Former DOKKEN band members George Lynch (guitar) and Jeff Pilson (bass) are currently working on a set of new studio recordings that turn pop music songs into powerful metal anthems. The follow-up to 2020’s “Heavy Hitters”, tentatively titled “Heavy Hitters 2”, will be released later in the year via Deadline Music, a subsidiary of Cleopatra Records, Inc.
In a new interview with Tone-Talk, Lynch confirmed that “Heavy Hitters 2” will contain 11 songs, including a cover of Sam Smith’s “Stay With Me” and “an original Christmas song.”
Pilson added: “It’s us doing covers, which is really fun. We kind of get to experiment a little bit. So we’re doing another one of those. And I don’t know when it’ll come out. But it’ll probably be done in the next couple of months.”
Regarding how far along they are with the project, Pilson said: “We just did the seventh song. But we’re only doing musical beds right now. We haven’t done vocals. And there’s only a few bass tracks. Brian Tichy is gonna add the drums when we’re done with the 11 songs. So we’re seven songs in with musical beds, if that makes sense.”
On how they approach the music they cover, George commented: “Basically, what we did is we took stupid songs that guys like THE ROLLING STONES and CROSBY, STILLS & NASH and guys like that, but we fixed them. Now we did them right, like they should have been done originally.”
“Heavy Hitters” featured guest appearances by BULLETBOYS’ Marq Torien, FISHBONE’s Angelo Moore, EARSHOT’s Wil Martin and the aforementioned Brian Tichy (WHITESNAKE, OZZY OSBOURNE). The effort contained Lynch and Pilson’s renditions of Rufus and Chaka Khan’s “You Got The Love”, Carole King’s “I Feel The Earth”, DURAN DURAN’s “Ordinary World”, Madonna’s “Music”, ONEREPUBLIC and Timbaland’s “Apologize”, Martha Reeves and THE VANDELLAS’ “Nowhere To Run”, Prince’s “Kiss”, R.E.M.’s “It’s The End Of The World As We Know It (And I Feel Fine)” and OASIS’s “Champagne Supernova”, among others.