George Lynch: lords of metal interview

You are seen as a real guitar hero and you’ve even got a Grammy nomination for best instrumental song in 1989 with ‘Mr. Scary’. Doesn’t this label of guitar hero put any pressure on you when releasing new stuff?
It’s a healthy pressure I think. I don’t put any pressure on myself, since I take the whole guitar hero thing with a grain of salt. I don’t think I’m a guitar hero, the real guitar heroes are guys like Hendrix, Page and Clapton. Guys like Randy Rhoads, Warren De Martini, Jake E. Lee and myself are also great guitar players but we’re building on the shoulders of our predecessors if you know what I mean. I don’t take the whole guitar hero thing too seriously.

Have you been following Dokken during the last couple of years? If so, what do you think about their last couple of albums?
I don’t really follow them, I’m aware of them. When a new record comes out, I’ll give it a listen and I’m sure Don will do the same thing with my records. There’s some stuff on their latest album that leaves me flat and there’s also some good stuff on there. The problem I see is that they’re stuck to a certain formula and they try to reconstruct what we have been doing in the eighties, but I don’t know if the special chemistry that we had back then will return.

full interview