Doro
Dedication

14.05.2015

Great female singers and frontwomen are in abundance on today’s metal scene, but there’s only one who is universally referred to as metal queen. And when the press people use this term, they don’t even put it in quotation marks, because it’s not a catch phrase, it’s a fact. It takes more than a plethora of good albums to earn this title, and it takes more than longevity in this business, even though Doro Pesch definitely has both of that. What puts Doro on top of her game is her endless dedication to the music she’s been making for 30 years, as well as to her fans. If you wanna see what this means in reality, there’s no need to go far – in late May the Metal Queen will return to Russia, and everyone who has ever visited her gigs will tell you that this experience is a must for every metalhead. For us as reporters interviewing Doro is also something special. We will even tell you more – experiences like that are what makes this job worthwhile. Of course, it’s hard to express the enthusiasm we heard in Doro’s voice in cold hard words on paper, but we hope that at least a portion of it does go through…

We are very happy to be interviewing you again. It’s been a while, we last talked to you after your Moscow show back in 2009…

Oh, I’m always excited to come back to Moscow. It a couple of days we are going to do the Full Metal Cruise, then a couple of more gigs, and then in May… The whole band is already excited.

Your upcoming concerts in Russia are being advertised as 30th anniversary shows. What kind of shows will they be, what kind of setlist will you perform?

We wanna play the highlights of all 30 years, some songs that we haven’t played in a long time and, of course, all the standout tracks of each album – from “Burning The Witches” through “True As Steel”, and of course, tons of stuff off the “Triumph And Agony” album. I still love that album, it has “I Rule The Ruins”, “All We Are”, “Fur Immer”… And then we wanna play some songs which we haven’t played in a long time, for example, “Without You” from the “Burning The Witches” album, it was the very first song I wrote, with my old guitar player. The song is creating such nice atmosphere. All these songs match together in the setlist - we will play old and new songs, and it fits like a glove, like a well-oiled machine. We will also do “Love Me In Black” and all the songs which I feel the fans really love, and then here and there some specials which fans don’t expect, but which are cool tunes. All in all, a whole package of 30 years, all highlights. No fillers, all killers!

Apart from Moscow and St. Petersburg, you will play in Ekaterinburg, and in the past you have performed in other cities across Russia. What is your impression about Russian regions? Our fellow countrymen have a saying, “If you’ve seen Moscow, it doesn’t mean you have seen the whole Russia” – do you have the same impression?

I must say every city has a different mentality. In smaller cities people are all excited, because they don’t get a chance to see bands every week. Sometimes you can really tell they’re like, “Wow!!!”, they’re really freaking out and going totally crazy, it’s really a joy to see. I feel it in other countries as well, worldwide, when you go a little bit outside the metropolis, people there are so super-happy and very much from the heart – that’s what I’ve always noticed, and I love it. I don’t care if it’s a big city or small city, a big club or a small club – for me it’s a real challenge for me to touch the people and give them a day which they will hopefully never forget, which they would refer to as “one of the most amazing experiences”, and that’s what I live for. It’s all good as long and people are coming. But yeah, sometimes different cities have different mentalities, different vibes, different feelings, and this is what makes it so exciting to play everywhere. Sometimes you go somewhere and you have a revelation, you say, “Wow, I didn’t expect that, and it’s so nice!” In some cities especially the girls are so beautiful, the guys in the band always notice that, after gigs they say, “Hey, did you see that this city has so many beautiful ladies?” It’s great.
Ekaterinburg is the city we’ve never played before, and I’m very excited. In St. Petersburg we’ve played a couple of times, and it was always a totally wacky crowd, going full-out. And St. Petersburg was totally different from Moscow in vibe and mentality, both were amazing but totally different.

Speaking about anniversaries – you celebrate them every five years, and every time the celebrations get bigger. In 2008 you played a very big arena show in your home city Dusseldorf, last year you did not one, but two anniversary shows. Do you have any idea how you can top this achievement when it’s time for the next anniversary? How about arranging a festival of your own?

