2023 is set to be a big year for DORO PESCH, who will be celebrating 40 years in music! The absolute highlight is certain to be her anniversary hometown show on October 28th, 2023, in Düsseldorf. The ticket sales have started already sensationally.
But the metal queen already has another big surprise up her sleeve.Today, her label Nuclear Blast are releasing a very unique single, never-before-seen in the musicians long and successful career: is a soulful adaptation of DORO’S classic metal anthem ´Raise Your Fist In The Air.´
The single has been made possible by the new ZDF (national German tv channel) music show “Music Impossible”. In a new episode premiering today, viewers can watch DORO competing against German pop singer Mike Singer – both artists were faced with the difficult task of arranging and performing their own song in the opposite genre! This meant that DORO had to transform one of her heavy hits into her opponent’s trendy pop sound.
Impossible? Yes, almost. But DORO mastered the challenge with flying colours and won the competition. Together with her producer Andreas Bruhn (Ex-Sisters Of Mercy), the metal queen dared to take a unique excursion into the pop genre, creating an electrifying and soulful new version of ´Raise Your Fist In The Air´, which the audience in the Berlin based TV studio enthusiastically celebrated. DORO brought home a clear victory in the duel with Mike Singer.
DORO is so enamoured with this new version of the song, that ´Raise Your Fist in The Air… In Heaven Mix´will be released as a digital single via Nuclear Blast today – just in time for the television broadcast of “Music Impossible”. The episode with DORO can be viewed now via the ZDF media library.
DORO comments: “It was incredibly difficult to find the right song for this format. Making a metal anthem sound pop, yet cool, was even harder. A real balancing act, which I think we managed very well.“
In addition to planned appearances at some of the world’s biggest festivals, next year, in time for her 40th anniversary, DORO is also working on a new album, certain to include ear-worm anthems, metal hits and wonderful ballads.
Guitarist/songwriter Bill Hudson (NORTHTALE) has announced that he will be joining the Metal Queen DORO for 4 shows in the UK supporting MICHAEL SCHENKER, kicking off on October 28th in Leeds!
Bill stated: “After over a year sitting at home, I’m very happy to say that I’m finally going back out and joining the Metal Queen, DORO, and my brothers in her band for 4 shows in the UK supporting the mighty MICHAEL SCHENKER!”
The show dates October 28th – Leeds – 02 Academy October 29th – New Castle – 02 City Hall October 30th – Wolverhampton – KK’s Steel Mill October 31st – London – 02 Shepherds Bush Empire
Please Note, BILL HUDSON is available for studio sessions and guitar clinics. For further information, please contact Split Screen Management.
Guitarist/songwriter Bill Hudson (NORTHTALE, I AM MORBID, former DIRKSCHNEIDER, TRANS-SIBERIAN ORCHESTRA, Circle II Circle, Jon Oliva’s Pain and more) has become a very sought after name in the hard rock world in recent years. Whether he is in Germany headlining the biggest heavy metal festival in the world or in the studio recording guitars for a video game soundtrack, there’s never a dull moment in the life of the Brazilian musician. In the summer of 2015, he made history in Germany, headlining Wacken Open Air, performing in front of 80,000 fans with the TRANS-SIBERIAN ORCHESTRA. Hudson joined the TRANS-SIBERIAN ORCHESTRA also for their winter tour in 2015, performing 52 shows in 6 weeks throughout the US and Canada for an average of 15,000 fans a day. From April 2017 to April 2018 Bill Hudson made part of the DIRKSCHNEIDER line-up, touring widely both America and Europe. In February 2018 Bill launched his new power metal band, NORTHTALE, releasing the debut album “Welcome To Paradise” on August 2nd 2019, via Nuclear Blast. NORTHTALE’s upcoming album is in the works and it’s expected to be released in the first half of 2021 via Nuclear Blast Records.
In celebration of 35 years of her classic album “Triumph And Agony”, DORO will release “Triumph And Agony Live” in various formats including CD, vinyl, cassette, Blu-ray, and a huge(!) limited vinyl edition on September 24th through Doro’s own label, Rare Diamonds Productions!
As the second digital single, the Metal Queen will release one of her biggest hits on September 10th: the mega ballad ‘Für Immer’. The live version of the song, like the entire album, was recorded at the Sweden Rock Festival and once again shows DORO and band in top form.
