn Hughes, he’s [72]. He sings amazing. Ronnie James Dio, to almost the end of his life, when he had cancer, he did a concert at Radio City Music Hall [with HEAVEN & HELL] and he was fighting cancer, and he still sounded amazing, just like he did forever. So I guess some people are blessed and some people are not.
“In my world, I have good days and I have bad days, and I don’t want to put the blame on anybody,” Don added. “But when you’re flying on an airplane for five hours in a pressurized cabin, and then you go to a hotel and the air conditioning’s on, and it’s 100 degrees outside, and then you go in your room and it’s 60 degrees, then you get back on a plane, your voice goes out.”
After DOKKEN‘s previous studio album, 2012’s “Broken Bones”, failed to meet his expectations commercially, Don publicly questioned whether the band should or would make another record. He was also ruthlessly criticized by fans after radiation treatments from a bout with stomach cancer and eventual vocal-cord surgery hurt his performances.
He told the Bradenton Herald that he took a year or so off after “Broken Bones” to regroup and reassess the band’s place in the rock marketplace.
“I was getting so bad I had to say, ‘Guys, I’m just destroying our brand. I suck,'” Dokken said. “I put on 40 pounds. I couldn’t sing. I just didn’t look good; I didn’t feel good. I just had to get the radiation over with and rehab and come back.”
Don underwent neck and spine surgery in November 2019, leaving him unable to play guitar.
DOKKEN released its 13th studio album, “Heaven Comes Down”, on October 27, 2023 via Silver Lining Music. The follow-up to “Broken Bones” was produced by Bill Palmer and Don Dokken and was mixed by Kevin Shirley (AEROSMITH, IRON MAIDEN).