 Jimmy K here, Metal Voice. Look at this. The Metal Voice shirts are now on sale. Just go to the video description to find out on how you can purchase one. Metal! Welcome to the Metal Voice today on the show. Yeah! Don Dawkin, what's going on, Don? Good. Nothing. Working on a new record and I have another record coming out in a couple of weeks called The Lost Tapes. A lot of those songs that never made it onto Dawkin Records. So, you know, I'm just working like all musicians. Not much else you can do with the COVID. You just stay on the right music. Yeah. The Lost Songs, it's 1978 to 1981. It's going to be released on August 28th on Silver Lining Music. Okay, so where did you find these tapes? Where were these magical tapes? Well, I have a house in LA and I have a house in New Mexico. And I decided to move a lot of my stuff from the LA house up here. Okay. And I'd had, you know, like everybody has. You stuff, you stick stuff in the garage and it just disappears for decades. You know, you just forget about it, you know, boxes, a junk, magazines, clothes, equipment. Yes, yes, yes. You know, so I just said, look, I got all this recorded equipment from the old days when I owned a recording studio, I don't need it. Flight cases from former tours that are broken. So I just got a big truck and just started taking it to the dump to get rid of all this stuff. And I found this box, not a box, like a plastic tub. And I opened it up. It was real heavy and opened it up. And I saw these real, the real tapes, like two inch, which took me back a little bit because nobody records on two inch anymore. You know, everybody's digital now. It's a digital world. So anyway, I was like, what the hell? And some had notes on it and some had no track sheets. I don't know what was on them. But then I did see one tape that said Michael Wagner, Tennessee Tawn Studios, 1979. And I went, oh, shit, those demos I did was when I met Michael 40 years ago. Wow. So I just figured I have time. We're not, our tour was canceled. A friend of mine had a real, real machine still. We fired it up and cooked the tapes. You have to bake them when they sit that long. And then we just transferred all this music onto a hard drive. I took it home and just started listening to all these songs that were done, not done, partially done, drum machines, cheesy sounding, you know, and just took it all home and went through it all. And there was a lot of songs I liked, but, you know, they had a drum machine on it. And I wasn't crazy about that. So I had BJ put real drums on it and John, we do the guitars and so on and so on. So that's how this thing came about. So what did you keep at the end of the day? Did you keep the vocals? Did you keep like from these songs that you found? I guess you're rebuilding it. I kept, I kept all my guitar tracks. John just did the solos over. I redid some of the drums and I kept some of the drums. So I just kept as much as I could, mostly my guitar playing, my bass playing, my guitar playing, my vocals, I kept all that. But there was two or three songs that had like a real cheesy drum machine on it and it just didn't sound very good. So I thought I could leave it like that, but it sounds like hell. So I just had BJ put, you know, better punchy drums on them. And then the guitar solos, I had John do or we do it. Well, I had John do solos because a couple of songs didn't have, didn't have a solo, just blank. You know, it's been bothering me since 1982. Did you find any sort of scratch tracks with you with the scorpions on the blackout days? I've always wanted to hear that. I've been asked that a lot. Yeah, I have some. But I would never give it to anybody or play it for anybody or let it out of my hands. Because I remember when they were re-releasing blackout, I'm not trying to change the subject. But I remember Matthias Jobs, I interviewed him and I asked him on the deluxe version that they were coming out with the 40-year anniversary. Will they include Don Dawkins, maybe a few tracks from Don, you know, back in the day? And he didn't know. So I'm trying to find somebody who knows. Well, that's not an answerable question. I didn't sing any lead vocals. I just sang background vocals. That's it. But did you do the scratch tracks sort of like as they were building the album? A couple, only two songs I scratched. Okay. Just two. All right. But, you know, I'm sure those are long gone. I mean, why there'd be no reason for them to put me on a song that Klaus sang, you know. It was just a scratch track just to save Klaus's voice because you'd had some vocal problems. But I didn't sing, I only sang like a couple songs, like a really quick 20-minute scratch track just to get the melody on tape for Klaus. To me, I got to ask you this question because it's been bothering me for like almost 35 years. How long were you in the studio with the Scorpions? Well, I mean, as far as me participating on the record, just like two days. Okay. You know, but as far as me being in the studio with them, I was in there for a month because they were making blackout at the same time I was making break in the chains. Yeah, yeah. In the same, in the same studio and except it was in there making Russian Roulette. It was except Scorpions and me and, you know, they had three different recording rooms and we were all in there. So we were all hanging out, you know, in the red. He had like a Dieter Dirks mom, Frow Dirks. She would cook us dinner and we had like a little cafeteria and we'd all take breaks or go out to dinner down to the local pub called Peters and, you know, terrorized and we all hung out for a month. And we're playing video games and playing Galaxian and Pac-Man. And, you know, so