funny story, how I met Don.
I was delivering pizzas one night in my 1961 Falcon station wagon, and needed to take a piss. So, I stopped at this donut shop on the corner of Aviation Blvd., and the Pacific Coast Highway.
I recognized one of the dudes inside as the singer from Airborn. I was still in Slicker at the time. The guys name was Don Dokken. We chatted each other up for a bit, and Don said that Airborn was looking for a new drummer.
It was tempting, but I had to think about it for a while. I mean, I wanted to leave Slicker because it had gotten stagnant and wasn't really going anywhere. But, here was another band, and true, they were playing bigger gigs. But, Don Dokken was twenty-two or twenty-three at the time. He was so damned old! To my seventeen-year-old mind, he was fucking Methuselah! In my opinion, if you hadn't made it by the time you were twenty, you weren't going to make it.
I went down and jammed with them anyway, and it really clicked. I joined.
We enjoyed some really strong success in the LA area in that band. There were shows at the Starwood, the Troubadour, the Whisky, and all the Strip hotspots. It was the end of 1976 or 1977.
I went to visit family in Pittsburgh in Feb. 1978. I came back to find out that I had been replaced in Airborn with another drummer. No phone call. Nothing. Don and I were like brothers. And, I mean that.
Airborn lasted for about a year and a half. My friendship with Don Dokken lasted for twenty-two years, and it ended badly. More is the loss, but we'll explore that mess as we go, okay?
I was back to splitting time between my domestic issues, finding enough money to make a living, and looking for that perfect band that seemed to constantly be eluding me. It wasn't easy.
There were some brilliant musicians in the LA basin, but there were a hundred times as many wanna-be's with no real vision.
When I was 21, I started going to Pier 52. Mick Mars was in a band called Vendetta, and Don Dokken and I had shared a rehearsal space with them. The guys in Vendetta were all eight to ten years older than me. They were a cover band, and we were originals, doing our best to get a deal.
They played Top 40, four or five sets a night, six nights a week, to pay their bills. It's a last ditch effort for a serious musician, cover work. But, I was just about to that point.
Mick was a good guy, but really reclusive. He has some sort of degenerative bone disease that's just getting worse with time. Tommy Lee set me up to see their show not long ago, when I lived in Houston. When I saw Mick on stage, I was stunned. I don't know how he was even able to tour. My gut hurt for the guy. It really did.
Anyway, I had been bumping around after Airborn, looking for a new gig. Desperate for one, actually. Juan Croucier and a guitar player named Ron Abrams pulled me in and created this power trio called Firefoxx.
Great band. It was in very short order that we started playing up around Hollywood in some of the bigger rooms. At the time, Airborn had been a pretty big act, and Juan had been in Spike, so we were able to use some of our popularity to our advantage. We started playing places like the Starwood and the Whisky. In fact, The Knack opened for us at the Whisky. That was in the summer of 1978, and by the end of 1979, those guys were huge.
Firefoxx was a hot act, but was pretty short lived. The reason being, I let Juan and his girlfriend Shelly, this unbelievable bitch from Palos Verdes, move in with me.
This chick was an absolute nightmare. A spoiled rotten, rich kid from Palos Verdes. Her parents had flipped out when they found out she was dating Juan; this longhaired, musician Cuban kid; and they forbid her to see him. So, I let them move into the apartment with Jeni, Nelly Herron and me.
On a side-note, I actually introduced Nelly and Don Dokken in 1976. They started messing around and continued to do so for almost 30 years. They have a great, beautiful daughter named Jessica.
I never got
I was delivering pizzas one night in my 1961 Falcon station wagon, and needed to take a piss. So, I stopped at this donut shop on the corner of Aviation Blvd., and the Pacific Coast Highway.
I recognized one of the dudes inside as the singer from Airborn. I was still in Slicker at the time. The guys name was Don Dokken. We chatted each other up for a bit, and Don said that Airborn was looking for a new drummer.
It was tempting, but I had to think about it for a while. I mean, I wanted to leave Slicker because it had gotten stagnant and wasn't really going anywhere. But, here was another band, and true, they were playing bigger gigs. But, Don Dokken was twenty-two or twenty-three at the time. He was so damned old! To my seventeen-year-old mind, he was fucking Methuselah! In my opinion, if you hadn't made it by the time you were twenty, you weren't going to make it.
I went down and jammed with them anyway, and it really clicked. I joined.
We enjoyed some really strong success in the LA area in that band. There were shows at the Starwood, the Troubadour, the Whisky, and all the Strip hotspots. It was the end of 1976 or 1977.
I went to visit family in Pittsburgh in Feb. 1978. I came back to find out that I had been replaced in Airborn with another drummer. No phone call. Nothing. Don and I were like brothers. And, I mean that.
Airborn lasted for about a year and a half. My friendship with Don Dokken lasted for twenty-two years, and it ended badly. More is the loss, but we'll explore that mess as we go, okay?
I was back to splitting time between my domestic issues, finding enough money to make a living, and looking for that perfect band that seemed to constantly be eluding me. It wasn't easy.
There were some brilliant musicians in the LA basin, but there were a hundred times as many wanna-be's with no real vision.
When I was 21, I started going to Pier 52. Mick Mars was in a band called Vendetta, and Don Dokken and I had shared a rehearsal space with them. The guys in Vendetta were all eight to ten years older than me. They were a cover band, and we were originals, doing our best to get a deal.
They played Top 40, four or five sets a night, six nights a week, to pay their bills. It's a last ditch effort for a serious musician, cover work. But, I was just about to that point.
Mick was a good guy, but really reclusive. He has some sort of degenerative bone disease that's just getting worse with time. Tommy Lee set me up to see their show not long ago, when I lived in Houston. When I saw Mick on stage, I was stunned. I don't know how he was even able to tour. My gut hurt for the guy. It really did.
Anyway, I had been bumping around after Airborn, looking for a new gig. Desperate for one, actually. Juan Croucier and a guitar player named Ron Abrams pulled me in and created this power trio called Firefoxx.
Great band. It was in very short order that we started playing up around Hollywood in some of the bigger rooms. At the time, Airborn had been a pretty big act, and Juan had been in Spike, so we were able to use some of our popularity to our advantage. We started playing places like the Starwood and the Whisky. In fact, The Knack opened for us at the Whisky. That was in the summer of 1978, and by the end of 1979, those guys were huge.
Firefoxx was a hot act, but was pretty short lived. The reason being, I let Juan and his girlfriend Shelly, this unbelievable bitch from Palos Verdes, move in with me.
This chick was an absolute nightmare. A spoiled rotten, rich kid from Palos Verdes. Her parents had flipped out when they found out she was dating Juan; this longhaired, musician Cuban kid; and they forbid her to see him. So, I let them move into the apartment with Jeni, Nelly Herron and me.
On a side-note, I actually introduced Nelly and Don Dokken in 1976. They started messing around and continued to do so for almost 30 years. They have a great, beautiful daughter named Jessica.
I never got
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