George Lynch: Skill Rokken, After Dokken

Hair Today is a special series here at antiMUSIC by Marie Braden that answers the question “Hair are they now?” Each month Marie will catch us up with the latest from some of biggest names of the “Hair metal” era.  This month Marie catches up with former Dokken axeman George Lynch. 

George Lynch was one of the few shred-gods of the Eighties who managed to be equally appealing to the groupie wannabes and to the "serious guitar fans". Although his years with Dokken never brought him to the top of the sales charts, his influential work with both Dokken and the later Lynch Mob made him a perennial favorite among the GIT crowd. With the recent release of FURIOUS GEORGE, an album of covers, he's begun to shed his reclusive image--but he's still a very private man, and deflects most questions back to letting the music do the talking.

antiMUSIC (Marie): What one question are you most tired of hearing in interviews?

George Lynch: What are your influences, dream band who'd be in it? The whole Dokken question... and some silly questions about working out which I consider to be irrelevant. I run out of creative ways to answer those questions. If I do 6 interviews in a day and get those 4 to 5 times, I'm thinking the same people are reading those and by the end of the day I'm running out of imagination and steam.

antiMUSIC: Is there any possibility at all of you and Don Dokken working together again? You two seem to have never had the love part of a love/hate relationship.

GL: Just physical love! Nothing platonic.

antiMUSIC: What's your current gear setup?

GL: I have been working with Peavey for 4 years on an amp called the Brahma which is being released in January of 2005. I use my signature series ESP guitars, Seymour Duncan Screamin' Demon pickups. Dean Markley strings, but I use all kinds of different gear when it's studio and live. Right now, various effect pedals from the Sixties and Seventies. 

DJ Ashba loaned me his Mr. Scary for the photo-shoot for the inside of the CD cover. There's a pic of Jeff and I supposedly when we were young practicing in a garage using that bones guitar.

antiMUSIC: Now, I'll be honest, I have not yet gotten a copy of Furious George, although I love the title. But I was surprised to see an old Willie Dixon tune on there--blues aren't what most people think of when they think George Lynch....

GL: They should! I grew up with the blues and am always talking about it and it seems obvious in my playing that I come from a blues base. I do other things too but when it comes down to it at the end of the day, that's what's really what I enjoy listening to ...organic blues. Albert King; I'm a huge fan of Albert King.

antiMUSIC: And since it is an album of covers, who do you consider the greatest rock and roll band of all time and why?

GL: I can only speak from my perspective and the bands I've seen and you really have to weigh a band studio and live. What I've seen in this era, one of the best concerts I've been to that really resonated with me was Audioslave. I haven't seen everything, I don't go to a lot of shows.

In my younger days, at different points in my life, it would be different bands. ELP, ZZ Top on the Tres Hombres tour. I've never seen Hendrix, I never saw Zep. I'm limited in what I'm exposed to. I would love to see Radiohead; I just can't get a ticket! I'd love to see Pink Floyd. I think the greatest bands are the unsung bands that you don't really hear too much about. They have their moment, they hit their stride, then fade away. I've been involved in bands like that. 

I don't think you can do it on the strength of a career. It's the moments. I've been involved in a few of those--maybe there was an audience there, maybe there wasn't, but I have had a few moments that were just transcendent.

antiMUSIC: Of all your songs, which is your least favorite and the one you still most enjoy?

GL: I've got a lot of least faves. I can think of a few that I was involved in but not completely responsible for, but you know, you can always appreciate a song on at least some level, even if it's just that it's so bad it's funny. There was an old Dokken tune "Bullets to Spare". It's a bad one, but it's funny. It had SOME redeeming qualities, at least. "Mr. Scary" is the easiest one for me to say that I love most, but I can't really think of one specific song out of hundreds. I have a terrible memory. And you have an affinity for the recent stuff. I know I do, anyway, because it's closer to your heart. Stuff I've written in the last few years, I think means more to me than the old stuff.

Songwriting is a learning process, it's complicated. It's not that it grows, it changes. Sometimes you end up back where you started. Not sure I'll be playing blues in a rocking chair outside my tepee in New Mexico when I'm 70. You become simpler as you age, because you accomplish more with less energy. It's like the great painters of history who were almost photographic, but as they matured, they said more with one brushstroke. 

antiMUSIC: Nice analogy!

GL: If I were a superhero, I would be Analogy.

antiMUSIC: As many of your peers are "going country" these days... do you see that ever happening to you?

GL: Human beings are infinitely adaptable and we do what he have to do to survive. 
I don't think we do things out of a pure motivation--sometimes we fool ourselves and others by pretending that we do. But animal instincts are at play here, and we put on this sort of veneer of doing things ...civilized people construe the right reasons.

I don't look good in cowboy hats. Country & Western players.. it's much easier to be rock & roll. Serious skills in Nashville. One of my favorites is Roy Buchanan and I can't touch that. 

antiMUSIC: In interviews with you, the focus is usually on the technical side of your playing, and not on "you", per se. However, on the Metal Sludge penis chart, there is an entry about you. How do you feel about personal details like that being broadcast to the internet at large?

GL: Obviously, I feel violated. I have kids, grandkids, family, girlfriend. I definitely think that's very inconsiderate. And again, that's what people do to get hits, readership, recognition money. Some people would steal the shoes off the dead.

antiMUSIC: While on the road, what has been your most memorable experience?

GL: I think the happiest memories are things not relate to music but to just trips on my motorcycle. Getting lost at some reservation or old town in the middle of nowhere. Once I wanted to see if I could just take off, no money, no stuff and just go. And I earned my way, made my way to Taos from Arizona and I just had little jobs, pickup jobs here and there--restaurants for food, gas money, slept on the ground. picked up some sunglasses. Met this Indian guy, stayed up all night telling stories, drinking beer. 

Current bike: Harley Heritage fixed up like an old pannie. 

antiMUSIC: Is there anything about the past that you'd like to go back and change?

GL: A whole bunch. I'd say probably being more focused on my family and less on my career in the eighties. I was gone a lot. 

antiMUSIC: What do you think would most surprise people about you?

GL: That I'm just a family man in the suburbs, taking out the trash, don't really play guitar till I need to. I don't really practice. I play when I need to. I've been playing so long, I know I can get back in the saddle. 

antiMUSIC: Describe yourself in just 3 words.

GL: Tense. Emotional. Temperamental.

antiMUSIC: Anything else?

GL: The new record. I had been recording for the last 3.5 years back to back, couple tours injected in there. I was really really not prepared mentally or physically to take on new originals. So, the label came to me with the idea of an album of my influences. No writing, no producing, just playing guitar. All the business aspects and logistics taken care of--I just needed to show up and play. It sounded like a lot of fun and it was a lot of fun, a very low stress situation. I think people like to hear just the solos, and I don't focus on those as much as I'd like, other 90% arrangement. Different experiences. 

2/3 are songs I played in bands when I was younger singing and guitar. In my early 20s, these were the songs I played and it's neat to come back. There are a couple the label suggested. My fav two are: Bridge and Stormbringer. 
 
 

Check out the official George Lynch website to learn more. 

Want to learn more about the woman behind "Hair Today"?  Visit MarieBraden.com

antiMUSIC columnist Marie Braden is a veteran rock journalist and photographer who decided to be respectful and NOT share with George the "Wicked Sensation" his pics used to give her.