Doro - Return To The Wild Page 2
By Martin Popoff

Another collaboration took place with Savatage's Al Pitrelli, now with Megadeth. I Give My Blood (Dedication) is arguably the album's centerpiece, a stirring, inspirational rocker that was on the limited edition release of Doro's last album. Doro is particularly fond of this one, because of the way it inspired a woman from Utah to gather the courage to change her life and join the army, after which Doro called her up for some additional inspiring words.

"Oh yeah! There was a party at Popcom," explains Doro, on tracking down Pitrelli. "It's a big German music convention and Savatage was playing, and I've always been a big Savatage fan. And I had a long history with Al. We've always wanted to get together but it never worked out because he was always on tour with Alice Cooper or Savatage. In 1993, I wanted to get in touch with him and have him play on the Angels Never Die record, but he was on tour, and so a year ago we met here in Cologne, and we hit it off great and I told him I was always trying to contact him. So he said, how about now? And the next day he came to our studio and played on a song which won't be on the American version, only on the European one. And then I asked him to do some solo stuff on Dedication."

Then there's work with Slash, who showed up while mixing for Ain't Life Grand was taking place, had breakfast (cigarettes and vodka), and blew off three solos for 'Now Or Never'. Slash played on the song called Hope In The Darkest Hour, which I changed to Now Or Never. He blew my mind. I wanted to call the album Hope In The Darkest Hour, and actually it was Slash who pointed out that line and said he liked it very much. That was the working title for the record, but then the photo sessions and everything made more sense with the new title, Calling The Wild, very visual, with body painting, snakes, fire..."

Doro - Return To The Wild Page 3