Oh, that’s a great idea! I didn’t even know how to top the one we had in 2008, because it was so beautiful, with so many great guests. When the 30th anniversary came up, I thought, “Man, I can’t top the 25th one”. And then I thought, “How about we do two days – one day a full metal show with many guests, and the other day with orchestra and many guests?” It worked out great, but for the next one, I don’t know. Maybe we’ll do the 40th anniversary, I don’t know. The 35th one is coming up in a couple of years, and it took a couple of years to prepare the previous one. We’re on tour so much now that I don’t know if we’ll celebrate it big time, but the 40th one, if I make it, if I’m still alive, which I hope for, we’ll definitely think of something. A festival would be an awesome idea. At the latest anniversary I thought, “I wanna celebrate it all over the world”, and we took it on the road all over the world, starting from Wacken, which is one of my favorite festivals.
There are no plans for another anniversary yet, but I’m sure we will do something if everything is going well. But it’s always a lot of preparation, it really takes 1.5 years to set it up, to build the stage and stuff, so we’ll see. But there’s a DVD coming out from the 30th anniversary with all the highlights, it will be released in October. We’re just in the middle of doing it and the accompanying live CD. It already looks great and sounds great, but there’s a little bit more work to do.

And what is the situation with your next studio album? We heard that it is going to be released in 2016…

We have started with a couple of demos, some really great songs are in the making, but it will probably take another year. First we’ll do the DVD, which will probably take us till August, and then we’ll start writing. As the tour will last until December, I wouldn’t even know when we could go to the studio. We do have some nice song ideas in the demo form, there is especially one song which I think could really be a hit, which I feel strongly about. Yeah, it’s in the making, but it’s gonna take more time.

Your latest album “Raise Your Fist” was your first CD on Nuclear Blast Records. How did you like working with them? In what ways are they different from your former labels, AFM or SPV?

Nuclear Blast are, I would say, the biggest metal label, so they have some advantages, such as really great distribution all over the world. When we are touring, the record is actually there in the stores. They are very helpful, and they understand metal, which is something I really love. In the 80s and 90s I was on major labels, I was on Polygram and Warner Brothers, and they were really big labels, but there weren’t so many metalheads there, who totally understood our kind of vibe, our music. At Nuclear Blast you can be sure that everybody deeply understands metal - the whole lifestyle, the way of thinking, the music. It’s really nice that you work with the people who know, understand and love your music in the same way. I would always give everything for my music, and people who work there are always giving everything for metal and for their bands, and that’s great.
But I must say that AFM were great, too, and the record company I was before, SPV, were great as well. Sometimes you have to move to another label, because things happen. Some record companies I was with went out of business because times are tough for selling records, it’s not anymore like it was in the 80s and 90s, you guys probably know what I’m talking about. For example, I was at a Spanish label called Locomotive, and it was great, but they went bankrupt. Sometimes you have to keep it going.

What inspires you to write such songs as “Freiheit (Human Rights)”? I know it may not actually be the case, but most Russians are absolutely sure that you in Germany have no problem at all with human rights…

Yeah, but I feel that in other countries there are really severe problems. I’m connected with a human rights organization, it’s called Terre Des Femmes, and they take care of problems of young girls. They work worldwide, and the more I learn about it, the more I go like, “It’s horrible!” Thank God, I grew up in Germany, so I never had a problem being a girl, but in other countries it’s not the same. Lately, in the past couple of years, it has become so difficult that I try to do whatever I can. The song “Freiheit” is dedicated to Terre Des Femmes.
In Germany definitely you can do whatever you want, you can say whatever you want, but as I’m touring the world for 90 percent of out a year, I’m visiting different countries, and sometimes you can see really bad stuff that makes you go, “Wow, I didn’t know they’re still living in the Middle Ages”.
Even in Germany, there may not be political oppression, but there may be oppression of people in their own homes. There’s a lot of violence going on, when women get married to men they don’t even want. Here in Germany there’s all kinds of cultures, all kinds of people, and sometimes there are different backgrounds, different rules, and a lot of girls, a lot of young women here get to marry men they don’t even know, don’t even like. That’s a big problem in Germany. There are people who came to live in the country, and they still follow old rules and old traditions, and you hear it all the time on the radio and on TV that a young girl tried to escape from her marriage and got killed. That’s very common. Family members would even kill their own daughter because she wanted to escape and live a free life.

The “Raise Your Fist” album was later re-released with bonus-CD “Powerful Passionate Favorites”, and along cover versions of Metallica, Led Zeppelin and other rock artists, it contains your version of “Nutbush City Limits” by Tina Turner. It’s probably the first time you are covering a pop song – why did you decide to do it? Was Tina Turner an influence on you?