it was about a month I was there hanging out with those guys. Wow, sounds pretty cool. Nice days. How about any. Okay. So going back to your, your unreleased tracks that you're going to be releasing the lost tapes. Are there any songs from there that you're saying, you know what, maybe I'll hold on to this one. It's a gem of a song for another docking album. An album. No. Okay. I mean, songs. Look, every every musician, usually when you're right, you got to remember back in the days of records, you only had a certain amount of time to put music. I think it was 33 minutes. That's it. You couldn't put any more than 33 minutes on an LP. So, you know, when the days of the CDs came out and like Metallica puts out 15, 16 songs, you know, you had a, when it went digital, you could put more songs. But we'd always write 14 or 15 songs and, you know, and just pick the ones we thought were the best ones. Okay. And sometimes I write a song, I've been making a demo and I have a little drum machine. I'm in my little apartment playing guitar. I'm singing. And I just, you know, it would work on a couple of days and go, you know, this song's just not happening. I'm not down with it. So I just abandoned it. Yeah. Okay. And congratulations for winning the, at the metal Hall of Fame, the award. That's where I actually met you. I just got out of a hospital and I was a little just loopy still. So, but yes, it was a great honor. I appreciate it. It was very kind, really happy, you know, so it was great. And from what I remember is, and, you know, if you want to talk about this great, your health, I remember your hand was blown up. You showed me your hand. It was blown up, you know, you can barely move it. I mean, how's that coming along? Unfortunately, it's about the same. Paralyzed? Yeah. My, my hand and my forearm and my triceps are still paralyzed. It's been seven months. You know, the doctors just kept saying, be patient. It'll get better. It'll get better. I can move my fingers about another inch, but that's, and my thumb doesn't move at all. And my four fingers are still blown up and swollen and look like sausages. And, you know, so it's been seven months and it's not getting any better. So I have to accept it. They say it might take a year or a year and a half. And all I can do is be patient and pray that I wake up one morning and it's starting to work. But the reality is it's not getting any better. So I might, my guitar playing days might be over with. Wow. That's pretty sad. But I played for 50 years, 50 years. I got to play guitar. Yeah. Yeah. But at least, yeah, at least it didn't paralyze me all the way. Yeah. So it could have been worse. It could have killed me. So it's not that bad. Don't talk to me, please. So everything's, you know, it turned out, you know, it could have turned out worse or better. How did, so you're telling me outside actually when you're sort of like you fell, you hurt yourself. I guess that was after the surgery, correct? Oh yeah. I fell in the snow after the surgery. That infected me. Yeah. I went to open the door in my car. It was snowing and I, and I tried to use my right hand, which was paralyzed, you know, but it's just habit. You know, I'm right handed. It's just habit, you know, and I reached for the door with my right hand and I had food to go on my left hand and I hit some ice and I just, it happened so fast. And the next thing I know, I was face down into a, you know, snow bank of ice and I got two black eyes and bloody nose and, you know, I mean, I really took a face plant, but, you know, it could have been worse because well, I remember somebody helped me up, some people were walking by and they helped me up off the ground and there was like this railroad tie with a bunch of spikes sticking out of it for people to park their cars and I missed it by about three inches. So if I would have, if I would have fell face down on that, that rebar and railroad ties, you know, I, we wouldn't be having this conversation right now. Yeah. So, so tell me, and this is the last question on your health, where did it all begin? It was just, it just all of a sudden you woke up one day and your back paralyzed arm. Is that how, what happened? No, no, it was just like little things over a couple of years. I was riding my Harley. I kept, you know, taking it back to the shop saying there's something wrong with my clutch. It's really hard to pull in, you know, the clutch is very stiff. And they said, no, it's fine. And then when I ride, you know, I was having a hard time holding the throttle like my hand would get weak. And then I started kind of walking like, like my acrylic or bream was off, you know, and I dropped things. I pick up a cup or I pick up a plate. Let's say the dinner and my right hand. And it felt like it weighed like 10 pounds. And I'm like, what the hell's going on? So then I started getting a tingling sensation in both my arms, like my fingers would go into sleep. So I went and got an MRI. And they did a full spinal scan and they said your spinal cord is completely like crushed compressed. And that's, and you're getting blood. And it's cutting off the blood flow to your arms. And it's cutting off blood flow to your hips. And they asked me, you know, did you get an accident? And I said, no, were you, were you re-ended, you know, by a car? I said, no. Did you take a bad fall? I said, no. They said, we don't see this very often. Down five, six and seven, which is the place when people break their necks, they usually die. And I said, no, I don't, I don't remember having any bad falls or any accidents. I don't know what happened. It happened over a couple years, but, you know, when I couldn't ride my Harley anymore, I