Biography
Micael Kiriakos Delaoglou, better known as Mikkey Dee (born October 31, 1963) is a half-Greek half-Swedish drummer/songwriter in the heavy metal band, Motörhead. The drummer has been known for his incredible speed and precision since his mid-80s stint with King Diamond.
Born in Gothenburg, Sweden, he began his musical career with local bands Nadir and Geisha. His favourite drummer is Ian Paice, other influences being Brian Downey, Neil Peart and Steven Smith. Dee also gives credit to Buddy Rich.
Having moved to Copenhagen to play with Geisha, in 1985, he joined King Diamond, who were looking for additional members to complete their line-up. After their release of the "Them" album (1988), Dee decided to leave the band, as he felt he was becoming more of a back-up musician, rather than an equal contributing songwriter — Diamond himself was becoming quite popular and the musicians backing him were taking a secondary role in the writing and decision making, often Diamond was the only person answering for the whole group in magazine interviews, etc. Dee continued to play as a session drummer for the recording sessions of the Conspiracy album (1989), after which he was replaced by Snowy Shaw .
He joined Don Dokken for his solo album, Up From The Ashes (1990) whilst also playing for World War Three.
Lemmy had been repeatedly asking him to join Motörhead since 1985, and in 1992, when asked once again, Dee accepted the offer, replacing Phil "Philthy Animal" Taylor. Commenting on his replacement of a longstanding member of the band, Dee said in a 2006 interview:
Phil Taylor was great when he was good… so I could never have filled that space. It's like when you get married and have kids, no one can take my father's place. Of course, some other guy could have taken his place, but he wouldn't have been my father; so I could never be Phil Taylor, so I had to introduce Mikkey Dee into Motörhead.
Dee's first gig with the band was on August 30, 1992 at Saratoga Performing Arts Center, but he did not have much input on that year's release, March or Die, as this had been recorded with Tommy Aldridge prior to Dee joining the group. Dee did play on the tracks 'Hellraiser', which was on the album, and 'Hell On Earth', which wasn't on the album, but was on the soundtrack album to the film Hellraiser III: Hell on Earth. Ideally the band would have had Dee re-record all the drum tracks but this was not possible, due to a combination of money and time factors.
It is important to note that even though Aldridge was a member of the band, Dee's photo appeared on the rear album sleeve. Aldridge generously said that Dee could take his credit for the playing but Dee politely declined, as the drummers' styles are very different. In an ironic reversal, Aldridge had earlier had his photo on an album on which he played nothing, namely Ozzy Osbourne's Diary of a Madman.
Their record label, Epic Records dropped the band after its release and the group continued recording with SPV GmbH. The band also started a label themselves, called "Motörhead", which was copyrighted and distributed through Warner-Chappell and ZYX, Dee's first album for this label being 1993's Bastards.
He also played drums on Helloween's 2003 album Rabbit Don't Come Easy, stepping in for Mark Cross.
In April 2006 King Diamond reunited with old friend Mikkey Dee at a sold-out gig at Kåren in Gothenburg, Sweden. In 2001 King referred to Dee as "one of the best of all time and that's something that has bothered us since he left."
Dee also played the drums for Martin "E-Type" Eriksson in the Swedish pre-qualification to the Eurovision song contest 2004, as well as on E-Type's 2003 Eurometal tour.
Following Lemmy's death in December 2015, Dee announced that Motörhead had disbanded.
Dee joined Thin Lizzy to play on their anniversary shows in January 2016. However, on 19 April, it was announced that he would not be participating. Subsequently, it was announced that Dee would be filling in for James Kottak on the Scorpions' twelve North American headlining dates, including a run of shows at the Hard Rock Hotel in Las Vegas dubbed "Scorpions blacked out in Las Vegas". Dee later joined the band permanently.
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