Talent. Brilliance. Integrity. These are terms often tossed about too freely but are accolades truly fitting when discussing heavy metal’s reining queen for 25 plus years, the one and only Doro Pesch. During her tenure in the colorful 80’s classic straight up metal band Warlock and her time spent fronting the band Doro, she has inspired countless wayward souls to feel better, important and part of something bigger, the worldwide metal nation. Doro has done so much for music, from collaborating with some of rock’s biggest names to penning some truly memorable and motivating songs such as “All We Are”, “I’ll Be Holding On” and “You’re My Family” that you can live inside of and let into your heart. Pesch is that rarest of artists who is a natural on stage, has a voice to die for and is still down to earth and full of humility even after accomplishing much more than many people of lesser ambition ever dare to dream of.

There have been many milestones in Pesch’s career, but her recent celebration of twenty five years and counting in an unforgiving music business while remaining steadfast to her true sense of creativity and individuality is astounding. It’s Doro’s loyalty and reverence for her fans (not in a pandering way but in a thankful way) that is precisely what inspires such rabid devotion in her fan base. Her amazing, soaring voice and aforementioned ability to rule the stage or any crowd has kept her relevant album after album. Nuclear Blast Records is paying due homage to Pesch with the new 2DVD/CD Doro set 25 YEARS IN ROCK, a bad ass collection that features her 25 year anniversary concert including guest performances in front of about 10,000 enthusiastic fans in Düsseldorf, Germany as well as a segment on her trips to China, outtakes from Doro’s 2500th concert and much more. It is a fan’s wet dream (um…).

Metal is not just a song or a haircut. It is passion, philosophy and electricity. It’s Sepultura’s gnarly and dirty thrashterpiece “Slaves Of Pain” sneaking in through the cracks of a mundane suburban existence and taking on so much meaning. It’s Rob Halford changing the world with Judas Priest’s ingenious fearlessness (and getting millions of tough guys to sing along to “Hellbent For Leather”). It’s Lamb Of God injecting empowering personal and world politics into every blood drenched riff of AS THE PALACES BURN. It’s the feeling fans get right before Doro sings that first note at every show, right before the expectation breaks in a wave and her voice transports you to a better place.

We spoke by phone with Doro Pesch while she was doing a short stint of East Coast dates just prior to her band’s first ever trip to Japan. Crusher got the low down on the new DVD set and listened avidly to Doro recount some amazing memories from her career. We were beyond excited as we really are fan boys when it comes to Doro worship, but tried our best not to sound like the Chris Farley Show SNL skit where Chris is “interviewing” Jeff Daniels. Luckily Doro is incredibly friendly, cool and easy to talk to plus is very excited whenever she is discussing the music and fans she loves so much. It was a great experience and we hope this article makes you all want to go out, blast some Doro and rock the world. It was a dreary and cloudy day during the interview and when we got off the phone and left the office post-conversation with Doro, the sky had unbelievably opened up to a stunning and very power metal looking sunset that would have been worthy of a Doro album cover. You could almost feel Ronnie James Dio smiling down upon us all. Hail metal!!!!!

MYE: Hi Doro! Can you hear us?

DORO PESCH: Hi! (laughing) Pretty good.

MYE: Hello from New York! How are you doing? You are in the States right now.

DORO: Hello! I am loving it here. I saw Accept yesterday in the city and it was awesome. I was blown away. It was so great.

MYE: You like them with Mark Tornillo?

DORO: Oh yeah. It is so hard to replace somebody, but I think they did a really good job. The whole band. The guitar player Wolf Hoffman was incredible. Really good.

ANDREW JOHANN DATOUSH: I saw you play Poughkeepsie a few years ago and got a chance to meet you. I wanted to ask, how does it feel coming back to the U.S.?

DORO: Yeah, it always is great! I love the U.S. so much ever since my first tour here. I feel so at home here. We haven’t been playing here on a regular basis, so I love it.

MYE: Unlike some very grumpy heavy metal singers, you always are smiling! (laughing) It’s great.

DORO: (laughing) Yeah, I guess most of the time. Maybe during “Burning The Witches” I am a little more furious, but usually I wanna make the people happy. I am so thankful to go on stage and connect to the people and make them happy. Give them energy and put them in a good, happy state of mind. I love the fans so much. They are my inspiration.

MYE: You always look like you are having fun and it really rocks.

DORO: Onstage I don’t feel any pain. When I’m sick as a dog, and usually I am always sick on tour…onstage, I don’t feel nothing. Before and after, that’s a different story but onstage, I feel great vibrations from the fans. It’s awesome. Touring you can be on the road for 9 months and when you are tired or sick you have to cope, but it is so rewarding on stage and it is like ,”Yeah! Ok!” (laughing)

AJD: You’ve done a number of covers over the years including “Fear Of The Dark”, “Egypt (The Chains Are On)”, “White Wedding”. What qualities does a song have to posses to be a good song for you to cover?

