Because It’s Doro

/ Ray Van Horn, Jr.

Here’s your boy in the court of the Queen of Metal, Doro Pesch, circa 2006. I’m proud to say I’ve interviewed Doro four times in my career, one the sweetest, humblest people on the planet. Doro celebrates her 40th anniversary this year with a new album in October, Conqueress – Forever Strong and Proud. These pictures you see remain one of my favorite nights (and weekends) in the music business, hanging with Doro and Savatage/Trans-Siberian Orchestra guitarist, Chris Caffery, who’d been subbing in her band on that night on top of opening the gig with his own ripping solo slot.

I’d been in NYC the night before covering industrial rock legends Skinny Puppy, schlepping down the east coast to cover Doro’s gig the next day on little sleep. I’d fallen asleep behind the wheel on the way home for a moment and I’m damned lucky to be alive today.

You had The Runaways, Betsy Bitch, Wendy O. Williams and Girlschool breaking gender barriers in heavy music before Doro Pesch fronted Eighties German metal heroes, Warlock, and accelerated a woman’s deserved place inside the masculine-dominated genre. Sure, Doro’s combined beauty as a former model and her svelte stage presence has always made her a divine visual spectacle and she remains an ageless wonder today. Her chops have always been on their game and I’m looking forward to hearing them again, now 40 years in the metal life. Doro isn’t so much a machine as she is a perfected fireball. High altos to lower octave rasping, Doro hits it all, and she can rally you as much as seduce you. Doro’s solo music is an extension of Warlock’s stomping anthems, because all we are, all we are we are, we are all…all we need.

What has always struck me about Doro, however, is how gentle and sweet she is when you talk to her. It’s no secret Doro Pesch puts her fans ahead of herself and she is perhaps the most personable celebrity in heavy metal. The first time I had Doro on my phone, I literally melted. I confessed like a nerd that I’d harbored a crush on her in 1988 after my then-girlfriend dumped me on her way to college. Doro and Warlock vicariously helped me get through that teenaged trial–along with the Ramones.

Kind soul that Doro is, she laughed and thanked me but there was a genuine, flattered cadence to her delivery that resounded with me. This is a woman who’s no doubt been told by hundreds of thousands of men how attractive she is and still there’s a profound humility to Doro Pesch that endears you further to her. Luckily, I hadn’t chased her off with that reckless admission. I mean, who does that in a professional interview? She gave me three more and remembered me each time, so happily, no faux pas!

That night in 2006 hanging with Doro and Chris Caffery and Doro’s drummer Johnny Dee is one of my happiest moments as a rock journalist. Johnny, doubling as Doro’s tour manager, was beyond gracious. The guy took care of me and escorted me through the venue security without confrontation and yet to claim my backstage pass, which he’d slipped into my laminate holder at the precise time I needed it. I still have that badge in my box of music scene mementos. Suffice it to say, security for Doro Pesch is pretty damned strong, for obvious reasons.

Every time the Queen of Metal had new material to promote, my motto to my editors was “I always have time for Doro.” I can tell you from the four interviews I did with Doro she is simply precious and the humblest woman of her stature I’ve ever known. One of those chats came after she’d lost her American home in Long Island to Hurricane Irene after relocating from her native Dusseldorf, Germany. She was stoic while soft-spoken and so very gracious in her time and candidness. I was incredibly proud of her.

One of the interviews I did with Doro was even more of an honor, considering it was an assignment for Metal Maniacs magazine bestowed upon me by the editor, one of Doro’s personal friends who normally takes Doro herself. Thank you for that, Liz. I understood what an immense gesture it was to grant me the Doro interview. That was number four and I was as proud of that one as I was the first one for my monthly column in AMP, much less that awesome night in Springfield, Virginia.

In…my…heart, Doro...fur immer…

–Photos by Ray Van Horn, Jr.

8 thoughts on “Because It’s Doro”

  1. She’s beautiful. She looks like Agnetha Fältskog from ABBA.
    After reading your blog I listened to a few songs — amazing, passionate voice and emotional songs. I’ll have to explore more.
    And of course so cool you got to interview her more than once in your music journalism career. Assignments are so easy when you’re excited about the subject. Great job!

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    • Thanks, Maryanne! I’m glad you checked out some of her music. She is indeed passionate, and much of it is metal proud type of anthems that you have to be a devout headbanger to love, but her delivery is always true, her heart is made of an amalgam of steel and magnolias. She is one of our scene’s crown jewels.

      I’m very blessed to have had all those interviews with her and my time with her and Chris on the bus. I have another shot with the three of us together somewhere. Chris is a pretty rad dude with a sharp wit and even he remembered me during a meet and greet for Trans-Siberian Orchestra. It was a moment I got to show off in front of my ex, the other time slapping hands with Bret Michaels from the photo pit for Poison since he’d remembered me during our interview for Rock of Love. My ex was soooo jealous, LOL!

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  2. I’ll have to check it out. I recall the Warlock name, but I was more on the Skinny Puppy side of the music scene. As we all know, limited income sometimes drove what you listened to. But I had friends who were very much into metal and I may have heard something of theirs in passing.

    How was the interview with Skinny Puppy? I have mixed signals on cEvin and ‎Nivek‎; I can’t get a read on their IRL personalities. They seem either like they’d be fun to know or hard to deal with.

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    • When I posted, I thought of you thinking this very thing, that SP would likely resonate more with you especially. Warlock and Doro’s solo music are straightforward, anthemic, punching power metal mixed with ballads. Doro handles both with fire where needed, soft cadence in the other realm. She is called the Queen of Metal for a reason. 🙂

      I had cEvin and I’ll be candid in saying that I went up to New York with the interview set up to be on-site at the Nokia Theater in Times Square. I had a blast of a trip and drove myself there, taking the Staten Island Ferry into NY, hiking about 20 blocks through Wall Street and into Soho, spotting Cynthia Dixon sprint out of an apartment lobby into a waiting car. I hopped the yellow line into Midtown since there were a number of stops blocked off beforehand. I had dinner with an old friend from Roadrunner Records and she came into town just for the occasion. Great time.

      However, when it was time to check in with my contact for the cEvin interview, the tour manager didn’t pick up at all. I couldn’t reach my publicist contact nor the label rep I had as backup. It took nearly 2 hours before I was finally called back by the TM and asked to postpone the interview to later in the week for a phoner. I was pretty pissed off considering the 3.5 hour drive up, but I was still on the guest list for the show in the photo pit. However, Ogre hung behind a bloodied tapestry which I have photos of his silhouette behind. Cool visual. Then cEvin came out and I got some cool shots of him. I stayed at the gig but skipped the encore since it was really late and I had to get out of town. A long ride on the yellow back toward downtown, and the subway was cutting off seven blocks from the Port Authority, which usually has a direct stop there. I got to see the seedier part of downtown and Wall Street past midnight…these young punks in casual suits were trying to get me to come over and rent their stoned AF trick. No police cover that area super late… anyway….

      Sorry for all that. The phoner with cEvin ended up being really good. He apologized for the postponement and gave me a solid half hour chat. I hold no grudges. It was a good piece and a fucking great trip to NYC that finished the next day with Doro Pesch and Chris Caffery. Unbelievable weekend.

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      • That kind of thing happened enough times to be annoying, so I had to get aggressive at times, cooperative in others. The reward was knowing my name stood for something back then and the hiccups and intentional blowoffs became far fewer as my career blossomed.

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