Yeah, big time, when I was a little kid. We wanted to do a bonus CD of bands and artists who inspired us all the way through, and Tina Turner, when I was growing up, when I was 5-7 years old, was the first woman who blew me away with her performance and her energy. It was so unbelievable! I remember there was a show in Germany, it was called Musikladen, and sometimes you could see in the newspapers which artists would come on, and when I saw info on Ike & Tina Turner, I was immediately like, “Oh, I have to see it!” It was always in the middle of the night, but my parents were pretty cool, they said, “OK, the kid wants to see it, let’s wake her up”, and at 11 or 12 o’clock I was sitting in front of the TV. She was definitely an artist which had so much power, passion and energy, so much soul. And when I covered the song, I managed to really dive deep into it. When you listen to it that close, when you try to get the lyrics and the melody, you really feel so empowered and so inspired all over again. I thought, “Wow, I’m so glad we did it even though it’s not a song which people would expect”. I love Tina Turner a lot for her energy and vibe. She had a hard life, I saw a movie about her once – lots of tragedies, lots of stepping stones, lots of things to overcome – and I can always relate to that, because it’s all been going up and down, up and down. So she inspired me as a person, as a musician, as a singer – and I love that song!

It’s one of the artists we regret not seeing live the most…

Yeah, but there’s so much great live footage of her, even now on Youtube, you watch them and go, “Wow, it’s such a treat!” Especially the early stuff of the 70s – yeah, it’s mind-blowing!

There is also a new song from the “Anuk 2” movie (“Warfare”) on that bonus CD. Do you have any plans to continue with your acting career? Have you received any offers?

Yeah, a couple of things. But to me it’s just something on the side. I’m always doing music, touring, making records and DVDs – that’s most important. Sometimes I get some offers, but we are on tour, or a tour is coming up… I’d like to continue it on the side, it always inspires me. The guy who’s doing the “Anuk” movie is now a great friend of mine, his name is Luke Gasser, he’s a great artist, very wild, a free spirit, and I think we inspire each other. He’s writing books, he’s an artist and a musician as well, and if he has an idea, I always wanna do it. The “Anuk 2” movie is probably coming out end of the year or the beginning of next year. I saw it already, it’s done, but he tries to find some distribution and stuff, which is not so easy. Distributing a record is difficult, but distributing a movie… wow! (laughs) With him I always love to stay connected and do stuff together, and if there are more “Anuk” movies, four, five, six, seven, that would be awesome. As to other movies – if it fits, if it feels good, if there’s somebody who totally understands, yeah, I might go for that. But I would be interested in something that is not too commercial, I like independent movie-makers more, not the big Hollywood movies. I like the underdogs, the outlaws. (laughs)

Speaking about movies, a few years ago you lent your voice to the German version of the “Metalocalypse” cartoon series. How did you like this experience?

I think it came out great! We had so much fun, we did it in Berlin with a really cool company, and we were all together in a room – Schmier of Destruction, Mille of Kreator. That was the first time that all metal musicians were in one place, and everybody did their best. We laughed a lot, sometimes we pissed in our pants of laughing! I think it came out really good. I would love to do more of that, I like that, too. Before that I had no idea that I would love doing voiceovers, but that experience was great. The American version has Lars Ulrich and James Hetfield, they did voiceovers of the characters, and it was so cool that we got to do the German version.

What do you think about the actual cartoon? Don’t you think that an outsider who is not so familiar with the metal culture sees it, he might get a totally wrong impression of the metal scene?

Well, yeah… But I think that if somebody is not feeling metal and not getting it, they will never do it, they will always misunderstand metalheads. I see it every day – if people are not into metal, they have a different attitude, different thoughts, different opinions… You’re probably right, they will have no clue what it’s all about. But I think it’s very well done.
In the beginning when we started playing metal, it was quite difficult. Sometimes we couldn’t get any food when we went into a restaurant. I remember people were really… they looked at us, and they didn’t like it, and we had to get out of the place. I heard it from my band members all the time when I wasn’t with them. Now, in this day and age, it’s pretty much accepted, it’s pretty cool. I tell you, I like staying with metal people, with metalheads, I feel they have much more heart and soul, and I like that. Other people can be cool, too, but I’m so into it, I’m so into music, and I don’t even have much contact to the outside people. (laughs)

If you talk to people from other countries, people with different mentalities, and if they’re into metal, it’s much easier to find a common language.

