Blowin’ Wind with Doro Pesch: “I will never do a goodbye or farewell tour. I want to do this until the day I die.”

For 30 years, Doro Pesch has been standing strong as the First Lady of Metal. Long before the metal scene was littered full of female fronted bands, Doro was fronting her band Warlock. In a time where most women were objectified and used as sex objects in videos, Doro was standing strong and proving that she could rock just as hard, if not harder, than any of the boys. Doro has been bringing her anthems and powerful, energetic shows to fans all over the world and is showing no signs of slowing down. Doro is also a woman who is really hard to get to sit still for any amount of time so to get to talk to her recently was a real honor for this fan of 25 years.

Doro was gracious enough to talk with me about her forthcoming album Raise Your Fist, her excitement of her most extensive US tour in years, and what it was like being a female in a mostly male dominated genre of music. This was a really fantastic conversation with a remarkable woman and a true gem of the Heavy Metal world. Sit back and enjoy this conversation with the great Doro Pesch.

Hi Doro, this is Don from The Great Southern Brainfart. How are you today?

Hello Don. I am doing very well today thank you and yourself?

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I’m doing great Doro. I have to start off by saying that as a fan for over 25 years, it’s an honor to get to speak with you today.

Oh Don, thank you for taking the time to do this today. This is great. Don, where are you located?

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I’m in Atlanta, GA which means I will be seeing you in February for the first time and I am very excited.

I’m so excited too. We are playing on the 70,000 Tons of Metal cruise and then we have the US tour which is going to be great.  I’m very excited to see everyone.

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I’ve been a fan ever since hearing “All We Are” back in 1987 and have never seen you live so this will be my first time.

Oh Don that is so cool. Definitely be prepared for some good, positive energy. I think you’ll have a good time. We are playing at the Masquerade and it is the 2nd gig of the tour after the 70,000 Tons of Metal cruise. I’m very excited.

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Doro, the Raise Your Fist album is truly a fantastic album. After all these years, how do you manage to not run out of ideas and keep that fire?

It’s easy to keep that fire because I know why I am doing this. I do this to make the fans happy and the fans are the most important thing in my life. When it comes time to do a new record, I am so motivated and I just want to give the fans something exciting that they will find interesting and that they will enjoy. When you’ve been doing this so long, people like to compare you to the best stuff and it’s always hard to outdo them. It just comes out of you. These magical ideas you just can’t force it. It flows out whenever it does. It’s always a great challenge to write a new album. We took 2 ½ years to do this one. The energy you feel when everything starts flowing just puts me in a zone and it just comes out. It’s a lot of magic.

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When you’re working on a new album, do you work on the road?

I can only do a record when I’m not touring. I could never work on a new record while on tour because it’s two different elements to be in. I need to have time to concentrate on it and do nothing else. It’s a totally different mindframe. Once the album is finished than I start to think about how I can present it live.

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When I first heard Warlock in the 80’s, I was blown away by the fact that this was a full on metal band fronted by a woman. In the 80’s women weren’t really well represented in the hard rock/metal world. How hard was it to be a female fronting a metal band in those times?

Don, it was always great to be honest. It didn’t seem to matter that I was a female. I was treated very good and with respect. I was always very supported by so many other bands and musicians. I never felt second best or degraded. I think everybody knew that I was totally dedicated from the get go. Even in the very beginning I was very supported. It really made no difference being a man or a woman and I never felt that I couldn’t do it. If people were saying negative things, maybe I just couldn’t hear it [laughs]. I know sometimes magazines made a big deal about me being a female but to me it was always totally natural.

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What was your first big tour back in the day?

My first big tour was in 1986 opening for Judas Priest and we were treated so well. Rob Halford and the other guys in the band were very supportive. My 2nd big tour was in 1987 with Ronnie James Dio and I think that he was the sweetest person I have ever met. He was the greatest talent and I always said that I learned from the best and I learned a lot from him.

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At what point did you know that you wanted to be a musician?

I wanted to become a singer ever since I was three years old. I first heard the Little Richard song “Lucille” and was hooked. I didn’t play with dolls or anything else from then on. I just listened to music day in and day out. When I was 15, I had my first band but before that I was a graphic artist. I was really ill for a long time and was between life and death in the hospital for a year and I remember saying that if I ever got out of it that I wanted to do something with my life and make people happy. Then I got out and was totally fine and started my first band and at 15 or 16 when it was just the beginning of heavy metal.

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Warlock wasn’t your first band though right?

