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Doro & Bas Maas
Doro
Interview in Tilburg
30.10.2010
Bas Maas @ MySpace
Doro Homepage
Doro @ MySpace
Our Concert-Special
Hello Doro and Bas from the band Doro. We want to take you to the past, the present and the future. You are doing now a promotion tour for the upcoming DVD 25 Years In Rock. How was it for you to see the DVD?
Doro: It was great because that day was such a big day and we had to take care of so many things. All the guests, it was great. It was a massive work day as well, that everything would go all right and it was the longest show. When we worked on the DVD I could totally enjoyed it, totally relaxed and see it from the view of the fans. It was a pure pleasure to work on it. What I didn´t know: there were so many nice statements from the fellow musicians like at example The Scorpions and Bobby Blitz. Everybody had so nice things to say, sometimes really funny, sometimes very spiritual, sweet kind things. It was definitely great to work on it, to see it and to review the whole day. It took a whole year to work for this concert, so on that day I was happy that everything went well and then - after the concert - the pressure was off, but I was totally done. It was the biggest show we ever did and we extraordinary liked by our fans. That´s something I feel definitely. I have a heart knock for all the promotors or all the people who put on festivals so much stuff.
On the DVD is also the 2.500 show, I´ve been there also, I´ve seen them both. Then I found out that Bas was joining Doro. When and why did you decide to ask Bas to join the band?
Doro: We did a tour together, I guess two years ago in England, the Saxon tour. One time I had to do a really great performance, on TV. It was for my friend Regina Halmich, a fight against a guy. We had to put a band together in between like 3 days. And I thought... Bas... he was always a great friend of ours. I met him many years ago on a promotion tour. Then I called him up. I got Sander on the phone, I thought Bas is Sander because I couldn´t remember anymore the name. And then Sander said: no I think you mean Bas. I said: really? He said: yeah, Bas is the one who is really acting wild on stage and I´m a little bit more like quite. So Bas came to play this gig. Months later we did the Saxon tour in England, it was really great. 1,5 years ago we said: let´s do it.
Bas, how was it for you to get Doro suddenly on the phone?
Bas: Awesome of course. It wasn´t the first time. But it´s quite awesome to hear the question if I wanna to join the band. It was a kind you don´t expected.
You didn´t think: somebody is making a joke with me?
Bas: Yeah almost. But I guess it was Doro, so I think it wasn´t a joke. Of course it´s a big honour because I think Doro is a legend in the Metal scene. (Doro got a bit sheepish) She got a little shy (Bas laugh), but she is the Queen of Metal. And I´ve been really looking of Doro for years and years. I already knew her as a really nice and kind person. I found it awesome to get the question I didn´t have to think about it and of course I want to do it.
Your band After Forever quit...
Bas: After Forever quit like already a year or a year and a half before. So I was sitting at home, just trying to find a gig, working on some stuff my own, just waiting for an opportunity and looking for opportunities. All together was just like magic actually. I don´t know... somehow everything fitted together like pieces of a puzzle. Everything just worked out, maybe this had should it be like that.
Later on in the tour you want play with maybe your big band Motörhead. Are you very excited to play with Lemmy again?
Doro: Very very excited. I know Lemmy since 1983. We did a couple of festivals together - the legendary Monster of Rock festival 1986 in Castle Donington and ever since our paths were crossing every couple of years… Then we worked together on the album Calling The Wild. It was a dream, working with Lemmy was really really great. He has the darkest English humour you could imagine. A really great guy and of course one of our biggest heroes.
Now I want to take you a little bit in the future. Are there already plans for a new album? And I want to ask Bas: what is your role in the album, are you also involved in writing?
Doro: Actually we just came back from Russia today and last week was Japan. So we really toured quiet busy this year and conquered new countries like Japan. It was long time overdo, was my first time there. We just found out today that we are doing a South America tour in April next year and some more festivals. Great festivals like Hellfest, it´s confirmed and some other festivals like the Rock Cruise in April, this Swedish boat tour. We will work on a new album next year and hopefully it will be done by the end of 2011, maybe beginning of 2012. Of course Bas is involved. We would start after the Motörhead tour is over. Actually we do our own day, so 30 of January is the last day and then we fully concentrate on something new, new songs, new ideas.
Do you know where you will recording the next album, Germany and America?
Doro: I like it all over, I don´t like to be in one place all the times. So definitely like always in a couple different studios, to get all the best vibrations. But we don´t know exactly where and how.
Bas, what do you play in Doro, are you leadguitar, sologuitar or do you say: when it depends, I do both - when the solo fits more for you, you will do it?
