There was never a better time to be a big-haired hard rock band from Los Angeles than in 1987.
Mötley Crüe were riding high with the monster hit Girls Girls Girls, Poison were breaking big, the hottest new band in town was Guns N’ Roses . . . and for one of LA’s more established bands, it seemed as if their time had truly arrived.
Dokken had plenty of muscle behind them; they were signed to Elektra and managed by Q Prime, who also handled Def Leppard.
Dokken’s 1985 album Under Lock And Key had gone platinum, and they believed that the follow-up, Back For The Attack (1987), could be even bigger.
But there was a problem. The band’s singer, Don Dokken, and guitarist George Lynch hated each other.
Back For The Attack was a strong record, filled with anthems and another million-seller, but its success was not enough to hold the group together.
The split came in the wake of the US Monsters Of Rock stadium tour in 1988, on which Dokken played immediately after Metallica and were duly annihilated.
They would reunite in the 1990s, but their glory days ended with Back For The Attack.
