In a recent episode of the ‘That Metal Interview’ podcast, Doro Pesch recalled how she was scammed by the band’s former manager and how she successfully regained the rights to the name of her early band, Warlock, over a decade ago. This achievement came after she had previously lost a legal battle with the band’s former manager.
After explaining the band and she had a problem with getting their name back, she revealed how their former manager tried to scam the band:
“One time he said, ‘Hey, you guys know, we have to protect our name just in case that nobody else will call a band Warlock or whatever.’ And then he said, ‘Well, I go somewhere with all your passports.’ We gave him our passports and then he was supposed to put it under our name, like the guys and me and the band.”
Well, the band did not know what was coming. Pesch recalled getting a phone call from her American manager:
“And then I was in America and doing ‘Triumph And Agony’ album, which became really, really successful. And then suddenly my American manager, he said, ‘Doro, I have to talk to you. There’s something really serious.’ And I thought, ‘Oh no.'”
That was when they realized they had been scammed and they could no longer use the name Warlock:
“He said, ‘Well, your German manager, he left.’ And I said, ‘He left?’ And yeah, he just split. And there was probably something going on, but when you’re on tour and being a musician, you can’t like cancel the tour. And I thought, ‘Yeah, we will sort it out after the tour is over.’ And suddenly we got a letter from a lawyer and said, ‘Well, we cannot use the name Warlock anymore.’ And we thought, ‘Hey, it’s our name. Of course we’ll use the name. It’s my name, it’s our name.’ And then we tried to do it, and we were hanging posters and doing the album, but that didn’t happen.”
The Legal Dispute
At the end of 1988, Pesch found herself as the only original member of Warlock. During this time, the band’s former manager, Peter Zimmermann, filed a lawsuit claiming rights to the band’s name and merchandise, ultimately winning the legal battle.
Despite Pesch’s continued efforts to reclaim the name, she reluctantly agreed to the record label’s request to rename the band Doro to sustain her career. The initial release of ‘Force Majeure,’ recorded with Warlock’s final lineup, featured a sticker displaying both the band’s name and Doro. After years of legal disputes, Pesch successfully regained the rights to the name Warlock in 2011.
Pesch’s Love For Warlock
Though she is still actively touring under the name Doro, the rocker revealed earlier that she never wanted to have a solo career. Apparently, amid the legal battle, the band’s name was stolen, and she had to use another name. Giving a try to use Doro for only a single record, the rocker stuck to it for 20 years until the band eventually got the name back.
In addition, she was ‘devastated’ when the band had to break up because she loved it so much. In her words, they had to break up not because of the band but because of ‘all the bullsh*t around it,’ and the band had no more control.
You can watch the interview below.