DORO: It’s rare I want to do cover songs unless there is a deep meaning or something it means to me. I was and still am a big Ronnie James Dio fan and somebody from ROCK HARD magazine out of Germany called me up and said ,”Well, they are putting together a tribute album and would you be interested?” I said I was totally interested and I told them my two favorite songs of Ronnie’s were “The Last In Line” or “Egypt (The Chains Are On)”. They said to just pick one and I went into the studio and it was around the year 2000. It sounded so good and Ronnie was just releasing his MAGICA album. I was going to the release party and there were many people there. They played the record and everyone had a nice time. I saw Ronnie and he said, “Doro! Nice to see you. I just wanted to tell you that the version of “Egypt”…I really really loved and you guys did a terrific job. Someone requested it on the radio and I heard it and I wanted to thank you.” There were tears in my eyes. I love to play that song and even more so now because I miss him and love him so much. That’s what a song needs, to have something magical and special. We did one time a cover version of “Breaking The Law” and it was my first big tour in ’86 with Judas Priest. My manager called me up and said, “Doro, are you ready to quit your job?” and I said, “Yeah. Why?” and he said, “You’re going on tour with Judas Priest”! I quit my job that day! We toured together and got treated so well. I learned a lot from them. It was awesome. Years later I thought… I just wanted to say thank you to Judas Priest. We did “Breaking The Law” different with an orchestra and at the same time I did the song with Udo Dirkschneider for “Dancing With An Angel” and we were doing the video. It was a really special, different record. Then I thought I’d have Udo sing a duet with me on “Breaking The Law” with Udo and I heard the Judas Priest guys really liked the version too.

MYE: I love the way you did the verses in that cover.

DORO: Live, it is definitely one of the highlights. “All We Are” and “Breaking The Law” are always highlights. So, yeah, a song has to be special.

AJD: Well, speaking of the interesting cover of “Breaking The Law” and using the orchestra, would you ever think of covering something by Dokken?

DORO: (laughing) That would be a cool idea. I don’t know. We definitely want to do many, many more records. Maybe twenty more records. Who knows? Maybe the next record something magical will happen. I don’t know yet.

MYE: I really, really love the song “Haunted Heart” and I wanted to ask what you were going through when you wrote that song? It is such a powerful song that stays with you.

DORO: It makes me so happy that you like it. Johnny Dee gets to do a drum solo in the middle. It’s so cool live. It’s even better. It’s about when you hang on to somebody and can’t let go. The heart is haunted from the person you feel very attached to. Something everybody has been through many times. Sometimes on the road I start to miss people or people from many years ago. Sometimes you think, “Aww, shit.” Y’know, it didn’t work out. You start to miss people or lovers. It was maybe great at the time but being a musician you are on tour and gone, in a different mind frame. Touring, relationships are hard. That’s kind of what the song is about.

MYE: It is a sad song, but it still feels good. It’s comforting. A lot of your songs like “Always Live To Win” for example, they are motivating. Even the sad songs are comforting because your voice has this beautiful quality during the sad stories.

DORO: Oh, that’s good. That’s great to hear. When we were doing a tour somebody came up to me and the stage was pretty low. Someone came up to me and said , “Listen Doro, I just wanted to tell you…I just survived twenty years in jail. Because of your music I kept going.” I thought, “Oh my God”! He was tattooed from head to toe and it had been really hard. I could really see it was hard what he went through and I was so happy that someone could get good energy from the music and survive a lot. When I started music I was more into the darker stuff but over the years I want to make people happy. That’s more important in this day and age where everything is complicated or pretty dark anyhow.

AJD: Are there any metal acts of today that you’ve seen that have something that makes you want to work with them?

DORO: Well, I was a big Accept fan and it was one of my first metal concerts. My very first one was Whitesnake. David Coverdale was unbelievable. I think it was with Judas Priest and Accept in 1980.I was so inspired and yesterday when I saw Accept again I was so inspired. I thought I would love to have Wolf play a solo on the next record (Note: If only we remembered to ask her if Warlock’s cover art for TRUE AS STEEL was inspired by Accept’s METAL HEART album that was released a year prior in the 80’s. It would be interesting to find out, especially considering the connection with Warlock and U.D.O.). I was blown away. I hadn’t seen them in so many years and yesterday was awesome. I’d love to have Wolf Hoffman do something or Rob Halford, sometime. I love collaborations like when I did “Alone Again” with Lemmy. It’s tough because I have already done so many collaborations with people I love. I have to say, I am a big Rammstein fan. They have such a unique stage show and they are wild. I know them from ’95 when we did a little promotional tour together in front of a couple of hundred people. They had a demo and the record company was presenting the new band. I thought it was unbelievable and have seen them a couple of times since. They are top of the line. Maybe doing something with them would be great.

MYE: That would be awesome!

DORO: (laughing) Yeah, but…they don’t know about it yet.

