DORO PESCH Talks RONNIE JAMES DIO, Upcoming DVD And U.S. Tour

Aniruddh "Andrew" Bansal of Metal Assault recently conducted an interview with German "metal queen" Doro Pesch. A couple of excerpts from the chat follow below.

Metal Assault: How have your preparations been for these four upcoming U.S. dates?

Doro: I'm planning to play all the highlights and some goodies that fans didn't hear in a long time, then of course something off the new record, "Fear No Evil", and stuff from WARLOCK's "Burning The Witches" and "Triumph And Agony" albums. There will be some surprises too but I don't want to say yet (laughs). I'm super-excited to come back to the States. We want to have a really good time and we want to play as long as the fans want us to play. There are absolutely no limits!

Metal Assault: These are just four dates, so it's more like a warm-up tour. Can we expect you to come back for a full tour, probably early next year?

Doro: Yeah, that's the plan. Actually, we just finished working on our DVD. It's called "25 Years In Rock". It will be released in Europe in December and in the States in spring, probably in March. So we'll come back after it's released. I'm glad that we're able to do the four gigs now. It's definitely better than doing nothing. After this we have another tour lined up in Russia and Germany. In Germany we support MOTÖRHEAD on their tour. I'm so excited and happy about that. So it will be an exciting end to the year and next year we'll work on the new album. For now we are concentrating on the DVD stuff and playing songs from it. We did something on the internet where fans could tell us what they would love to hear. We'll play anything that makes the fans happy.

Metal Assault: I think this is the biggest DVD project of your career. Would you agree?

Doro: Yes, I think it is. We did four DVDs. The 20th-anniversary DVD was very nice and we had great guests from bands like MOTÖRHEAD and SAXON. It was hard to top the 20-years DVD, so we tried to make a bigger production, more pyro, and a great place in my hometown in Dusseldorf. It looks like the German version of the Madison Square Garden (laughs). It was a very nice setup. The sculpture we used almost didn't fit the venue but we played and had great guests like Bobby Blitz [OVERKILL], Warrel Dane [NEVERMORE], We played with the old WARLOCK band members for a full WARLOCK set. Tarja [Turunen, ex-NIGHTWISH] sang on "Celebrate", which is a song on the last record. Axel Rudi Pell, members from GRAVE DIGGER, the SCORPIONS were there and it was really awesome. It was the longest concert we ever played, for three and a half hours. We cut it down to three hours for the DVD along with the best of Wacken from last year and some of the festivals from this year. There is a China special from the time we went to China. It was something very different. So I think it's a good package and it looks beautiful. Especially because of the artwork and I think the die-hard fans will love it.

Metal Assault: You also took part in the Ronnie James Dio tribute show in Germany. How was that experience? I think you had guest musicians like Kai Hansen [GAMMA RAY].

Doro: Actually, Kai had to cancel as he got sick at the last minute. But other people were there. Doogie White sang RAINBOW and Axel Rudi Pell the guitar player was there. It was a great evening and everybody sang Dio songs. We raised money for the cancer foundation. I think 8000 euros were made for it. Our new DVD is dedicated to Ronnie James Dio. I was a big, big fan and I had a great time when we toured together a couple of times. But the tribute concert was great for us and for the fans. It was actually done by the fans and wasn't like a huge thing, but it was done with the right spirit.

Metal Assault: You also took part in the [German version of the] cartoon "Metalocalypse". It was screened in Germany this year. What was the response like at the screening?

Doro: It was really funny. I was in the great company of Schmier of DESTRUCTION and Mille of KREATOR. We had a great time and I think it came out really good. It's may be a little bit different from the English version but still very funny. For musicians, it's great. I don't know if people get that dark humour. I hope so, because it came out really good.

Read the entire interview from Metal Assault.