The new band featuring three members of the classic DOKKEN and ROBERT MASON christened THE END
The new band featuring three members of the classic DOKKEN lineup along with former LYNCH MOB and current WARRANT singer Robert Mason has been christened THE END.
Guitarist George Lynch, who is joined in THE END by his onetime DOKKEN bandmates Jeff Pilson (bass) and Mick Brown (drums), revealed the new group's name during an interview with Idaho's 94.9 & 104.5 The Rock radio station. He said: "I do a lot of records where they're just sort of seat-of-the-pants, which is nothing wrong with that, like KXM and ULTRAPHONIX, [which are] written real quick — we just get in a room and bang it out and just go with our first instincts, and we don't really labor over it. THE END record is really the opposite of that.
"Jeff and I spent a lot of time crafting the songs, as we did in the DOKKEN days," he continued. "I think there's quite a bit of '70s art rock going on in some of these songs, which is pretty cool. It's got the usual groove, heavy rock thing, melodic rock thing, it's got all that — but it's also got that '70s, ELO, ELTON JOHN [vibe] — just really interesting, intelligent, classic changes. It's a very satisfying record to listen to — it's pretty deep, and I think people will really dig it. It doesn't sound like DOKKEN; it doesn't sound like LP [LYNCH/PILSON]; it doesn't sound like LYNCH MOB. It has elements of all that, obviously. I think it's a natural evolution of the LPrecord that closely it resembles in my mind. It's me and Jeff sitting at his studio working it out, so what you're going to get is really that, with Robert Mason on top of it.
"God, that guy — what a monster," George added, referring to Mason. "Robert's been doing LYNCH MOB shows this year with us — not all of them, but I'd forgotten how powerful he is. Unbelievable singer."
THE END, which was known in its formative stage as SUPER STROKE, will tentatively release its debut album in February 2019.
Pilson recently said he was "thrilled beyond belief" with THE END's disc, telling writer Clay Marshall: "I'm really proud of this record — the songs and the playing and Robert's singing and everybody else's background singing, and George is playing at his peak. It's just a phenomenal record, and I can't wait till it comes out."
Earlier this year, Mason told the "Talking Metal" podcast that working with Lynch, Pilson and Brown has "given all of us a renewed sense of what it was like to be creating together and maybe even playing together. Jeff and I get along great," he said. "Jeff produced 'Louder Harder Faster', the new WARRANT record. He and I have always been kind of friendly but didn't really know each other until that project, and we got on so well in the studio and elsewhere that it was a real easy tie-in for those three guys to call me up and say, 'Hey, man, we wanna do this record. We don't know what we're gonna call it, but it'll have the DNA of our bands, and it'll be us, but we want it to sound a little different. What do you think?' I was all over it."
Asked if the new project is musically similar to DOKKEN, Robert said: "I don't think it sounds like DOKKEN with me stapled on to it. I honestly didn't want… And it's no disrespect to anything, because I love what they did, and I was a fan — I still am. That wasn't something that I wanted to do. And thankfully, when Jeff and George started playing me demos and their early ideas, it doesn't sound like that. And Mick Brown [told me the other day], 'I'm so stoked about this. The cool thing is it sounds like us, but it doesn't sound like us.' It's Mick's way of saying that, I think, the DNA is there and you hear the influences and you hear who it is and what it is, maybe. We're just making music and having fun, but we are having fun being creative with each other again. And I pray that that translates into the final product and that people will just embrace that."
Photo courtesy of Robert Mason's Facebook page
