DORO PESCH

“Dorothee Pesch (born 3 June 1964), popularly known as Doro Pesch or Doro, is a German heavy metal singer-songwriter, formerly front-woman of the heavy metal band Warlock. Dubbed the “Queen of Heavy Metal”, Doro’s contributions to music and culture along with her publicized personal life made her a global figure in metal culture for over three decades. The name Doro has also been associated with the touring band accompanying the singer, whose members have continuously changed in more than twenty years of uninterrupted activity, the most stable presences being those of bassist Nick Douglas and drummer Johnny Dee.

Doro started her career in garage bands in native Düsseldorf underground scene and achieved media visibility and some commercial success with Warlock in the 1980s. Warlock were starting to have an opening in the U.S. market, when they went through many line-up changes and Pesch was left the only original member of the band. She started a solo career under the name Doro, in order to avoid legal battles between her record label PolyGram and her former manager. She released two albums in the US with producers Joey Balin and Gene Simmons, but they were not the breakthrough that she hoped.

During the rise of grunge and alternative rock in the 1990s, her record label relegated her productions only to the European region, where she continued to tour extensively. She remained a successful charting artist in Germany, despite living and producing her albums in the US. When classic heavy metal found again the favour of the public, she returned to tour all over the world and her popularity as a veteran singer grew considerably, inspiring many new female metal artists. Doro is also known for her duets performed both live and in studio with other singers and musicians of the metal scene, whom she has befriended in her long career.

To this date, she has released seventeen studio albums, the latest being Forever Warriors, Forever United in 2018. Doro continues her recording career and is prolific touring artist all over the world. When not on tour, she resides in New York City.

Dorothee Pesch was born in Düsseldorf, Germany 3 June 1964, as the only child of Walter, a truck driver, and Barbara Pesch. Doro’s first memory of rock music is the song “Lucille” by Little Richard, which she sang when she was three years old. She learned to play piano and started singing at the age of ten years, when she was exposed to the glam rock of bands like T. Rex, Sweet and Slade. When she was sixteen and after a life-threatening form of tuberculosis, she decided to dedicate more of her time and energy to singing, without giving up her study of graphic design. In 1980, she was accepted in her first band called Snakebite, which was playing rock music in a Düsseldorf basement used as rehearsal space by many other underground groups. The first recording with Doro on vocals was a cheap 7-track demo released by Snakebite for promotion. When Snakebite disbanded in 1981, Doro went on to sing for the garage bands Beast and Attack, before forming Warlock with Peter Szigeti, Rudy Graf, Thomas Studier, and Michael Eurich in 1982.

Warlock signed their first recording contract with Mausoleum Records and released their debut album Burning the Witches in 1984. Doro attracted immediately the attention of fans and press, becoming the spokesperson and the main means of promotion for the band. The mix of traditional heavy metal and power ballads, together with her voice and stage presence led Warlock to success, an exception in the 80s’ metal scene dominated by male-fronted metal bands. Warlock signed a new contract with the major label Phonogram and released the albums Hellbound in 1985 and True as Steel in 1986, sharing the stage of European rock festivals with some of the best hard rock and heavy metal bands of the period. On 16 August 1986, Doro was the first woman to front a metal band at the Monsters of Rock festival in Castle Donington, England, the most important European rock meeting of the 80s. Warlock’s long tours in Europe, supporting W.A.S.P. and Judas Priest, pushed Doro to give up her day job as a graphic designer to devote her life to music. In this period she also received vocal coaching.

After the completion of the tour in support of True as Steel, Doro took charge of business and went to live in New York City, USA, where Warlock recorded their fourth and last studio album Triumph and Agony. The album was their most successful, going Gold in Germany and reaching No. 80 in the Billboard 200 US album chart. It includes the songs “All We Are” and “Für immer” (Forever), Warlock’s best known tracks, also because of the intense rotation of their videos on MTV. Warlock opened for Dio in Europe and embarked on their only US tour, supporting Megadeth. At the end of the US tour, Doro remained the sole German in the band after all the other original members had quit, replaced by American musicians. In 1989, while writing material for a new album, she lost a legal cause with the band’s former manager for the rights to the name and merchandise of Warlock. Her record label forced her to accept the publication of new albums under the name Doro, in order to continue her career. Doro persevered in the legal battle for the Warlock name and eventually regained the rights in 2011.”