That’s right Don. My first band was actually called Snakebite and then the 2nd band was called Beast. The 3rd band was Attack and then it was Warlock. Warlock actually started in 1982 and I guess it was the right time. We did a couple of demos and we had a fanclub back then and started sending out cassettes and we didn’t even know about it. A couple of weeks later we got four offers for record deals. We signed to Mausoleum Records because they had the coolest logo and it looked real metal to us [laughs]. We were just doing it for fun. I wish we would’ve looked over the contract more but we didn’t. We just said, “Cool logo. Let’s make a record.” [laughs] That was the beginning.

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And now you’re on Nuclear Blast. I think that’s the perfect label for you.

Don, I’m really happy to now be on Nuclear Blast. That’s been my dream label for a long time and now we’re there. I still have a great relationship with all my past labels and we are all good friends still.

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Doro, female fronted bands seem to be in such abundance these days. It bums me out when I see some of these female fronted bands relying heavily on the sexual image of their singer to sell their band. What are your thoughts on this?

The music should be the most important thing. If the music is good and it touches you, that’s the important thing. The image should be 2nd to the music. If people don’t like the songs it doesn’t matter how sexy the image is. When something looks good visually that’s good but it’s not enough. If you’re a sexy woman and you like to dress up sexy there is nothing wrong with that but as long as it doesn’t look cheap. In the 80’s the video producers were always putting sexy chicks in all the metal videos and I felt like that it was cheap and not dignified. If you look cool and sexy on stage but you have a great voice and great songs, I think that’s cool. Just don’t put too much emphasis on the sex.

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You are doing on your first extensive US tour in a really long time. What can your US fans expect from this tour?

Don, you can expect to hear the best of all the stuff. Highlights from all the Warlock records. We’ll definitely be playing songs from the first Warlock album Burning the Witches. We’ll play All We Are, and then I want to do some surprises like some Warlock songs that I’ve never performed live which the old fans will love. We’ll play the best of the songs from the last few records and songs from the new album. I can’t wait to hear which songs the fans like the most from the new record so we can prepare. It will just be high energy and I want to give the people something they will never forget to take them away from their everyday stress. I just want to create magic on stage every night. Every night could be the last show so I want every show to be mind blowing. We never hold back. Sometimes after a show I am so exhausted and then to play in another city, I can barely get the energy to crawl out of my bunk [laughs]. Then I hear the fans in front of the venue chanting “All We Are” and I know then I that I have to get ready to go out there.

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That attitude right there is why you have such a diehard fan base that will never give up on you.

Don, I love all of fans and they are the reason why I am alive. I promise I will never give up. I will never do a goodbye or farewell tour. I want to do this until the day I die.

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The Mayans predicted that the world will end on December 21, 2012. Are you worried about this ruining the tour?

[laughs] No, Don. No I’m not worried. It will all be alright. We are all in this together and I don’t think something bad will happen. Maybe something really good will happen instead [laughs]. I’m not worried about it at all but if something really does happen, we’ll just see each other in another lifetime.

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So say the world does end in 2012. If you had to be remembered for one body of work, what would it be?

Probably “Deep Inside My Heart Für Immer” because that is how I feel. The fans are always deep inside my heart and I just want them to always know how much they mean to me. I think that one and “All We Are.” They seem to always make people so happy and those two songs just sum it all up.

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Finish this sentence. If I wasn’t a musician, I would be…

A motivator. I would love to motivate people. Maybe coach a sports team or a boxer [laughs]. I just love to give positive power to people. I would just love to give all my energy to someone else and hope that it will help them make it to the top.

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Doro thank you so much for doing this today. I’m looking forward to seeing you in Atlanta and to meeting you.

Don that will be great. Thank you so much for doing this interview and I am so excited to meet you in Atlanta.

For more on Doro Pesch, please visit: http://www.doropesch.com

Doro Pesch 2013 North American Tour

02/01/13 Brass Mug – Tampa, FL
02/02/13 The Masquerade – Atlanta, GA
02/03/13 Empire – West Springfield, VA
02/04/13 B.B. Kings Blues Club – New York, NY
02/05/13 Soundstage – Baltimore, MD
02/07/13 Mod Club – Toronto, ON – CANADA
02/08/13 Montage Music Hall – Rochester, NY
02/09/13 Al Rosa Villa – Columbus, OH
02/10/13 Peabody’s – Cleveland, OH
02/12/13 Blondie’s – Detroit, MI
02/13/13 Mojoe’s – Joliet, IL
02/14/13 Station 4 – St. Paul, MN
02/15/13 Spicoli’s Grill and the Reverb – Waterloo, IA
02/17/13 Moe’s – Englewood, CO
02/19/13 El Corazon – Seattle, WA
02/20/13 Hawthorne Theatre – Portland, OR
02/21/13 Thee Parkside – San Francisco, CA
02/22/13 House of Blues – West Hollywood, CA
02/23/13 Rocky Point Cantina – Tempe, AZ

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