pretty cool to read that George is keeping busy...
GEORGE LYNCH - FURIOUS BUT HAPPY:
By Mitch Lafon.
One-time Dokken axeman George Lynch has recently released the guitar-heavy Furious George covers album via Shrapnel Records. The guitarist gives a nod to some of rock's most notable names including Led Zeppelin, Montrose, Deep Purple and Jeff Beck. Recently, Lynch checked in with BW&BK to discuss the album, other projects and his relationship with his old band.
"The reason I did the record (Furious George) is because it was relatively stress free," begins Lynch, "and I thought it would be nice to go into an environment and do solos without anything to worry about." As for the song selection, "we narrowed it down to the bigger names and obvious choices," he states unabashedly. "The stuff that was on the peripheral and had the greatest influence on my musical upbringing… nobody would have recognized, so we let those go. There would have been too many styles, so I decided to make it an early '70s kind of vibe."
The covers album is not a new concept to George having done many tribute albums for Cleopatra, but his latest project for the label includes former Ratt vocalist, Stephen Pearcy and a re-working of the RATT catalogue as George explains, "I have a relationship with Brian (Perrera) at Cleopatra and we've been good friends for a long time. I enjoy going in and blowing over other people's music without having to deal with the whole songwriting and record label politics. It's nice just to pack my stuff up and show up at a studio and play. I get to play on music that I wish I had written and I loved RATT. Out of the '80s music RATT was one of my favorite bands."
Lynch fans shouldn't despair though as the guitarist is preparing a myriad of "original music" releases. "I've got a lot of the stuff in the pipeline that I'm going to finish up before the end of the year," he affirms. "I've got a double CD called Lost Lynch which is a huge umbrellic retrospective of everything I've done from day one to yesterday (with lots of unreleased stuff). There will be stuff from Exciter (my band before Dokken), there will be live or missing Dokken tracks (including with Jeff singing), live stuff from Lynch Mob and grey area stuff like when I went from Exciter to Dokken (we were still doing the Exciter stuff, but with Don singing), and more recent projects like Stonehouse (which is the singer from Saigon Kick and myself), Micro-Dot, Band Of Flakes… It'll come out late fall on Cleopatra. I'll also be putting out the Exciter on my web site www.georgelynch.com and there's a Lynch Mob DVD Live At The Key Club coming out with a companion audio CD (on Cleopatra in the fall) and when all this stuff works its way through the pipeline, I'll go into my studio and start from ground zero on building a new record."
As for Lynch/ Pilson, George says with candor "I never like to say anything is over - Dokken, Lynch Mob or L/P, but I've really tried to re-focus myself on Lynch. That's what the band is called now, that's what my records are called now and everything is under the umbrella of myself."
With that the attention turns to recent Internet reports of a Dokken "reunion", "I don't like to rule anything out," he says carefully. "The talk of possibly reuniting came out of an interview that Don did in which he said I had called him begging to get the band back together. In actuality, what had happened is that we ran into each other and everything was fine. We didn't talk about anything substantial, but we called each other a few times and his main gist of the conversation was that he wanted me to come in before this record (Hell to Pay) was finished and record an Exciter tune called It's Alive and I declined, but what I did say was that if there was any reason to put the real thing back together (and that means all original members with an equal split) would be something to think about. If I were a betting man I wouldn't put my money on it happening, but I would never say no, but I certainly would never call him up and beg him to do it. It was a passing remark that was saying to Don IF this could ever happen it would have to be original guys… and he completely twisted it around in some interviews that I have read."
Could the past conflicts be forgotten? "I think that would depend on the amount of success we would have," he says in an honest evaluation of the situation. "That's all that would really matter. To say that we're getting back together for the love would be kind of a lie and that's why it didn't work last time. That's the problem with Lynch Mob too - it just wasn't worth the struggle; which is why I'm going to keep things focused on myself. I'm not going away no matter who revolves around me."
Last word - "I'm a techie and everything revolves around my gear. I've been working with Peavey on an amp called the Brahma and it'll be out this January. Check out www.Peavey.com"
For more visit: www.georgelynch.com.