That’s so great! I feel that all over the world metalheads have one heart and one soul, you immediately feel that these are your friends. In some countries where I couldn’t speak the language at all, for example, in China or Thailand, and sometimes they wouldn’t speak English, it was really difficult to understand each other, but you look into each other’s eyes, you see, “They’re into metal”, and that’s it. I really love that. I learned to appreciate it even more over the last 10 years.

You’ve worked with many artists, recording and performing live with them, and your own band’s line-up has gone through a few changes over the years. We know that music business is a tough business, where people often say bad things about each other, but we’ve never heard or read an artist whom you work with say anything bad about you or express their dissatisfaction with your collaboration. How do you manage to make everyone around you happy?

(laughs) Oh I just… I always try to do the right things. And I love people. This band has been together for a long time. Nick Douglas, the bass player, has been with us for 25 years, and Johnny Dee, the drummer, for 22 years, and the two guitar players for eight years. We’re definitely like a family, best friends, and it works great. People who leave the band usually have their personal reasons, one guy wanted to start a family, or another guy wanted to start his own band, and there are never bad feelings, it’s never been like we split because there was a big fight or something. It’s all very human, and I always try to stay in contact with them. If somebody calls me and says, “Hey Doro, I have this idea, can you help me out?”, I’m always there. We always keep a good vibe, there has never been anybody who was really upset that something didn’t work out. I always try my hardest to make people feel good, and feel appreciated. Sometimes things change, you leave and then maybe you come back to the band, and that’s alright, too. I always try to treat people with utmost respect. I love people, and I think they know it about me. And nobody has to be perfect, I’m not perfect either. People may have different ambitions and different goals sometimes, for example, my keyboard player, Oliver Palotai, is now a happy dad, he’s got a son, he started a family, and he plays with Kamelot, but we’re still on very good terms.

There’s one collaboration that we have to ask you about, because it was a total surprise to us. We are speaking about Tankard and their song “Metal Ladyboy”. How did they manage to talk you into doing it? Did they tell you in advance what the song is about?

Actually I played Thailand, too, and I think they got an idea when they played Thailand, that a ladyboy is a very respected person there! It was funny - they called me and sent me the song, and I totally knew what the song was about. I thought, “I love that song!”, and I love the guys of Tankard. We have always been good friends, both me and they started in the early 80s, I remember they were one of the first metal bands in Germany. So I wanted to do it, and I think it came out great. And I think a song about a ladyboy is pretty cute! (laughs)

Our final question for today - have you ever considered establishing your own clothing line? You are known for having a very distinctive style, and we’re sure many girls would be willing to buy outfits that are modeled after the ones you wore on stage or on photo shoots.

Actually I’ve already had one. It was called “Love Me In Black”, and people really liked it. It was definitely more for girls than for men, we only had a couple of jackets for men, but for girls we had lots of tops, jackets and little sexy things. We’re currently working on a second collection, though I don’t know if it will be called “Love Me In Black” again. We’re doing this with EMP, they’re the biggest mailorder in Germany. It will probably take a couple of more months, but it’s in the making. And of course, it will be all black. (laughs)

That’s it for this interview Doro, thank you very much for your time! Probably you would like to say a few final words to the Russian metalheads who are going to come to your shows in the end of May…

Metalheads, my dear friends, I’m so happy to come back to Russia! I have a very special connection to the Russian fans, one of my best friends lives in Russia, her name is Viktoria, and I feel at home in Russia. I’m so excited to come back, and I will give it my all. We will play all the highlights of 30 years and whatever the fans want. The whole band is so on fire, and it sounds like a well-oiled machine because we’ve toured so much. You will only get the best of the best! I’m so happy and so grateful that there have been my loyal supporters all these years, I was always so happy with my gigs in Russia, but this time we will try to top them. I love you metalheads, spasibo, and I will see you very soon.

Doro on the Internet: http://www.doromusic.de

Special thanks to Alexey Kuzovlev for arranging this interview

Roman Patrashov, Natalie “Snakeheart” Patrashova
April 7, 2015
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