Bas: In the way I feel it and the way I like to see it. The only difference between Luca and me is the fact that he also has to play the keyboards. I´ve always enjoy it to play together with an other guitarplayer. In After Forever it was always like magic playing together with Sander. And I´ve got the same kind of feeling also with Luca. We worked really good from the beginning on, we got the same kind of vibes when we play, all works together and works out really nice, it fits. I think as persons we really get known very very well.
Doro: It always make me feel so good to see the two guys...
You joke around with Doro and the other guys, so we can feel there is some chemistry inside Doro. You have fun, you are accepted...
Bas: It´s a great band. I must say in the beginning maybe I was a bit anxious, maybe a little bit scared how the guys gonna react. Specially Nick and Johnny have been playing with Doro for like 20 years, Joe was playing for like 16 years. This guys must be such good friends and maybe they gonna hate my guts. Actually they welcomed me really warm from the beginning on and made me feel really secure and ease in my place, that was awesome. In the beginning of course you need some time to loose enough together. But now I feel together we are a real tight and nice group.
We can see that you really enjoy it...
Bas: For me and I think for all of us it´s so much fun to be on stage. And I think the vibes we have off stage we take with us on the stage. When we´re touring it´s not only the gigs. We´re spending hours and hours in busses, hotels, trains, air-planes, rehearsal rooms and of course you´re not only making music. You also communicate, have fun, make jokes and you take this jokes with you on the stage. So when Doro is doing her singing and we have a little moment we are making little jokes - the stuff we talk about and joke around all day or whatever...
Doro: My only mission and vision is to make the fans happy. I know Bas has so great energy and I love about him and I know the fans love that about him. I think that is one of the reasons it works so well. He is always positive and in a good mood, no matter how hard it get. He can always put on a killer-show. I really appreciate that about Bas. Big time, it works awesome, really excellent.
Then I have a personal question for you, Doro. When you do a show, you play for 2-3 hours. How do you keep yourself in shape, do you fitness?
Doro: Actually it´s like I´m doing all this shows and be constantly on tour. That keeps you in good shape. Sometimes when I´m in studio for a long time then I get ready for a tour by workout a lot, go running and stuff. But usually it´s a great workout on stage, to headbanging, jump around, make the people feel good, keep it all you´ve got, every muscle is told. After a tour it looks like a little bodybuilder. I love so much what I´m doing and to see the fans
The fans are your family...
Doro: I must say I can appreciate it now even more than in the 80thies. When we started, we just had fun, it was great. But every year, every day I love the fans more and it means more to me. Then I wanna be at my best at all times. Sometimes it´s hard when you are on the road so much. Usually in the winter time you catch a cold but the boys are always there. Yesterday we did a two hour show, over two hours, zero sleep. It was hardcore travelling in Russia by train and plane. Before that was Japan but you have always to keep a good attitude and then it works.
Even when your stuff is lost at the airport?
Bas: Even if the stuff of your guitar is broken... If you don´t have the energy anymore yourself and you think like: oh shit how I´m gonna doing this, where I gonna find the energy to do this. Then you get on the stage and the fans are there and they are enjoying it. They send so much energy. It´s impossible not to know this and not to suck it up. Use the energy, get back, make a cool show out of it and you know that they like it. They send more energy and you get more energy and you send some more energy into the crowd and it´s like this circle that goes on.
Doro: I even really really love it when it gets really though, really hard, when to overcome the obstacles. Something like yesterday - we thought: wow, we are playing this great new club. It was a new club in St. Petersburg, everybody was happy for us. The club wasn´t even finished, there was absolutely nothing, there was not even the ceiling, no electricity , nothing. We came there and everybody said: it´s a construction thing, we can´t even play. And then we thought, let´s try to make it work because the people came from Kasachstan, from thousands of kilometres. In the end it was one of the best shows, we even played over two hours and somehow we made it work. This little extra hard gigs I prefer much and it makes us stronger. What doesn´t kill you makes us stronger.
We both work with Dutch guys, do you like the Dutch mentality?
Doro: Very much, very much, I always did. Belgium and the Netherlands was the first metal markets for us. Germany - of course now it´s big. But in the beginning, in the 80ties, the Netherlands and Belgium was much much more advanced. We always played here in the Dynamo Club many many times. I always seen the best shows in the Netherlands. We had many people who supported us. We had our first fan-club in the Netherlands, in Haarlem. Because of this guys we got our first record deal with Mausoleum back then. It started here and I feel very connected and of course: I´m from Düsseldorf, so we always travel to the Netherlands.
Dutch people are good people... (all laugh)
Doro: Very good and a little bit more looser than the Germans, not so serious, a little bit more warm and open, more positive, more free. The Germans are a little bit stiff...
Not all... (all laugh again)
Doro: No, not all, not all... I try to get the best of each mentality but I definitely enjoy it. But it doesn´t matter where everybody comes from - the heart is important.
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