Watch ‘Für Immer’ right here:
Here’s the track list of “Triumph And Agony Live”: Legacy (Intro) Touch Of Evil I Rule The Ruins East Meets West Three Minute Warning Kiss Of Death Für Immer Cold, Cold World Make Time For Love Metal Tango All We Are
Order “Triumph And Agony Live” here: https://doro.lnk.to/Warlock-TriumphandAgonyLive
Doro says, “It was always my dream to play the “Triumph And Agony” album in its entirety live. The first time we did it was at Sweden Rock followed by a big tour in the USA and Spain, and more large festival shows like Graspop and Norway Rock.” Now it’s finally done: a great live album/Blu-ray called “Triumph And Agony Live”. Continues Doro, “It’s one of my favorite records we’ve ever done! It includes some of our big classic anthems like ‘All We Are,’ ‘Für Immer,’ and ‘I Rule The Ruins’ as well as fan favorites like ‘Metal Tango,’ ‘Three Minute Warning,’ ‘Kiss Of Death,’ and ‘East Meets West,’ not to forget headbanging album opener ‘Touch Of Evil.’ I’m super excited to let the fans hear and see it!”
In celebration of 35 years of her classic album “Triumph And Agony”, DORO will release “Triumph And Agony Live” in various formats including CD, vinyl, cassette, Blu-ray, and a huge(!) limited vinyl edition on September 24th through Doro’s own label, Rare Diamonds Productions!
As the first digital single, the Metal Queen will release one of her biggest hits on August 20: ‘All We Are’. The live version of the mega song – like the entire album – was recorded at Sweden Rock Festival, and once again shows Doro and band in top form.
Here’s the track list of “Triumph And Agony Live”: Legacy (Intro) Touch Of Evil I Rule The Ruins East Meets West Three Minute Warning Kiss Of Death Für Immer Cold, Cold World Make Time For Love Metal Tango All We Are
Order “Triumph And Agony Live” here: https://doro.lnk.to/Warlock-TriumphandAgonyLive
Doro says, “It was always my dream to play the “Triumph And Agony” album in its entirety live. The first time we did it was at Sweden Rock followed by a big tour in the USA and Spain, and more large festival shows like Graspop and Norway Rock.” Now it’s finally done: a great live album/Blu-ray called “Triumph And Agony Live”. Continues Doro, “It’s one of my favorite records we’ve ever done! It includes some of our big classic anthems like ‘All We Are,’ ‘Für Immer,’ and ‘I Rule The Ruins’ as well as fan favorites like ‘Metal Tango,’ ‘Three Minute Warning,’ ‘Kiss Of Death,’ and ‘East Meets West,’ not to forget headbanging album opener ‘Touch Of Evil.’ I’m super excited to let the fans hear and see it!”
Metal Queen DORO has certainly earned that title, with a career spanning over more than three decades. From the first album release with her band WARLOCK in 1984, Doro paved the way for women in metal and has long been an inspiration, empowering so many artists in the rock and metal industry.
After releasing her first album post-WARLOCK in 1989, Doro has never looked back, with a steady stream of albums and collaborations with many artists over the years.
Just a few weeks ago, Doro released a best of album, “Magic Diamonds – Best Of Rock, Ballads & Rare Treasures”, via her own label Rare Diamonds Productions. The album contains a fantastic collection of 56 songs with 20 rock songs, 18 ballads and 18 rare treasures!
Metal Shock Finland Senior Manager Alison Booth, recently caught up Doro who was the special guest on the 8th anniversary of her radio show Blackdiamond’s Metal Mayhem at TotalRock. The whole show can be heard at this location. You can hear the chat on the audio player below, along with a selection of excerpts to read:
Discussing the new album, Doro explained:
“There’s another box set and it has two double vinyl, one is white, the other is clear. It all looks nice, sounds great.
I did it because it was impossible to tour this year and we had two European tours and two American tours, Australia, South America. Everything was lined up, tons of great festivals and everything got cancelled or postponed. So I thought yeah I wanna go back into the studio, working on some new songs, which I did. And then I thought, maybe I want to put out a best of record. At first I started with like fifteen songs, then it was twenty five, thirty five, forty five and now fifty six songs!
And there’s still some songs I would love to put on maybe volume two in the next couple of years or something. There are so many songs that deserve to be heard in a different arrangement or live. That’s what I miss the most. There’s tons of live versions on there, so even if people can’t come to the concerts, they can definitely get the excitement and the power when you listen to it.”
Doro expressed her thoughts about the pandemic:
“It was a big shock. My last normal gig was actually March and we celebrated the fortieth anniversary of Saxon in my former hometown in Düsseldorf, Germany. And there was Saxon and Diamond Head, Tygers Of Pan Tang and us and we had a great, great night – it was awesome!
Then, two days later they announced only a thousand people allowed in the venue, then it went down to five hundred people, then nobody and yeah, so March was our last normal gig. Then we thought maybe we can hang in there till the summer festivals. Yeah and then summer festivals one by one got cancelled or postponed, it was shocking, it was shocking.
