Doro - When East Meets West...

Trust it to be somewhere like England where the electricity of German born Doro Pesch would be relatively unknown amongst the music scene, unlike the legions of fans she has not just in our European counterpart but worldwide too.

For those of you that aren't familiar with Doro, imagine fusing Judas Priest with Blondie and the hybrid child would be something not too far from the likes of Doro. Back in the Eighties she played with the the big guys such as Ozzy, Bon Jovi, Dio and Judas Priest; which in a predominantly male dominated scene, is a huge step forward for female fronted bands. As I sit here listening to her first band, Warlock, I can't help feeling that I've been missing out and it's easy to hear how her previous album 'Triumph And Agony' has sold over 1 Million records worldwide. 2009 sees the release of her tenth solo studio album 'Fear No Evil' released via AFM Records, so when I was given the chance to speak to the original Metal Queen; how could I refuse?

I arrive at Bristol Academy on a dreary bank holiday afternoon to the sound of Saxon soundchecking, I wait around for Doro to take her turn and I'm blown away by her voice; such power from a feminine metal beauty. After soundcheck she introduces herself and we head somewhere quiet to talk - of all places we could find, we end up in the women's toilets away from the men and noise... (N.B we weren't sat on the toilets as some had assumed, we had a sofa thank you very much!)

So with the release of 'Fear No Evil' back in February, had the album succeeded her expectations? 'Oh yes, we released the single 'Celebrate' and it reached number three in the Spanish Charts! We've never been in the top ten as normally a metal singer never gets in the charts so I was very happy to have a top ten single! The album reached #11 in Germany too, I guess it is a good time! I was really happy as the reactions were great. With support shows we only get to play 50 minutes so we get to play a few new tracks but with headline shows we'll play about five new tracks but I'm very pleased, it couldn’t be better!' If you're not familiar with Doro yet, YouTube 'All We Are' which is an anthemetic 80's heavy metal song that made Doro hit the big time, allowed her to write songs with Gene Simmons and Lemmy, play gigs with WASP and a record contract with WEA. 'We always try to play the title track of each album but they're are so many, 'Burning The Witches', 'I Rule The Ruins'. But fifty minutes is like eight or nine songs so not many, but we definitely want to come back and play like two hours so we can play all the goodies, but at the moment we just concentrate on the highlights of each record. If we see the audience wants to hear some of the older tracks then we'll play the older stuff, if they wanna hear the anthems then we can make each set a little bit different.'

It's quite overwhelming to see a woman so passionate about metal, in the few years I've been interviewing bands, Doro is by far the most enthusiastic and genuine person I've ever met, her gratefulness towards music literally pours out of her so when prompted to question what she'd be doing if she wasn't a front woman? 'Oh I'm so happy that I can do music, everyday I love it so much. I think I like sports and arts so I wanted to become a painter, I love to paint but I haven't done it in a long time. I love to paint and with sports you can only do it for so long, your career ends at like 25 so arts I guess. Maybe writing some movie scripts, I always have a good connection with independent movie makers too.' Unbeknown to the average metalhead Doro starred in a movie as a warrior complete with bow & arrow! I played a role in 'Warrior Soul' we made the music for the soundtrack too which was great fun, I like all the good stuff against all the evil enemies, it was really great, I always like the subject between good and evil and hope that good wins! So I guess between action, spiritual, horror, all kinds of stuff but with positive energy and I like happy endings, I think in life it's already too complicated so at least in the movie I like to find a good ending.'

Doro had her first release back in '84 with her then band 'Warlock' and had a succession of songs that are in the vein of '80s arena rock crossed with British Heavy Metal. Doro's love of Judas Priest inspired her to make music, and her first big break came when 'Priest took her on tour as main support in the early eighties which was a 'dream come true.' This tour with Saxon isn't the first time they've toured together either, 'We've toured together before about five years ago and it was awesome, it's great, all the Saxon fans are grateful and we all like to have a  great time. It's actually the last gig of the UK tomorrow night, but we haven't toured the UK in a long time - doing such a long tour is really great but yeah I think we had a total blast'  Saxon front man Bif also seems enthused to have her on tour with them stating during their set that 'she needs to play over here more often' and citing how great she is to have on tour!

Last year she played her 25th Anniversary show along with bands such as Tarja Turunen, Holy Moses, Leaves Eyes and her old band Warlock even reformed to support! 'It was awesome to see all my old friends and inspirations, for example Bobby Dain, that was my first US tour with Megadeth and Century, some really special people, all the guys from Warlock except the bass player as he gave up music so we used my bass player now, and all the girls too! We had support from Arch enemy, Holy moses and Leaves eyes. I just phoned all my friends from the past and got them together, it was awesome, a lot of people from the past showed up and I played for three and a half hours! When asked what it was like performing with Warlock again after all these years, Doro sighs as if remembering the past years of her fronting her original band. Their previous manager somehow won the rights to the name 'Warlock' so Doro could not be associated with it until just recently when she took it back to court and managed to win it back. 'We had to get the name back, to use it again is actually really great. It's why I had to continue under the name 'Doro' as I didn’t have the rights to the name but I just won it back and I'm together with my band for such a long time, I have to see that I don’t ruin what I have with them, playing with Warlock again, it was actually twenty five years ago and when we were all stood next to each other it was weird, when we first started out our drummer was fourteen and now he's a grown man! I'd look back and see him fully grown and I'm like 'wow look how he's changed, he's not fourteen!' We got along great and it was great to be back together.'

Doro also worked with old producer Joey Balin on new album 'Fear No Evil' after they met on her last tours in the US 'We did two tours last year and the year before. I said 'Hey it would be nice to hook up again' to see if we still have a good chemistry and on the last record I said 'Yeah lets do it' so I told him I wanted to write a song to hear that everyone can sing along too and to celebrate the metal years! We went into the studio and recorded 'Celebrate', we wrote like four songs together and two of them made it on the the album. 'Walking With The Angels' was the other song with Tarja, in all those years we're still good friends and can still work together.'

Doro clearly has a love for female fronted singers, she's done duets with ex-Nightwish front woman Tarja, Holy Moses and has a host of female fronted singers joining her on single 'Celebrate'. 'There are lot of great bands for example I like Crucified Barbara from Sweden, they were our support band in Russia. I like Arch Enemy and Angela Gossow, Lacuna Coil, Tarja, Girl School - we played together a couple of times with them, actually Girlschool were the first ladies I asked to sing on 'Celebrate' I saw them in London and when they were opening up for Dio, they're really cool women. I'm so happy for them, we met each other in the early 80's and I think they're a great band with all female musicians, very cool. I like all kinds of metal genres, like all the women who sang on 'celebrate' come from all different backgrounds and we're all friends and I love them all so much, they're very cool. Also Benediction and Floor Jansen from After Forever. It makes women look really good, I remember in the 80's and we didn’t have that many female fronted bands, but the ones that were around tried to be sexy but it looked a little bit cheap, that totally went away and now its all very powerful, talented and dignified.'

So if Doro had to choose one song that she wishes she could have written? 'Ooh I love Danzig's 'Mother', I love it so much, I think it has so much depth, I love the melody, I love the intensity, I love the energy and I'm a big Danzig fan. Yeah 'Mother' I would have to choose!' Personally I think that it's great to see a woman so passionate about the music scene, Doro has so much energy and so much love, not just for other bands but her fans too. On stage she dedicates her cover of 'Breaking The Law' to Judas Priest for believing in her and giving her a chance, and after 25 years in the music business, she's doing better than ever.