GETTING INTO THE RING WITH DORO PESCH

-by Dirt

While the metal world has always been dominated by men, in the 80s, Doro Pesch proved that she had enough balls to hang with the boys. Doro came to prominence fronting the German group Warlock, gaining quite a bit of success with Hellbound (1985), True As Steel (1986), and the phenomenal Triumph and Agony (1987). After some management problems and the loss of the Warlock name, Doro forged forward with a solo career, releasing Force Majeure (1989) and Doro (1990) in the USA. Despite the release of quite a few more albums, it took a decade before Doro would have another US release, 2000's Calling The Wild. The follow-up to that album, entitled Fight, has just been released on SPV Records, so we got Ms. Pesch on the phone to give us the low-down on the album and her current happenings.

For more info on Doro visit:   www.doro.de        www.doropesch.com       www.spvusa.com

Your last record, Calling The Wild, was released on by Koch Records, but Fight is on SPV. What happened to your deal with Koch?

I was very happy with Koch. There was a person working there, Dave Squillante, he was the A&R guy. We pushed the record so much and we got along so good, and then he had to leave the company. I didn't know if there was anybody there anymore to push the record, and SPV was starting out [in the US] again and I thought [it would be good] to keep it all in the same home.

In your bio you describe your new album, Fight, as earthy and raw, as compared to some of your previous records. Was that something that you were aiming for?

We wanted to go for more like a live recording and not have so much techno stuff as we had on the last couple of records. I wanted to keep it really pure and go back to the roots a little bit. No loops and one or two guitar takes.

How would you compare it to your classic material - True As Steel, Triumph and Agony, and Force Majeure?

Oh man, it's always hard to compare. I wanted to have it a little bit heavier. True As Steel, I thought was too polished. I like a couple of songs on it but overall I like Triumph and Agony much better. I just wanted to have everybody have fun all together in the studio just going for it.

You want to be current sounding, right? You don't seem to want to be a throwback to the 80s.

Usually I don't really think about it. I just do what I feel. Not like a really big plan behind it.

Fight has a contemporary guitar sound, not the traditional one you had up through Angels Never Die.

That's funny that you say that because the guitar sound came from my guitar player Joe Taylor. Usually when people are in the room, I let them do what they can do best. There's some other guitar stuff on the record, like Chris Caffery (Savatage) played a couple of quick solos.

How'd you hook up with him?

We have the same tour manager. He was just on tour with [Savatage] in Europe. I said, "We need a couple of more solos." He said, "If you want, call Chris Caffery. He'd love to do it."

He played on "Salvaje." What does that song-title mean?

It means free, rebellious. We had the song in English first. It was a song about Lemmy [Kilmister from Motorhead]. It came out in English as "Untouchable." I thought I would love to have a Spanish song on the record and I had a feeling that it might work with this song. I got somebody who translated it and then I sang it in Spanish. I liked it even more than the English version.

You also co-wrote "Sister Darkness" with Jean Beauvoir (Crown of Thorns/ex-Plasmatics). How'd your involvement with him occur?

He lives in Berlin, if he's not in L.A. He came to a show in Germany and we played "All We Are" together. We had dinner and talked and hit it off right away, and he has the same tour manager too.

"Descent" is a duet with Type O Negative's Pete Steele.

I wrote the song with my guitar player. I played it for Pete and he said, "Yeah, let me see if I can do something." Pete is such a nice and funny guy.

You also wrote "Wild Heart" with Russ Ballard. Did he write the music because it doesn't sound like a typical poppy Russ Ballard tune?

We really did it 50/50. Actually, there was another person involved, Chris Winter. All three people were giving ideas, melody-wise and lyric-wise. I was a big fan of Russ' ever since he wrote "God Gave Rock and Roll To You."

"Chained" was interesting because it's more of a traditional old-school anthem.

I wrote it with Gary Scruggs. I told him I wanted to write something like "East Meets West" or "All We Are." It was [originally] just for the limited edition but then I thought it has to make the real record, so we threw another song off the record.

I heard that the title track is the theme song for Regina Hallmich, the female boxing world champion.

She's a great friend of mine, a great lady, and a really great fighter. I've been into tai boxing for 5-6 years. I went to every fight I could see. My trainer said, "Go and check out these fights. You will learn so much." Regina was going into the ring with "All We Are." I talked to her after the fight and she said she was a big fan and she was always coming to the concerts. We became really good friends. She asked me if I could write another anthem because "All We Are" is so old. At first, she picked "Always Live To Win." She called two weeks later and said, "I want one that's harder" and she picked "Fight."

Why did you name the album, 'Fight'?

I felt it was the perfect title because of all the years of what I went through. Everything was always such a big fight, for the music, for your dreams, the fight to survive. We had some personal tragedies. Our second guitar player, Mario Parillo, died last year while we were on the Dio tour, and one year before that my father died. The song "Undying" is for people who can relate and feel the same.