It seems that former DOKKEN drummer “Wild” Mick Brown has completely retired from playing drums
TESLA drummer Steve Brown, who is the younger brother of ex-DOKKEN drummer Mick Brown, recently spoke to Chaotic Riffs about his brother’s retirement from music. Back in 2019, Mick said that he was “taking a break” from touring yet still implied that he would return to the road at some point in the future.
Discussing Mick‘s physical setbacks that forced him off the road, Steve said: “It’s not so much the playing, but it’s the travel on top of it. He’s a lot bigger guy than I man, and cramming into airline seats for long flights… They would play in Washington state on a Friday and somewhere on the East Coast on a Saturday. Those two things, you just can’t do it forever. And he’s been doing it — what? Fifty years. So I was kind of surprised. To be honest with you, I thought he would do it till he just keeled over on stage one day.
‘When [Mick] was playing with Ted Nugent at the same time [as DOKKEN] and trying to do both, he kind of got tired of that,” he continued. “And then when the Ted thing was done, he stuck it out with Don [Dokken] as much as he could. But then just came a point where he just physically couldn’t do it anymore. And both of us have the same type of thing — I have it worse. It’s psoriatic arthritis.
“So it’s an immune deficiency thing. And he kind of worked his way through it; it kind of passed. But I know the kind of pain that I’m in, so for him to continue on like that kind of untreated too — ’cause I take shots and I do this and that and try to stay ahead of it a little bit… And one thing is when you’re sitting on a plane and then you’ve gotta get up, and you’re, like, ‘Oh, God.’ [Laughs]
“So I wasn’t surprised that he had decided to do [retire from touring]; I just didn’t think he was gonna stick with it forever,” Steve said. “And a couple of years later, I told my wife, I go, ‘Let’s go down and see him, see what’s going on down there.’ And he was great — and he was in the best possible mindset I’ve ever seen him in. And I thought, ‘Well, there you go.’ And soon after that he sold every piece of drum gear, everything he owns. And all of his friends that I run into out here, they’re just, like, ‘He really retired?’ I’m, like, ‘He doesn’t even have drums. He doesn’t even have drum sticks.’ [Laughs]”
Earlier this month, former DOKKEN guitarist George Lynch also touched on the chances of another reunion of the band’s classic lineup, telling VintageRock Pod that “Mick has retired. He sold his drums, got rid of his drums. He doesn’t play anymore. Maybe he goes and jams here and there. And for his own mental and physical health, he’s just kind of disconnected from the whole world, and he doesn’t return our calls. That’s okay.
“I think that’s probably what he needed to do, and I respect that. It’s sad in a way, because we were friends for decades and built something together; we came up together. It was Mick and I before anybody else — before Jeff [Pilson, bass] or Don. I would love to still be friends with him and maintain a relationship, but that’s all right.”
Lynch went on to say that he and Pilson “would probably” take part in another DOKKEN reunion if an opportunity arose and added that they “would do it with Steve Brown, which is Mick‘s brother, who we used on THE END MACHINE records. [He] looks just like Mick, plays just like Mick — a younger version of Mick. So that would work.”
The classic lineup of DOKKEN reunited back in October of 2016 to play the Loud Park festival in Japan. The performance was filmed and issued by Frontiers Music Srl in April 2018 under the name “Return To The East Live 2016”. On top of the Japan show, the release also featured footage from the reunited DOKKEN‘s only U.S. show, which took place in September of 2016 at Badlands in Sioux Falls, South Dakota.
DOKKEN‘s current lineup features frontman Don Dokken, bassist Chris McCarvill, guitarist Jon Levin and drummer BJ Zampa (HOUSE OF LORDS).