I did a couple of things which was like totally different, was a big challenge. We did some drive-in shows. For the first time it was weird, because it felt exactly like our All We Are video that was shot in 1987, where everybody was in their cars and we were performing on top of the tour bus and then with the magic of metal and you know and Warlock, it came to life and we were rocking out together and it felt exactly like that. I hopped on stage and I saw only cars, it was so surreal but it was fun. We made it I think that everybody had a great time, it was exciting! And we actually recorded some songs and one song is on the Magic Diamonds album, which I like so much. It’s Love Me In Black and you don’t see any audience participation but you can feel there’s a good vibe going, a nice, magical version.
It was a rough year I think for everybody and we try to stay positive, but it’s hard when you’ve nothing to do – especially for the band and the crew. But we’re hoping next year we’ll get back to normal kind of, it would be awesome. And if not, then we’ll work on a new album.”
Doro had lots to say on the topic of duets:
“Actually, all my duet partners were always great because we stayed great friends. Like there’s one song on this album with Udo Dirkschneider and it’s a cover version of Breaking The Law, because Judas Priest was my first band I’ve toured with in 1986 and I always wanted to say thank you to Priest, so we recorded Breaking The Law and I was just working with Udo Dirkschneider on his album and said ‘hey Udo you wanna work on my album as well?’ with an orchestra, it was really nice, came out so great. We always love to play Breaking The Law.
There’s another duet with Tarja Turunen who sang for Nightwish and this song’s called Walking With The Angels – something that fits so perfectly because she has such an angelic voice.
And then there’s one song, Bad Blood, that’s with Blaze Bayley. We are great friends for a long time. And Descent, that’s another song with Pete Steele and unfortunately he is not any more with us, but he was a great guy. He was the tallest guy I ever met, he was such a gentle giant.
And then my favourite duet is Love Me Forever with Lemmy. That was my first time that I did a duet and it was in 2000. We recorded it for my Calling The Wild album. We did two songs, one was Alone Again and the other one was Love Me Forever and Eric Singer is playing drums on it, the KISS drummer and Bob Kulick, he played guitar on it and it was in his studio. And Bob, he passed away a couple of months ago, I couldn’t believe it. We always stayed friends. So these duets, they mean a lot to me, especially Love Me Forever with Lemmy and Descent with Pete Steele, because you know – I feel we’re very connected in heart and soul, but it’s kinda tough to live without them. Lemmy was my best friend, I loved him so much.
On the “Ace Of Spades” anniversary:
“Somebody sent me the nice box set, oh it’s awesome! If people want to get something really special, this is wow, it’s so nice. Yeah Ace Of Spades was my favourite album. I had my first band in 1980 and when this one came out, like wow, it was so inspiring. I still love that song Ace Of Spades, oh my God. And Love Me Like A Reptile was the second song on Ace Of Spades and it was by coincidence that Dave Ellefson said ‘hey you want to sing a MOTÖRHEAD song?’ And it was oh yeah! Maybe it was meant to be, it was a lot of fun!“
Looking ahead to the future, Doro revealed:
“If I could do ten or twenty more records it would be awesome. I love people and that’s I guess what I’m here for and yeah, I just wanna make people feel great and get inspiration, motivation and positive metal power – that’s what I would love to continue doing. There’s not much, I don’t have any other dreams – I’m definitely living the dream, making music. I always wanted to become a singer since I was three years old.
But I love animals too, that’s my other passion and I just wrote a song for the new album and it’s called Heavenly Creatures, that’s a work title.
Yeah next year and hopefully a tour behind the new album, but we’ll see. But we already have six songs so I think middle of next year the album will be done.”
On November 13th, 2020 Metal Queen DORO proves once again that she literally gives her all when she cares about something. On this November 13, DORO’s own label, Rare Diamonds Productions, will release her long awaited best of album “Magic Diamonds – Best Of Rock, Ballads & Rare Treasures”.
And that’s what it’s all about: 56 (!) songs on three CDs with a total of almost four(!) hours playing time! An all-around impressive showcase that spans four decades of DORO music and with 20 rock songs, 18 ballads and 18 rare treasures offers everything a fan’s heart desires – and a lot more!
Because: The three CDs will be released in a high-quality box containing a valuable, exclusive DORO perfume called “True At Heart” as well as a “Magic Diamonds” tube scarf!
Doro: “I have been dreaming of my own perfume for many years. Now the time has finally come”.
The fragrance – and therefore also the 3 CD box – is available in two versions: “For Him” and “For Her”.
Of course, vinyl lover DORO makes sure that “Magic Diamonds – Best Of Rock, Ballads & Rare Treasures” is also available as an official 4 LP version – in colored vinyl.
DORO reveals: “The big vinyl box contains two double LPs and as an encore the “Rare Treasures” bonus CD and a poster. Whichever version of these magical best of boxes you secure, you open a full treasure chest full of mega-hits, powerful off-beat songs, and enchanting ballads with melodies to kneel down; as an encore you will find rare pearls in the form of previously unreleased treasures such as the NYC version of “Prisoner Of Love” or a brand-new re-recording of DORO’s favorite song “Love Me In Black”.