GEORGE LYNCH - FURIOUS BUT HAPPY:
By Mitch Lafon.
One-time Dokken axeman George Lynch has recently released the guitar-heavy Furious George covers album via Shrapnel Records. The guitarist gives a nod to some of rock's most notable names including Led Zeppelin, Montrose, Deep Purple and Jeff Beck. Recently, Lynch checked in with BW&BK to discuss the album, other projects and his relationship with his old band.
"The reason I did the record (Furious George) is because it was relatively stress free," begins Lynch, "and I thought it would be nice to go into an environment and do solos without anything to worry about." As for the song selection, "we narrowed it down to the bigger names and obvious choices," he states unabashedly. "The stuff that was on the peripheral and had the greatest influence on my musical upbringing… nobody would have recognized, so we let those go. There would have been too many styles, so I decided to make it an early '70s kind of vibe."
The covers album is not a new concept to George having done many tribute albums for Cleopatra, but his latest project for the label includes former Ratt vocalist, Stephen Pearcy and a re-working of the RATT catalogue as George explains, "I have a relationship with Brian (Perrera) at Cleopatra and we've been good friends for a long time. I enjoy going in and blowing over other people's music without having to deal with the whole songwriting and record label politics. It's nice just to pack my stuff up and show up at a studio and play. I get to play on music that I wish I had written and I loved RATT. Out of the '80s music RATT was one of my favorite bands."
Lynch fans shouldn't despair though as the guitarist is preparing a myriad of "original music" releases. "I've got a lot of the stuff in the pipeline that I'm going to finish up before the end of the year," he affirms. "I've got a double CD called Lost Lynch which is a huge umbrellic retrospective of everything I've done from day one to yesterday (with lots of unreleased stuff). There will be stuff from Exciter (my band before Dokken), there will be live or missing Dokken tracks (including with Jeff singing), live stuff from Lynch Mob and grey area stuff like when I went from Exciter to Dokken (we were still doing the Exciter stuff, but with Don singing), and more recent projects like Stonehouse (which is the singer from Saigon Kick and myself), Micro-Dot, Band Of Flakes… It'll come out late fall on Cleopatra. I'll also be putting out the Exciter on my web site www.georgelynch.com and there's a Lynch Mob DVD Live At The Key Club coming out with a companion audio CD (on Cleopatra in the fall) and when all this stuff works its way through the pipeline, I'll go into my studio and start from ground zero on building a new record."
As for Lynch/ Pilson, George says with candor "I never like to say anything is over - Dokken, Lynch Mob or L/P, but I've really tried to re-focus myself on Lynch. That's what the band is called now, that's what my records are called now and everything is under the umbrella of myself."
With that the attention turns to recent Internet reports of a Dokken "reunion", "I don't like to rule anything out," he says carefully. "The talk of possibly reuniting came out of an interview that Don did in which he said I had called him begging to get the band back together. In actuality, what had happened is that we ran into each other and everything was fine. We didn't talk about anything substantial, but we called each other a few times and his main gist of the conversation was that he wanted me to come in before this record (Hell to Pay) was finished and record an Exciter tune called It's Alive and I declined, but what I did say was that if there was any reason to put the real thing back together (and that means all original members with an equal split) would be something to think about. If I were a betting man I wouldn't put my money on it happening, but I would never say no, but I certainly would never call him up and beg him to do it. It was a passing remark that was saying to Don IF this could ever happen it would have to be original guys… and he completely twisted it around in some interviews that I have read."
Could the past conflicts be forgotten? "I think that would depend on the amount of success we would have," he says in an honest evaluation of the situation. "That's all that would really matter. To say that we're getting back together for the love would be kind of a lie and that's why it didn't work last time. That's the problem with Lynch Mob too - it just wasn't worth the struggle; which is why I'm going to keep things focused on myself. I'm not going away no matter who revolves around me."
Last word - "I'm a techie and everything revolves around my gear. I've been working with Peavey on an amp called the Brahma and it'll be out this January. Check out www.Peavey.com"
For more visit: www.georgelynch.com.
