Doro

Dorothee Pesch (born 3 June 1964), known professionally as Doro Pesch or simply Doro, is a German heavy metal singer and the former frontwoman of heavy metal band Warlock.

Dubbed the "Metal Queen", Doro's contributions to music and culture 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 20 years of uninterrupted activity, the most stable presences being those of bassist Nick Douglas and drummer Johnny Dee.

Dorothee Pesch was born in Düsseldorf, West Germany on 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, The 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.

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 US 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.

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, 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 the follow-up to Triumph and Agony, 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.

What was initially intended as the fifth Warlock album resulted in Force Majeure, the first Doro album, released in February 1989.

It was recorded in the US by Joey Balin, and is the natural successor of Triumph and Agony, continuing the band's drift towards radio-friendly glam metal in contrast with the European power metal of Warlock's earlier works.

The album sold quite well in Europe, but it had limited success in the US, lurking at the bottom of the Billboard 200 chart.

Following the tour to promote Force Majeure, the final Warlock line-up disbanded and Doro concentrated on her solo career.

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 around 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-term career, and was the first heavy metal artist to perform a drive-in concert during the COVID-19 pandemic.

To this date, she has released 19 studio albums, the latest being Conqueress - Forever Strong and Proud in October 2023.

Doro continues her recording career and is a prolific touring artist all over the world.

When not on tour, she resides in New York City.

Doro persevered in the legal battle for the Warlock name and eventually regained the rights in 2011.