DORO explains: “Since we all miss the concerts so much at the moment, I decided to release great live moments of songs like “Even Angels Cry”, “Rare Diamonds”, “Revenge”, “Raise Your Fist In The Air” as well as a wonderful version of “Make Time For Love” here as well”.
What would a best of album by DORO be without reminiscences of the great friendships DORO has with her colleagues and heroes of heavy metal? And so here DORO delivers fantastic interpretations of Dio’s “Egypt (The Chains Are On)”, Metallica’s “Nothing Else Matters” and Judas Priest’s “Breaking The Law”. The latter in an orchestral version in duet with Udo Dirkschneider.
In addition, the metal queen presents enchanting duets with her favorite friend Lemmy (“Love Me Forever”), Pete Steele (“Descent”) and Tarja Turunen (“Walking With The Angels”) and serves her great anthems like “Fight” and “She’s Like Thunder”, which she wrote for her friend, boxing world champion Regina Halmich. Not to forget “Warrior Soul”, the movie soundtrack of the movie “Anuk – The Way of the Warrior”, in which DORO played the female lead role, and of which part 2 and part 3 will be released soon.
All in all, an unbeatable package that brings a bright light to dismal November days – true to DORO’s motto in life: “I make music to give people joy, hope and positive energy”. And: “My songs are often based on personal experiences that are also of a spiritual nature – like “1000 Mal Gelebt”, “Undying” or “Fortune Teller”!
You don’t have to be a fortune teller to predict that “Magic Diamonds – Best Of Rock, Ballads & Rare Treasures” will be celebrated by the fans. And rightly so!
CD 1: Best Of Rock 01. All We Are (“The Fight” Version) 3:00 02. Thunderspell 4:38 03. Burn It Up 2:44 04. I Adore You 3:19 05. Descent (feat. Pete Steele) 4:01 06. You’re My Family 4:14 07. Kiss Me Like A Cobra 3:18 08. Haunted Heart 5:13 09. Raise Your Fist In The Air (New Live Recording “Forever Warriors Forever United” Tour) 3:11 10. Now Or Never (feat. Slash) 3:50 11. The Night Of The Warlock 5:39 12. I Rule The Ruins (Classic Night Orchestra Version) 4:01 13. Fight 4:08 14. Always Live To Win 3:01 15. Breaking The Law (feat. Udo Dirkschneider) 4:21 16. Revenge (New Live Recording “Forever Warriors Forever United” Tour) 4:32 17. Ich will alles 2:24 18. Salvaje 2:46 19. Dedication (I Give My Blood) 3:54 20. Grab The Bull (Last Man Standing) (First Draft – previously unreleased) 4:58
CD 2: Best Of Ballads 01. Für immer (Classic Night Orchestra Version) 4:33 02. Above The Ashes 4:17 03. Love Me In Black (New Recording 2020) 4:48 04. Scarred 4:37 05. Rare Diamond (New Live Recording “Forever Warriors Forever United” Tour) 3:39 06. Make Time For Love (New Live Recording “Forever Warriors Forever United” Tour) 5:24 07. Tausend Mal gelebt (Live) 4:22 08. Fall For Me Again (Live) 4:33 09. Give Me A Reason 4:19 10. Love Me Forever (feat. Lemmy Kilmister) 5:15 11. Angel In The Dark 4:13 12. Walking With The Angels (feat. Tarja Turunen) 4:54 13. Beyond The Trees (New Recording 2020) 2:45 14. Herzblut 4:38 15. Undying (live Unplugged) 3:16 16. Constant Danger (live Unplugged) 3:00 17. Prisoner Of Love (NYC Version – previously unreleased) 4:02 18. Warrior Soul 4:40
CD 3: Rare Treasures 01. THE QUEEN 3:36 02. METAL TANGO (CLASSIC NIGHT ORCHESTRA VERSION) 3:58 03. I RULE THE RUINS (Live) 5:04 04. HELLBOUND (Live) 3:03 05. EVEN ANGELS CRY (Live) 4:32 06. THE FORTUNETELLER (Live) 5:09 07. SAVE MY SOUL (Live) 3:45 08. EGYPT (THE CHAINS ARE ON) 6:10 09. SHE’S LIKE THUNDER 3:50 10. BAD BLOOD (live – feat. Blaze Bayley) 3:29 11. WHENEVER I THINK OF YOU (Live) 4:36 12. MY MAJESTY (Live) 4:22 13. HELLRAISER (Live) 4:20 14. ALLES IST GUT (Live) 4:00 15. LET LOVE RAIN ON ME (Live) 3:54 16. Chained 4:16 17. BLACK ROSE 3:41 18. NOTHING ELSE MATTERS 5:47
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