EVERYONE: (laughing)

MYE: We love your 20 YEARS: A WARRIOR SOUL DVD and now you have the 25 YEARS IN ROCK DVD documenting the 25th anniversary performance in Germany. I heard that Liv from the band Sister Sin is on it. We love that band here at Crusher! I wondered what were some of your favorite moments from the concert/DVD?

DORO: Yeah. “Always Live To Win” with Bobby from Overkill. Warrel Dane came up on stage when we did “True As Steel”. There was a little history going on because my first big American tour was with Megadeth and Sanctuary. I thought it was so cool he came by and we sang together. Chris from Gravedigger was there…and Tarja (Turunen), she did “Walking With The Angels” with me.

MYE: Love that duet. Ethereal.

DORO: Thank you. It was very special. The concert was so awesome. The Scorpions and I did “Big City Nights”. We played together in 1986 and they were headlining with Ozzy Osbourne. It opened so many doors. It was great to have them as guests. Floor Jansen from After Forever. Then of course Girl School and so many more.

MYE: Everybody!

DORO: (laughing) Everybody, yeah! Everybody was on stage singing and the stage was almost too small! It was so good to see all the metal people, whether they come from hardcore speed metal or traditional metal. Everyone was getting along and having a great time and so much fun. That is what metal is all about. No matter what kind of metal, in the end it is all metal. That was the highlight, during “All We Are” when you see it. And so much pyrotechnics! It looks a little like the Madison Square Garden of Germany. On the DVD there is a documentary on it with all the guests having fun stories and the highlights of this year and last year. There’s a China section, because we went to China. It makes for a full package. You can watch six, seven, eight hours! It’s a double DVD and there are live tracks on it as well on a bonus CD. I hope people really like it.

MYE: It sounds really exciting.

AJD: Your first time touring Japan is coming up. How excited are you about that?

DORO: Super excited. I always wanted to go there. It has always been a country where it was difficult for us to get there, even though the fan base was huge. So many metal fans there! Somehow, I dunno…we had a problem that I was a woman. We had that in the 80’s a little bit and I couldn’t even believe it was true when I heard it again in 2000. The A&R guy at another label said it was impossible to go over there because I was female. We always were trying and now for the first time, I definitely want to make up for all of the years we didn’t. I am going to play all the classic songs and highlights. I’m super, super excited.

MYE: Your voice sounds so great after so many good records and shows. What tips do you have for singers?

DORO: Do what you can with conviction. Give 150%. Yeah, that’s my advice. When I see the fans I can sing ten times better than when I am alone or in the studio with just an engineer. Give it your all. Just sing and get it out. For a metal and rock singer, it comes from the gut and the heart. I actually had vocal lessons because everybody said, “Oh, you’re not trained.” In the 80’s I thought no one wanted to hear it anymore so I took vocal lessons but then I did. After that fans asked if I could sing like I did before! They said, “No. It sounded better! Just sing.” I thought, “Wow!” I was working all that time. I try to enunciate a lot. For rock and metal you have to put all your energy behind it. That’s the most important thing and it is very natural.

MYE: Ronnie James Dio said, “You either got it or you don’t.”

DORO: (laughing) Really? Yeah! Go for it.

AJD: With 25 years and counting in the music business, you’ve toured the globe and shared the stage with stars like Blaze Bayley and Udo and Lemmy. You’ve been hailed the world over as “the metal queen”. What has been the biggest moment for you so far?

DORO: There were a couple of biggest moments. One was playing the MONSTERS OF ROCK festival for thousands of people at Castle Donington. All the critics and everybody was very critical and then they saw the fans going totally crazy! It was one of my absolute biggest moments. Then, all the times collaborating with people I love like Lemmy. Then the tour in 2000 with Ronnie James Dio when metal was just starting to come back. You know, the 90’s for metal was pretty painful for everybody. “You want to go on tour in the States?” “Yeah, for what?” And then actually I did a radio interview and they asked if we had touring plans and we said we were looking. The interviewer said, “A great tour would be with Ronnie James Dio”. I thought that would be fantastic as we’d last toured together in 1987. It turned out Ronnie was calling the studio in an hour to talk to them and they asked if they should suggest it to him! I said yes! A couple months later we went on tour together! That was the best tour. Metal was coming back and getting bigger again. I thought it was done in the grunge times and never thought metal would come back this strong. That year everything changed and that was one of the highlights of my life.

MYE: Doro, you are such a champion of heavy metal. We are so happy we got to talk to you today.

DORO: Thank you Morgan and thank you Andrew for having me! It was very nice talking to you.

AJD: It was an honor for us to talk to you.

MYE: Yeah, we are huge fans. The next time you hear “We Are The Champions” by Queen please think of us because we are hereby dedicating it to you because you are such a champion of rock!

DORO: Oh, thank you. You’re very sweet. That’s so nice. I don’t know what to say.

Picture of DORO taken by Andrew Johann Datoush