Doro is the epitome of the female warrior. She’s one of the few women in rock who have never allowed themselves to be deterred or distracted by the occasionally brutal practices of the music business. It’s a man’s world? Who says? It’s Doro’s world, and it has been for over twenty years. The Düsseldorf native has never lost her energy or enthusiasm, in fact the opposite happens to be the case, and her current album Fight bears its title with justification. Doro has once again come up with an offering full of female power and musical expressiveness that consists of as many stories as it does songs. Doro loves the freedom of being open to outside influences and has made the most of this trait to make Fight a diverse and frequently surprising offering.

Next to her dynamic voice and her instinctive feel for captivating atmospheres, her most outstanding features are her loyalty and extroversion. Her band, which consists mainly of American musicians (guitarist Joe Taylor, bassist Nick Douglas, drummer Johnny Dee plus guitarist Oliver Palotai, who joined the fold during the group’s most recent tour), is musical domain and family at once for Doro. Together with these guys she recorded the songs for her new album practically in a live atmosphere at the Soundmine Recording Studios in Pennsylvania. ”As powerful as possible, as natural as necessary,” was the motto which had the production team consisting of Doro, Chris Lietz and Dan Malsch from New York in full control of the situation at all times. Fight was mixed by Malsch and Lietz, and Doro mastered the album at the Skyline Studios in Duesseldorf. The result speaks for itself: ”Compared to previous recordings, Fight sounds even rawer, earthy, totally rooted to the soil,” she says. ”Nothing was polished smooth, there are no loops, hardly any effects, but a lot of pure energy and passion.”

As on the predecessor Calling The Wild, Doro has again benefited from the great esteem that she enjoys among renowned colleagues, who were happy to write and record the material with her. Jean Beauvoir co-composed ‘Sister Darkness’, the legendary Gene Simmons (Kiss), with whom she worked on her 1990 release Doro, contributed ‘Legends Never Die’. ‘Descend’ features a duet with Type O Negative vocalist Pete Steele, and Savatage guitarist Chris Caffery can be heard on the same number, was well as on ‘Salvaje’, the first Spanish language track of Doro’s career. ”’Salvaje’ is a thank-you to my Spanish fans, who voted me Best Female Rock Vocalist for the thirteenth time running this year. It’s dedicated to Lemmy of Motörhead. The first verse is about him, the second one about life on the road. A number about rebellion and freedom.” Doro is especially proud of ‘Wild Heart’, co-written with one of her great idols, Russ Ballard, and ‘Rock Before You Bleed’, which she recorded with twenty of her fans singing background vocals in the studio.

Two of the central numbers on the album are ‘Fight By Your Side’ (Doro: ”An anti-war song that I wrote during the Yugoslavian crisis”) and of course the compelling title track, which will also be played as signature tune at female boxing world champion Regina Hallmich’s next world championship fight in Berlin on August 17. ”Regina and I have been close friends for a long time, she always comes to my gigs and I go to her fights. That’s what gave me the idea for the song, particularly since Regina’s previous signature tune was ‘All We Are’, one of my old recordings.”

Doro and band are due to tour again in October 2002. Next to numerous shows in Germany, this time they’re also set to travel to countries where they’ve played only briefly or never before, like Poland, Greece, Italy, and Brazil. ”Sixty shows have been confirmed, eventually there should be over eighty”, so Doro’s getting ready for an eventful and exhausting autumn. But as I said before: Doro is the epitome of the warrior type.

Doro first drew attention to herself in 1982 with her German band Warlock, bringing out three brilliant metal albums called Burning The Witches, Hellbound and True As Steel. This feat was followed by the arrival of a milestone in metal history, her 1987 release Triumph and Agony, which has sold over 500,000 copies to date and contained classics of the genre like ‘Für Immer’, ‘All We Are’, or ‘East Meets West’. Her first solo recording Force Majeure arrived in 1989, making the Top 5 of the album charts and going gold immediately. One year later she recorded her second solo offering, Doro, together with Kiss bassist Gene Simmons, followed by the compilation Rare Diamonds and True At Heart, cut with the support of Barry Becket (Bob Dylan, Rolling Stones, among others) in Nashville, Tennessee. Together with American producer and songwriter Jack Ponti (Bon Jovi, Alice Cooper, among others), Doro went on to compose, arrange and produce Angels Never Die, out in 1992 and featuring the two hit singles ‘Bad Blood’ and ‘Alles ist gut’. Her first live album was recorded during a tour of Germany one year later. 1994 was highlighted by an Echo Award in the category Most Successful Female Artist, National. Ever on the lookout for new stylistic challenges, Doro extended her range of expression with Machine II Machine (1995), followed by the equally contemporary Love Me In Black (1998). In the course of her career to day, Doro has been nominated for six German Echo Awards, and following the arrival of her 2000 album Call The Wild, she was voted Best International Female Rock Vocalist for the thirteenth (!) time in succession by the biggest Spanish rock magazine - a burden that she bears with style and confidence on her latest release Fight.

SPV