In a new episode of The Hook Rocks! podcast, George Lynch responded to Don Dokken's recent claim that he wrote most of Dokken's hits without much input from the other band members.
Says Lynch: "Don is very good at one thing, and that's self promotion. Lying and using other people's abilities to further his agenda and then take credit for it. That's it. And he has a gift for it. And I will say in all deference and honesty that because he has that gift, I've been I've been able to do things that I wouldn't have been able to do.
"I have a music career because he's the kind of person that's willing to do things I would never be willing to do. Lie, cheat and steal. Not saying that I haven't probably cheated a little bit here and there, but Don does it on a whole other level, and he can sleep at night.
"Because he's just, as we said, at the beginning of this interview, he's just wired that way, you know, he can fuck you over and lie and know he's lying and you know, that he knows, you know he's lying and he doesn't care. And he'll just keep lying all the way to the bank and be able to sleep at night.
"And that's, I don't understand that, but it has benefited me, it's also hurt me in some ways, but it was the reason that we got a record deal initially. And it's the reason that we got our foot in the door and a lot of different ways along our path of rock success in the eighties.
"And which got us to where we are now. So you know, I've been able to support my family and make a pretty consistent living, being a musician. And that's a very, very rare thing. And when I was growing up as a kid, my parents worried about that incessantly. I said, you know, nobody is really going to be a rock star that doesn't happen in the real world, you know?
"And it happened, you know, on a certain level anyway, so. And I'm very proud of that, and I'm very proud of the consistency of it more than just, you know, maybe I never had a huge hit song, maybe I don't have a billion dollars, but I've been able to support my family and consistently work and do healthy, honest work and make some people happy over the whole span of my working life.
"And, um, I think that's a gift and a beautiful thing. And I, and grudgingly, I have to give Don a little bit of credit there. None of this would have happened."
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