was like, this sucks. So the bottom line is they said, you can wait. But the longer you wait, the more nerves that will die. And the nerves will not come back. And at some point you will be paralyzed. So I said, okay. So I went and found, thought I found the best doctor in LA, Cedar Sinai, and had the surgery. And it didn't go so well. You know, I woke up and I was paralyzed worse. So it's where it goes. I just drew the short straw, man. Yeah. You, you won the wrong lottery. That's when my doctor tells me, hey, Jim, you won the wrong lottery. Yeah. Yeah. I mean, I mean, the whole point was so I get my hands back. Yeah. I didn't think my, and then not only my hand, my forearm, my, my whole right arm, I could move it now. I can lift it up and down and move my fingers a little bit. But, you know, I can't pick up a pen. It's on my name or I can't hold a fork or. So I'm learning how to be a lefty. I'm just, I can't ride my Harley. I want to ride my Harley. Yeah. Yeah. Well, I mean music. Soft stations. Yeah. Well, I mean, there's always music, right? I mean, what's, so what's the plan for the next studio docking album? We're talking about the, the law songs, but what about new docking? What's going on there? Well, same thing. Lucky for us, before I lost my hand, the use of my hand to play guitar. Yeah. We wrote like 17 songs for broken bones. Nice. So, so many of those songs didn't make it onto the record. So I went and looked into my, dug out all my old hard drives and John did. And John's a great guitar player. He had a ton of ideas. I've had a ton of ideas. And so John's just doing the guitar work and I'm doing the lyrics. And there were actually, I found like three songs I played guitar on. We're going to keep for the record. And that's, we're working over the internet like a lot of people. You get on zoom or Skype and you know, John has a studio in LA and I have a studio up here. And we just exchange ideas and they say, what do you got? And he goes, what do you got? And you know, he'll play me a song. I did also hang on a second and all because I can't type anymore with my hand. I bought, you know, vocal programs. You just talk into a mic and it types for you. So I'll just start typing out lyrics. And that's how we've been working. And we're about half done with the record. We've got about seven songs so far. So what do you, what are you looking at as a timeline in the next six months? Um, that's a hard call in the perfect world. You know, we were going to have an album out this summer and then Corona hit. Yeah. And that changed the world for everybody. Yeah. So it was a good timing to put out the lost tapes as a buffer. A buffer for our hardcore docking fans to have some new product from us because it'd been so many years. And then I was, we were talking about, we're thinking about re-releasing broken bones because I never thought that that album got a fair shot. It was a really good record. I was really proud of that record. But the record company we were on at the time didn't do anything. They didn't promote it. They didn't advertise it. It just kind of came and went. So silver lining might be re-releasing broken bones. And, um, and I had an idea, which I have, I'm thinking about releasing a best of docking ballads for the holidays like Christmas time. It's never been done. We never, a lot of bands do that. They're, you know, their ballad album, you know, and I said, shit, man, I have written so many ballads in my career and on every, every album, you know, one or two. And then John was saying, yeah, why don't you just get like all your favorite ballads you've ever done in docking and some live versions and acoustic versions. So let's just put out a whole album of ballads for like Christmas. And I think that would be real cool. So I'm working on that too right now. So over, over time, docking has evolved. I mean, what's the next, is the musical direction going to be the same next time around? Or is it just, it's going to evolve into something else? We're going retro. We're kind of going retro. Okay. You know, I mean, look, you're right with your right as a musician, you know, your life changes. The world changes. You're right with your right. You know, you're influenced by new bands and other music. But, you know, I know where my bread is buttered as far as the classic docking sound and John's real good at doing that. And so I said, I think we should write a record between the lines of tooth and nail and under walking key. And that's kind of the direction I'm writing in right now. All right. And how about the classic band reunion went off shows? No, no, mixed retired, mixed retired. Yeah. Yeah. All right. Doesn't play an important mix completely retired. George has Lynch mob. I've done a few shows with George. We were supposed to be playing. We were supposed to do 10 shows with George this summer. Yes. But the COVID, the COVID hit. He doesn't fly. He doesn't want to travel. And so that all went out the window. All right. Well, there you have it docking the law songs in 1978 to 1981 on August 28th on silver lining music. Thank you so much. You can get on vinyl too. Yeah. You can get on by coming out on vinyl. Nice. So CD vinyl and cassette. No more. Was docking ever released on an eight track the first album? No. No, we just missed that era. You know, I have a few platinum records on my wall that have a cassette in it underneath. Okay. I love my tracks. I remember listening to Y and T in my car on an eight track, you know, and then I had a in high school. I had it sold 63 Corvette and I had a little four track. And then and when they invented the eight track, I thought that was so amazing. Well, thank you so much. All right.