Tom Werman produced the album, but the recordings were hampered by the clash of egos between vocalist Don Dokken and guitarist George Lynch, who could not work together in a studio at the same time, and by the excesses of musicians and technicians.

For these reasons, Werman was unable to carry on his work and quit the job after a few weeks, replaced by Roy Thomas Baker and Michael Wagener, who completed the recordings and mixed the album.

[6] Only when Dokken came under the management of the influential Q Prime Inc. of Cliff Burnstein and Peter Mensch, which also represented the successful Def Leppard, the band signed a contract with the major American label Elektra Records and eventually had the album released in their home country in 1983.

[6][7] Dokken went on an arena tour in the US as support act for Aldo Nova, Blue Öyster Cult and Rainbow,[8] but the band's increased exposure did not save the remixed reissue from commercial failure, and Elektra meditated to drop them.

[4] Meanwhile, bassist Juan Croucier had left Dokken to join the Los Angeles outfit Ratt[6] and guitarist George Lynch had quit and rejoined multiple times.

[9] Lynch auditioned for Ozzy Osbourne's band to replace the deceased Randy Rhoads but was not selected,[8] and finally settled in with Dokken after the release of their first album in the US.

[8] Lynch began laying down guitar riffs and music ideas on a four-track recorder at his home in 1983, soon joined by Pilson and drummer Mick Brown.

[4] Before pre-production began, Don Dokken proposed as producer his German friend Michael Wagener, whose curriculum included works with Accept, Raven, Great White and the production and engineering of Breaking the Chains.

[16] The recording of the album started in the spring of 1984 at Cherokee Studios in Hollywood, California with veteran sound engineer Geoff Workman, whose personality and erratic behaviour did not mesh easily with Werman's direction.

[15] Werman set the working schedule to avoid the contemporary presence of guitarist and vocalist in the studio, with the former recording with the rest of the band late morning and in the afternoon and the latter at night.

[17][18] Werman quit and left for a summer vacation with his family,[18] bringing Don Dokken to request again the hiring of Michael Wagener to complete the recordings and mixing the tracks.

[21] Elektra complied to Dokken's request, but hired also the British producer Roy Thomas Baker, famous for his work with Queen, Journey and The Cars[15][21] and for his hedonistic lifestyle.

[22][23] Baker's main task was to keep the band in check and occupied while Wagener recorded lead vocals by night and mixed the album, secretly assisted by Dokken.

The lead-off single for the album was "Into the Fire", which was released on September 11, 1984,[1] and received enough radio coverage to spend eight weeks in the Top 40 of Billboard's Hot Mainstream Rock Tracks chart from October to December 1984, peaking at No.

[37] The song can be heard in the VHS and DVD versions of the film in the opening sequence when the character Kristen Parker, played by Patricia Arquette, is listening to the radio in her bedroom.

[45] Third and last single to the album "Alone Again" was released in March 1985,[3] after the tour had concluded and became the band's biggest hit, spending fourteen weeks on the Hot Mainstream Rock Tracks chart, which included two at its peak position of No.

[36] More significantly, the ballad was aided by strong rotation of the Isham-directed music video on MTV that spring and summer,[39] giving the band their first and biggest hit on the Billboard Hot 100 chart, where its eleven-week run from May to July 1985 peaked at No.

Paul Suter, in his review for the British magazine Kerrang!, praised Don Dokken's "strongly melodic" vocals and the "thunderous riffing and dazzling soloing" of George Lynch, judging the album probably not the band's best but "more than a match for the pretenders to the throne of LA Metaldome.